Happroumentalgic

Graduation. Oi.
Talk about Jessica as an emotional wreck.
Combine the arrival of three family members (whom I have not seen for 294 days); the departure of a couple dozen freshmen (whom I will likely not see again this side of heaven); some of the most difficult piano pieces I've ever attempted to learn (as I am a pianist for the weekend's programs); and the thought that the entire senior class will march into the church, grab faux black leather bound folders, and march out of my life forever... yep. Jessica Stotz = emotional basket case.

Pre-Update #5

To All, (I figure this greeting is all-encompassing)

Here's a riddle: How could a long day of rain and dreariness and darkness still end with a campus covered with happy, giggly (yes, college students giggle) people?

Answer: Spring Break begins today. Oh happy day.

The end.

Not really. Here's the part of the children's story where I share the moral and it's easy to drift off into I-wonder-what-color-socks-she's-wearing? land. You are by far the most pre-updated group of people in life; so many emails about nothing in particular happening...thankfully you now have the "unsubscribe" option.

The update: It's been 5 weeks and 2 days since I received General Conference approval of my Adventist Volunteers application, with call interests prioritized (#1 dean in Norway, #2 1st/2nd grade teacher in Micronesia, #3 H.S. science teacher in Micronesia). "Please allow at
least 2 weeks for processing." In Jessica's quantitative and literal mind, 2 weeks and 1 day is at least two weeks. 3 weeks is DEFINITELY at least two weeks. Get to 5? Oofta. Doubt begins to enter Jess' mind: Are these choices correct? Is Norway for me? I think I'm holding this life map upside-down . . .

So I talked with a friend/former SM/wise adviser who has a myriad of helpful connections, and she shared all sorts of her own experiences that sounded freakishly like my own. AND she has a friend who had been an SM at the same school my application listed. Yes! First-hand stories at my fingertips.

That was Wednesday. It's Thursday. Wednesday was warm and sunny. Thursday's kinda rainy and gross.

Norway (not the whole country, just the missions coordinators or whomever they are over there . . . I dub them "Norway") has filled all of their position postings with staff. Yep. No need for student missionaries this time! So I'm back to looking for a place to need me. I know that there are lots of them (choices! Agh!); I've simply bumped up my #2 & #3 to #1 & #2. Now it's just a matter of waiting. Which I should be getting pretty good at. Waiting to know where this road's taking me; waiting to see the future.

God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road. (Isak Dinesen)

The future is the one thing that I can truly say that I fear. It doesn't simply scare me, but downright freaks me out; I've had anxiety and cold sweats upon the thought of the future on more than one occasion. Planning and plotting and knowing what my course in the days to come has been my way of protecting myself from the future, to somehow trick it into becoming the present. I often see how things will play out in my head, like a movie. I look down from my unbelievably high bunk and envision what would happen if I did happen
to take a tumble, down to the detail of what type of crutches I'd get. I run through scenarios, replaying them with different responses and reactions until I get it just right, like flipping through a Choose Your Own Story book. The future is like the hairy, smelly beast that
lurks in the closet – you're fine with it once your parents tell you it's gone, but there comes a time when you have to open the door yourself, and it's scary. Especially when you know said beast has a shaggy mane and halitosis.

So I'm keeping that door open. The beast and I are coming to terms; it's agreed to comb and floss, and I've agreed to treat it like it's there, to stop ignoring it.

Riddle: How can a hairy, smelly beast help you grow?
Answer: I'm working on a case study. Allow at least two weeks for processing.

SM Application Update!

Hello my people! (can I call you my people? Done.)

I thank you all SO much for your prayers and thoughts last week as I was wrestling with decisions! I feel the responsibility to give you all an quick update in exchange for your help. Thanks for your encouraging responses to my last email! I took a lot of your advice, evaluating each call based on pros and cons, choosing a challenge, and, of course, praying a lot.

Really, I don't know anything. I won't know anything for a while. No worries though, because that's how it works. 

I submitted my application with my top dozen choices (prioritized, of course: #1 high school dean in Norway; #2 first/second grade teacher in Kosrae, Micronesia; #3 high school science teacher in Majuro, Marshall Islands). On Monday, I received word that my application was approved!!! ...by the North American Division. Next it will go to the General Conference to be voted upon, then to another division, then to some committee, then to another committee...really, I don't get it. I just know there's lots of voting and I get to wait for a month or so. But it's all out of my hands now (was it ever really in my hands? :D ); relief.

Anywho, that's the latest. 

From the ebullient (thank you GRE prep vocab) Jess. :D

Decisions, Decisions...

Hello hello!

After a long hiatus from mass emailing, you have received yet another digitized warm fuzzy. I just figured I'd offer a quick update on student missions.

• My missions call fell through last year (in August)
• I came back to Andrews as a junior pre-PT major
• I finished one semester (and I liked it)
• I re-completed my Adventist Volunteers application
• I finished all of my paperwork (which is a major hurdle in and of itself)

Here's what I haven't done: chosen a call. With the completion of my stack of forms and signatures, it's time to submit my application – with preferred call location attached. A tentative deadline for this choice has been set for Wednesday; that's tomorrow. After three call choices fell through last year, I've played it safe and chosen nearly a dozen calls, but now have to prioritize them.

I am unabashedly soliciting your thoughts and prayers as I try to make a decision that I feel unworthy to make. Thanks. :)

Update #3

FINALLY, some communication from Jessica. Time flies when you're insanely busy (now at the International Camporee in Oshkosh). I'll back up a bit just because I don't know where I stopped...

Psalm 51:17, 10. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart…create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

Campmeeting 2009, teen tent: Are you ready for the truth? I thought I was. 

Halfway through the week, one of the pastors in the teen tent shared a message about being broken before God. I’d heard the phrase, but not really put too much thought into it. He stressed that in order to be healed and repaired by God, we must ask and allow Him to “break” us, to tear away the things that come between us. I felt especially compelled to pray for that breaking, and expected at most a bit of uncomfortable soul-searching and newfound sins to repent.

The very next morning, I received a phone message from the student missions chaplain at Andrews University. “Urgent: missions” the tiny yellow post-it declared. I borrowed a friend’s phone and dialed AU up. “Hey Jessica!” the chaplain said amiably. “I’m glad you returned my call so quickly.” Small talk continued for a few moments…the resounding crack that followed seemed to echo endlessly inside my head. “The call for Tanzania still hasn’t shown up. It’s time to move on.” Mmhmm, I answer, fearing words will dislodge the sob I was choking down. “Is it alright if I send your application to the islands?” Sure, I guess. Wherever God leads. But wasn’t He leading when I chose to apply for Tanzania?

I was broken. Joints and pieces seemed to be falling out of socket left and right. Random loose nuts & bolts clattered along behind me. I couldn’t think normally. Why did I ask You to break me? This hurts! I went through the day mechanically, worried that my smiling façade would crack too.

Four weeks later, I was still healing. I’ve realized that I needed God to break me so that I could see how much I needed His help; that though I plan my life out to a T, I can’t make it without God. I’ve been covering up all my weak spots with duct tape, claiming that what I can’t see can’t hurt me. God peeled off the duct tape, sanded my weak spots down, and put in some heavy duty God-glue. Every time I see the scars, I am reminded that this journey is not mine to govern. My sacrifice is “a broken spirit” and a sorry heart. His return on my offering is a new heart, one that is better and stronger than before.

Now what? No Kosrae, no Tanzania? I don’t know. I’ve never known. After knowing the path ahead for my life up to this point, I’m not feeling too comfortable. Check on Tanzania; are they out of the running, too? No? Oh. Ok, you’ll let me sign on. Just get your end of the bargain complete, and we’re set to go.

Isaiah 30:21. “You will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way. Walk in it.’”

You won’t necessarily see a hand in front of you guiding you, nor see “the light”, nor even hear a voice in front of you. If I start down the wrong path I’ll know it, but I still might stand at the crossroads for a while.

Tick, tick. Time’s running out. When is it time to call it quits on Tanzania? Camp’s ending and school’s beginning…do I postpone SMing until 2010-2011? Do I head back to school? Do I hold out for Tanzania? What is your will, God???

I Thessalonians 5:16-18. This is God’s will for me in Christ Jesus: Be joyful! Keep praying! And always give thanks.

Six weeks later: I receive another phone call. I’ve been emailing and calling all through the week, and the whole camp staff has been praying daily for my situation. I’m heading out to the “Indian Village” for our evening program when I receive a radio message to come to the office. Another urgent phone message…urgent is beginning to develop some negative connotations. I dial up the Global Vessels director, my fingers mechanically dialing the number I’ve dialed so many times before. Oh, hi, Jessica. You see, we have two positions here, and two have been filled. Not enough money for a third…Oh. Ok.

Subconsciously I’ve been preparing for this for many weeks, but it still hits like a sack of bricks. Time to change directions. Time to begin again. Time to postpone a dream. I’ve been broken again. Just when I think I’ve healed myself, I am reminded that I am not the Great Healer. God helped me to realize that in order for His love and joy and mercy to leak out of me, I have to be broken. I can’t do the world any good if I bottle God up and place Him on the shelf. I need to leak; it will require me to return to God daily to fill up again. The cost per gallon of this fuel is a credit: the more I use, the more I gain.

And that was  one week ago tonight. Time flies when you’re busy…now I’m at the International Pathfinder Camporee in Oshkosh, and am the freest I’ve been in months. I’m still waiting to deal completely with the current let-down of a change in plans, but thankful for the long-awaited answer. Getting ready for Andrews is the next item on my plate (which seems to have increased in size as the summer progressed). Current plans are to go to school for this year and apply to TZ again next year. Please continue to pray for me as I re-evaluate the direction of my life in school as well.

Thank you all so very much for all of your prayers and thoughts and support. This has been one of the most trying summers of my life, and you have helped me through it. “I thank my God every time I remember you..."

Update #1

Hello friends, family, pets, and other:

It's been awhile . . . so sorry. My original plan was to email all of you when I heard back from the Adventist Volunteers organization regarding my application. Plan B arose when I didn't hear anything, but then finals and papers came up, so Plan C came around now that I've finished 3 of my 5 finals and am giving myself a little break. And no, I still haven't heard anything about my mission application, but no, I'm not worried, because many of the other prospective student missionaries haven't heard any word either.

This is precisely why I had planned to write you when I heard something, because hearing about someone not hearing something is really quite boring. But not hearing from someone simply because they have not heard anything is perhaps more vexing, so here you are, bored.

Ah, I suppose there is some news to be dug up. Many of you received "campaign" letters in March, and have been oh so generous! The balance today comes up to $1,250; praise God! Thank-you thank-you thank-you...

If I missed your address and you've felt impressed to support my mission with a monetary gift, you can go to this website: http://www.andrews.edu/life/spiritual/missions/support/donate_funds/index.html .

Because it is the end of the school year, everyone is bidding farewell to one another, their rooms, their books, and their classes (some goodbyes are more jubilant than others). Amid these farewells was a weekend of SM send-off ceremonies, and with those programs came my first testimony (at least the first one that was actually dubbed a testimony). Whew. I dislike speaking in front of people, so this wasn't the most comfortable experience. I realize that many of you have not heard the story I told that Friday night, so here's a snippet (or perhaps the whole thing)...

I've always lived my life according to a plan. For me, spontaneity is planning a trip to Chicago (2 hours away) three days from now. When my plan gets messed up, I get grouchy. Being a student missionary has always been a part of my plan for life. Because I am a Pre-Physical Therapy major, school plans for me are three years of undergrad, three years of graduate school. The typical plan for a PT student/SM is to take the year between the three+three off. Alright, plan in place. 

Last semester, I got to thinking: perhaps taking a year off of school just to come back and plunge into graduate classes isn't the smartest idea. I discuss it with my mom and sister, and they helped me realize that graduate studies would work out if they had to work out. Cool. Now I'm back to the plan. Something must still be working on me, though, because I register for the Preparation for Missions class; you know, just in case. Got to plan for the unexpected, right? So I enrolled in the Passport to Missions class. 

Then Tuesday night happened. I was in said Passport to Missions class and couldn't focus at all on what was going on. I just kept going over and over in my head why I chose to wait, and the reasons seemed less and less important and more and more like me just backing away because I hadn't gotten my act together yet. I pretty much figured that if I was still wrestling with it, I probably hadn't made the decision for the right reasons, and that if doors were open, I couldn't know that until I tried to walk through them. So I went to the missions chaplain's office yesterday afternoon and, after talking with her, went to the Adventist Volunteers website and began filling out the LENGTHY application and searching through a bunch of calls and filling out confusing paperwork from AU.

Late-February put a time crunch on choosing a call. All I knew was that I didn't want to be a teacher – in my experience of helping peers with their homework, I unfailingly send them off more confused than they came. I had it narrowed down to a) orphanage worker in Tanzania, b) high school science teacher in Egypt, c) 1st-4th grade teacher in the Marshall Islands. The orphanage call was still not showing up, so I decided to email the missions chaplain and find out why. She emailed me back and told me to submit my app with that slot blank and they'd call the institution.

Ugh. Now i had to choose, quick hurry fast! I decided to enlist the help of an acquaintance currently volunteering at the orphanage I'm applying to, and send her an email, hoping against hope that she'd have access early enough to send me a reply (since all of our paperwork was due the coming Thursday). That was Sunday night. Monday morning, 6:30 am: I find out that she has added me as a friend on Facebook, just randomly, out of the blue (talk about the benefits of a social networking site)! I sent her a message, asking her to check her AU email and she emailed me back by 10 am with all of the pros and cons, responsibilities, etc. I was getting pretty excited.
Then I realized that I hadn't asked her what the call dates were (with respect to my obligations at summer camp, especially), so I sent another email. At about 3 that afternoon, I was studying, and felt impressed to think and pray extra hard about which to choose, teaching or orphanage(ing?). I decided that if the dates of Tanzania worked with camp, I'd see it as a sign. I checked my email not even 5 minutes later, and...already a response! Even better news inside: she noted that they're very aware of the difficulty for students to spend the summer there, and very flexible with dates. She actually started August 22 and finishes June 1, framing typical summer camp dates. How perfect!  

Now it's nearly May, and my application to Tanzania is still being processed. All in all, I feel like i've just run down a hallway, with doors flung open the whole way down; kind of a runner's high + exhaustion. I thank you all for your continued support and prayers throughout the past few months. Expect to hear from me again! Sometime... :D