this is the day - the last day!

Whelp, this is the day (pun intended). Not only is it the first update to my blog in about 4 months (oops), it’s also my very last day of missionary service! I thought it would be appropriate to post a little update on my life since it’s been so long. By-the-month highlights - here we go:

March

• March Madness at the Seminar Program: hosted 9 groups from Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas.
• Bucket showers for lent: experienced a deep appreciation for water as a resource and gift from God, and remembered my baptism pretty much every day as I poured water over my head.

April

• Visited home for a few days and hosted my family in DC for a few days.
• Finished physical therapy with great improvements in strength in mobility associated with my spinal arthritis.

May

• Married off one housemate and welcomed a new housemate into our home.
• Experienced US-2 End-Terms, the final formal gathering of our missionary class.
• Summer season at the Seminar Program begins with 4 seminar groups.

June

• Began co-leading a Bible study and fellowship small group with The District Church, studying the book of Ecclesiastes.
• Spoke at Western Pennsylvania Annual Conference on my call to mission, my work, and Generation Transformation programs.
• Facilitated a workshop and screened a film, both on human trafficking, at the Youth2015 conference in Orlando, FL.
• Hosted 5 more seminar groups.
• Had the first ever “Find-a-Dave-a-Job-a-Thon,” where my generous friends volunteered to gather at my house to look up jobs they thought I would be good at, and then explain to me why I should apply. Discernment is best done in community. I highly recommend this for anyone engaged in a job search.

July

• For the first time in 3 years, rode a century (100 mile bike ride) with my roommate, fulfilling one of my little known DC goals of biking to the beach and back.
• Celebrated Independence Day with my roommates and friends here in DC.
• Hosted my last seminar group.
• Had the honor of witnessing a good friend be baptized.

What’s next? My first item of business is a bike ride across Iowa called RAGBRAI (Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). This is simply a huge bike tour I’m doing for fun with 3 friends from DC and about 15,000 new friends I’ll meet there on the journey. The ride will take 7 days and cover 585 miles.

After that, I’ll continue the job search, focusing here in DC for the near term, but expanding beyond as needed. As always, if you know of something at the intersection of engineering, education, and ministry which provides ample time for working with people or hands-on work, please let me know!

I have so many more things I would like to share, but this is all for now. Blessings friends!

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So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God.
Ecclesiastes 2:24 NLT

Newsletter Issue 2: Catching Up

Finally, I got another newsletter to the presses! Take a peek, and I hope you enjoy. Please let me know if you'd like to get on my email or postal mailing lists to recieve a copy by either of those means next time around.

Stay blessed!

Prayer requests:

• Next Tuesday, I speak at the 60th annual Missions Conference at Lanes Mills UMC, my home church where I grew up! I'm excited and nervous, but hope to deliver something good!
• My Grandma Elsie (97 years young) recently needed to be placed in a nursing home. It's been a hard transition for her and for the rest of the family, so your prayers are welcomed.
• Thank God for spring warmth and sunshine!

a brief sketch of my journey so far

This article will appear at a later date in the General Board of Church and Society's Faith in Action Newsletter as part of a series of staff profiles. About a year ago was when I firmly decided it was time for a change in my situation, and now seems like an opportune time to revisit this here.

Update: a version of this article has been published in Faith in Action on July 11, 2014.

Photo credit: Wayne Rhodes

“You’re doing ok, but you still have a ways to go. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel yet.” This was not what I wanted to hear from my academic advisor as I neared the end of my sixth year in grad school. A Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at the time, I was growing weary of research and academia, and I longed for something more purposeful. Also growing at the time was my Christian faith, and throughout grad school, I struggled to connect faith, my aptitude for science and math, and an awareness of the brokenness in the world. While my advisor's comments really cut to the heart, it was his honest assessment of my progress and it was a talk that was long overdue. That conversation lead me to begin an earnest search for something new.

Through a series of connections, I landed on the US-2 Young Adult Missions Program of the UMC (now known as the Generation Transformation Global Mission Fellows Program). After an extremely thorough application and a couple interviews by online video chat, I was accepted into the program, trained, commissioned, and finally placed at the General Board of Church and Society with the UM Seminar Program.

It’s hard for me to imagine a more perfect placement. Since I spent ten years studying engineering, I only had some cursory exposure to social issues. Here, I am surrounded by experts in a variety of areas. Through the Seminar Program, we invite these and many other authorities to share their work with our groups, and I get to learn right alongside them. Teaching and tutoring have been longtime interests of mine, but haven’t felt the pull to formally study education. Being on staff at the UM Seminar Program gives me opportunities to hone my skills in facilitation, education, and curriculum design. Most importantly, this place gives me room to listen for and discern my calling with the support and guidance of a wonderful and wise staff.

Working with my Seminar Program groups is inspiring. Some of my seminar groups are full of knowledge. My first group, a youth group Morrow Memorial UMC in New Jersey, could name all eight Millennium Development Goals while most people have never even heard of them.  Some groups come with a wealth of experience. Groups of Habitat for Humanity AmeriCorps Volunteers brought frontline accounts of affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization. All groups, at least so far in my brief tenure here, have come with cups, ready to be filled with more knowledge and more experience, and be sent into the world. They are so much more than just vessels to be filled, though. These groups also come with a sense of adventure, ready to be challenged both intellectually and emotionally, truly engaging in topics that many have the choice and privilege to ignore.

The work challenges me to understand the current state of the world and how we move to the way God intends for us to live. How do we balance personal choice and free agency with social responsibility and the common good? How can providing immediate aid (mercy) and addressing root causes of societal problems (justice) work synergistically instead of one or the other having preference? What is the government’s role in these? What is the church’s role in these? What is my role in these? Many tough questions, no easy answers. Fortunately, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.

After years of feeling vocationally disjointed, I’m now gifted to be abiding in a place of growth, purpose, and challenge. Where will God lead me next? Many people ask me if I will return to school and finish my Ph.D. At the moment, I don’t feel called to do so. I have a few other ideas, but I also have time to discern and decide.