Boat.

“I was just thinking about the boat.

I wouldn’t want anyone else being on the boat, other than you.

You make the journey so good.”

– Cliff

 

It became crystal clear, after Mr. Ho put it in words.

Mr. Ho is the inspiring teacher whom I dedicated my first book, Kitesong, to. Cliff and I had him over for dinner at our place over the weekend and we were talking about our future. We always saw ourselves in the mission field in the future, but closer to today, we often talked about taking a year off to study overseas- you, in Theology to become a pastor, and me, in public health or psychology or social work or something utterly random.

“Where?” asked Mr. Ho.

“It doesn’t matter,” we said in unison.

After all, I had passed up an offer in Johns Hopkins to do a Masters in Public Health this year; after all, your home was in Canada and going there would be lovely; after all, two of the best schools on my mind were in the States or London. It didn’t matter. In some vague sense, it didn’t matter where we were going, as long as we both were convinced it was where God wanted us to be, doing what He wanted us to do. I could be studying in the school of my choice, you could be serving another missions role; you could be studying in the university of your choice, and I could be supporting you doing a totally different course, or even the same one as you. Till now, the skies are our limit and the world, our potential home. We could even give everything up altogether for a one-year term to do humanitarian and mission work in long-forgotten places.

What matters to us, is that we stay together. That we help each other fulfill each other’s call in God to the highest degree, that is our dream and heartfelt hope for each other. Everything else- the glamour of the university degree, or the so-called much sought-after “overseas experience” really didn’t matter much more. “

So you’re open to wherever God takes you?”

“Yup. Right now, we just don’t know where. In fact, some people have even asked us, why don’t we stay here? We don’t know our destination.”

“But you guys are okay if things change right? If you end up someplace else that you never expected but where God leads you to, you’re open to that?”

We look at each other and you hold my hand. “Yup!”

“But your decision is to get on the boat, even if you don’t know where it takes you. Because if you had not taken that first step to make an initial decision to a destination, God can’t even use that to direct you elsewhere. So you guys need to get on the boat first, right?”

 

Suddenly, all at once, it became crystal clear to me, to us, that really, it didn’t matter where we thought we were going or if we knew where we were going anyway. What mattered was our willingness and decision to first get on the boat, and go on a crazy adventure together. Right there, it hit me, that not knowing where we might end up was no excuse for inertia. Even a simple decision to get on a boat, in the face of the unknown and a no-destination plan was a great step forward. And then I realized, that all this while I had been silently suffering the guilt and condemnation of not knowing where we would end up. In today’s context, every decision needs to be a meticulously measured and carefully meted one. There is no room for frivolous risk-taking or adventures. But when the boat was mentioned, I then realized, there was no shame in admitting, that I wanted to go on the boat, because I just wanted to on a boat. Go on a boating adventure with you.

*movie spoiler alert

Watching “The Hobbit” was an incredible experience for me. On so many levels, I identified with little Bilbo Baggins. You know, he had a choice as to whether to stay in the comforts of his own four-walled hole he affectionately called Home, or to risk losing everything, including his life, to pursue a cause bigger than himself, to go on an adventure which he did not know of. He chose the latter, even in the face of being scorned, doubted and humiliated, time and again, by people he owed nothing to. What made him choose the unknown versus his present state was undoubtedly a mystery, save for the fact that what made him bolt out the door chasing the dwarf mission pack was what his every fibre was made of- a sense of adventure.

So we have decided, to get on the boat. We were made for adventure. After all, we have each other.

 

“Home is now behind you. The world is ahead.”

– Gandalf, in “The Hobbit”, by Tolkien.

 

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went,

even though he did not know where he was going.

By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country;

he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city with foundations,

whose architect and builder is God.”

-Hebrews 11:8-10