It is a very strange thing to read my personal reflections about a chapter that feels like another lifetime.
I haven't quite finished reading them yet but I'm noticing some fascinating things:
- How right from the start I was saying I had a feeling I wouldn't be in Nigeria for the rest of my working life. (In those days "career missionaries" set off with no sense of changing jobs before retirement - though of course that often did happen.)
- How I was privately saying to my friend that I would love to teach adults in a theological setting one day. (I was trained as a primary school teacher and did not have a theological degree at the time.)
- How even in Nigeria when I'd never even heard of "spiritual direction" I was commenting on how I was often sought out for "deep conversations". (For the last 20+ years spiritual direction has been a major part of my vocation.)
- How deeply committed I was to my own spiritual growth - and how even then I was "pushing the boundaries" beyond what might be considered the conservative view I was brought up in. (I'm still constantly exploring even deeper and broader dimensions of the same God revealed in Christ!)
In my journal as I have noted these things I've said: "So many 'seeds' that have grown into important aspects of my life in the ensuing years." Some Blog readers will know that I came back at the end of 1978, did four years theological study to gain my MTh and then taught at the Bible College of New Zealand until 1999. During that time I also trained as a spiritual director and since 2000 have made that my main vocation. When I wrote those letters I could never have imagined how those inner thoughts and desires would come to pass.
