Back in May, on way out to the South Jersey shore, my sister and I spent 2 days in D.C. The second day there, we took the Metro and a Bus to meet up with a friend for dinner. We started out in a town north of D.C and ended up pretty far west - past the Virginia border.. It took over an hour and a 1/2 to get from point A to point B (including a short backtrack from my minor glitch in reading the subway map - but that's neither here nor there). Had I been driving - in Oklahoma - from point A to point B it would have taken 30 mins max - but driving out here would have been pretty comparable time-wise, so we opted for public transportation. The thing that struck me as *funny* was how I viewed this concept of time. As I rode home alone on the metro (after sending my sister home on her first solo flight - she rocked it, btw) I found myself not minding the hour transit at all.. mainly because there were soooo many things to observe on the subway - people watching, advertisements in the train car, watching the scenery outside.. but if I had been back in Oklahoma, and had hit traffic and been stuck in the car for an hour trying to get somewhere that would have taken 20 mins, I'd'a been frustrated, annoyed and all around fed up with the situation.
I've always struggled with this concept of time - I have no time estimation.. can't guess how long I've been sitting here typing/editing this.. have no grasp of incidental time management.. To cope with this, I try to plan out time to the minute.. but since numbers are not my friends - and time is in numbers - we often don't get along. That being said, this concept of time spent on the train --> an hour of time I would generally call "wasted" became just another part of the "journey home".. I, in a sense, was able to take time out of the equation, and just use it as a part of the trip. I no longer saw it as a confining regulation..
In tying into my last Monday's Musings about beauty, a verse in Ecclesiastes comes to mind. Chapter 3 verse 11 starts off saying "[God] has made everything appropriate {or beautiful} in its time.." This correlation of "appropriate" and beautiful caught me as most translations say beautiful but the HCSB says appropriate.. which brought me to the reality of the place I find myself here in Wildwood..
Most of you know that my story pertaining to Interpreting and Summer Projects really started back in 2007. It is a messy, fumbling in the dark kind of story.. The kind that says "how can something beautiful ever come out of this?" The kind that resigns itself to accept "that was a great dream, but that's all it'll ever be.. a dream". So I left the dream in broken pieces on the ground and walked away.. But God has His ways.. and in 2010 God's timing became "appropriate" and brought the redemption of that dream to me. One Deaf student. One main Interpreter. One FULL summer of accessibility - of Hearing and Deaf students getting to know each other.. of building relationships and healing past wounds that had been left unattended.
Then in 2011 God continued to bring the restoration of that dream. Two Deaf individuals. Many short term team Interpreters. The First Deaf individual to be Student Staff. More Hearing and Deaf bridges being built. More opportunities to tear down the barriers of language and culture that separate my 2 worlds (Deaf and Hearing)..
Now - 2012 - I find myself beginning to see the reality of that dream becoming a flourishing training ground for Deaf college students. THREE Deaf individuals. The first Deaf "volunteer-staff" role. FOUR long term interpreters with a network of short term interpreting teams. A place that embraces the differences and promotes accessibility and ownership of responsibility regardless of background or culture or language..
I mentioned that last year(to my knowledge) the first Deaf "Student Staff" [Intern] was on a Summer Project. This year (again, to my knowledge) the First Deaf student has been assigned a "Student-Director Team" leadership role.. After the first 5 weeks of Project, the Staff leave and turn over the Project to the students to run everything. The easiest way to explain it would be: A team of 6 directors are chosen, and then a tier of bible study leaders are established, and then the rest of the students are assigned tasks under different activity headings after that..
and the male Deaf student - Dakota - was chosen to be one of those 6 director roles!!
The thing that struck me out of the last 5 years.. is that God's timing has been soooo appropriate.. As much as I was tempted to look at 2007 and call it wasted time - it was necessary to arrive at this place.. 2010, 2011 were all beneficial to pave the way for now in 2012 - and the ability to facilitate (the interpreting needs) of a qualified and equipped Deaf student to lead other Hearing students in this kind of setting couldn't have happened without the prior years..
Beautiful = Appropriate = Beauty full!
Here's to resting in *His* timing and allowing time to be the tool that leads to "appropriate" fulfillment of dreams and not the restriction of dreams..
Soli Deo Gloria
:D
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