Tag Archives: internship

Moving on…

12 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in Church, Family, Seminary, Theology

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Sunday will mark the end of my internship at the church I’ve been assigned for the last year.  I will have completed four years of seminary (I started part time, so as far as the seminary is concerned I’ve completed three years).  I have one year of classes.  Actually I have two semesters.  I graduate on May 19, 2017.  That’s not too far away.  We’re in countdown mode here in the Best household.

The end of the internship means that we move.  We move back to our home.  We’ve been packing all week in preparation.  We have mixed emotions.  We’re excited to get back to our home – the home we left just over two years ago.  We are excited to be in the daily lives of family and friends that we left two years ago.

We’re also a little anxious about it – we left two years ago.  A great deal has changed in that time.  We’ve changed.  They’ve changed.  The world has changed.  We don’t know what to expect.  We do know that it won’t be just like it was when we left.  It can’t.  It never is.

We’re also a bit sad.  We’ve experienced this before.  We felt the same way when we left Finland last year.  We are sad to leave a place that we’ve called home for a year.  We’re sad to leave the friends we have made along the way this year. We’re sad to make the kids move yet again and have to establish and re-establish new friendships all over again.

But we knew this was deal when we signed up.

We’re also feeling a bit of something else.  We feel the closeness to the end of this journey of seminary.  By March we’ll know what region and synod we’re being assigned to.  Will it be our home synod?  Will it be the synod we’ve been in for the last year?  Will it be somewhere else that we have never thought of?  We don’t know.  The whole journey of seminary is full of great big giant question marks.  Going through this process is not for everyone.  You get comfortable with not being in control, with only knowing what the next year holds.  I think it’s actually a grace that seminarians experience.  When we don’t know, we turn to the one who does – God.  We are given faith to trust that God has our best interest in mind and will send us where we need to be at any given time.  It’s a leap of faith.  It’s also scary.  Yet here we are, following a path where I can’t see very far down the road.

Moving on is not easy.  It can wear you down.

Moving on is not easy.  But there are benefits.  Benefits like figuring out that we have a lot of stuff that we can get rid of.  For the last two years we have had to live in small spaces.  Which means you make decisions about what is truly important to keep.  We’ve found that the prints and pictures that we have are some of the most valuable things we possess – they remind us of our times in the locations we have been.  They remind us of the people we have gotten to know.  They remind us of how small the world is.  They remind us to pray for the people in these locations.

Moving on is not easy.  But it’s what we are called to do this weekend.

We’ll start unpacking on Sunday, arranging our house.  We’ll familiarize ourselves with our house.  We’ll re-establish long time relationships in person.  We’ll settle in to a routine in a short while.  There will be a new normal for us.  Then again, some of the old normal will stay with us – the normal of recognizing that we aren’t ultimately in control.  And we’ll take comfort in the trust that we have, in the faith we have been given.

Moving on is not easy.  But it’s what makes up life.  There’s a popular saying that the purpose of life is to be happy.  I don’t agree.  Think that’s a bunch of BS.  The purpose of life is to experience as much as possible and to be who we are called to be.  If all we pursue if happiness, then we miss out on so much of what life has to offer.  We should experience the “bad” things too.  We should experience sadness, anger, sorrow, pain, and more.  Not because they are enjoyable, but because they remind us of what and who are truly important in life.  And yes, we should experience the “good” things of life too.  They make life enjoyable.

Moving on is not easy.  But it is an important part of life.  And I wouldn’t have it any of way.

To the good people of Duncansville, Hollidaysburg, and Altoona, Pennsylvania I say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I do not say goodbye, because goodbye means we’ll never meet again – and we can’t be certain about that.  We don’t know what the future holds.  Thank you for allowing our family to be a part of your lives – through the good, the bad, and the ugly.  You’ve blessed us in ways you can’t imagine.  We’ll take that with us as we continue our journey.  We hope you’ll take the blessings we have given you in your journey.  Thank you, until we meet again.

We’re leaving – What’s Going Through My Mind

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in Blog, Family, Finland, Seminary, Travel

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Next week we leave Finland – the place we have come to call home for the last 11 months.  We came here to continue my studies, thanks to an exchange program between Gettysburg Seminary and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. I was also very interested in learning more about the church here – especially about the decline of the membership and what’s being done about it.  We came to travel and see parts of Europe.  We came to live in a different culture with a different language.

We did all of these things and so much more.  And, as if often the case, things turned out differently than our expectations – but on the whole, far better than we could have ever imagined.  For one thing, we fell in love with Finland.  There’s just so much to love about Finland, it’s hard to even make a list and frankly, making a list doesn’t do the country justice.

We grew closer as a family.  This came out of necessity as we often had to rely on each other for so many things.

Now we are just about at the end of our time here in Finland – less than a week remains.  We have mixed emotions.  We are sad to leave the friends we have made.  I can’t lie and tell you I was excited to buy the return tickets to the US.  It was hard to do.  But…

But new adventures await us – which is exciting.  It’s my internship year – which means I’ve been assigned to a congregation to learn the practical side of being a pastor.

We know that if we can pack up our house, put it in storage, move to a different continent and live there for 11 months, we can do anything.  Plus, we’ve learned something else about ourselves – we look for the good in everything we do.  We already know that we’re going to love where we are headed next – not because we have been there, or because of anything we’ve seen, but rather because, that’s just who we are.  It certainly helps that the people we’ll be working with are excited to have us. And that God is calling us there – which means God’s got our back.  And as much as I love to read, I also love to do something practical and internship is an excellent pastoral shaping experience.

Next week we head to Iceland for a few days of rest and adventure on our journey back to the US, then we arrive in the US on the 4th of July.  (I’m expecting fireworks for our return, Not) Next week I take a break from blogging as we make this transition.  It’s good to take a break every now and then.

I’m not sure what to expect when we go back to the US.  How has the country changed while we’ve been gone?  I’ve read headlines and news stories, but they don’t give the full sense of it.  I can’t say I’m super excited to go to a country that appears to be ripping itself apart with racial tension.  At least that the impression I get from what I read.  But I also know that this isn’t the whole story either.

How have we changed while we’ve been gone?  I won’t know until we reunite with friends who comment on something here and there that they notice about us.  I do know that we have changed.  It’s impossible not to.  A friend of ours who has lived overseas told me before we left that you develop a third culture when you live abroad. You have your first culture – the country you come from.  You gain a second culture – the country you go to.  And you develop a third culture – something of a mix of cultures that is purely unique because you are unique and you have changed.

How do we answer the question – “So how was your time over there?” I don’t have a good answer for this.  Are people really looking for an answer or a nice one-line sentence?  How do you condense the last 11 months into one phrase?  I can’t and I doubt anyone wants to sit for hours on end to listen to everything we’ve learned and experienced. I think the best answer I have is “It was life changing.” It’s the most honest answer I can think of.

The next month and a half will feel like a hurricane.  And the time will go by fast, I’m sure.  We’re taking it one day at a time.  That’s the only way we can right now.  It would be too overwhelming if I had to think through all the things that have to be done.  Today we are visiting Helsinki – maybe for the last time.  We’ll enjoy it and inside we’ll probably shed a tear.  It’s kind of like mourning a loss.  But we also know that the future is wide open.  God calls us to some amazing adventures in life.  I don’t know what the future holds, only God does.  I’ll keep my trust in God – that always turns out to be the best.

One more post tomorrow, then a week off.  Then we’ll see how the jet lag is affecting me.  I’ll start posting again in July.  God Bless.

Goals for 2015

01 Thursday Jan 2015

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As promised, here are my goals for 2015 – some specific for the blog and some more general to my life.

Before I list them, let me say why I make goals – because it works for me.  I think it’s important to find a way for each of us to achieve what we are setting out to achieve.  For some people goals work and for other, well, they don’t.  If goals seem too intimidating, then use some other method that works for you.  If you aren’t sure, there are two ways to deal with this – 1. try something and see how it goes. 2. look back at what worked for you before and do it again.

Without any further ado – my goals for 2015

1. Get a great internship site placement – This is really an important career/calling goal for 2015.  All seminarians at LTSG have to go on internship in order to graduate.  And if a person is going to go on internship, it might as well be a great location.  We’re pretty flexible with this as a family when it comes to location – that happens when you pack up and leave the country for a year.  But I want the site to be a great site where I can learn, try things, and gain some pastoral life experience.

2. Run in three half-marathons – I’m not sure if this will happen, but it will stretch me.  I know of at least one half-marathon in May here in Helsinki.  Part of this goal will be accomplished in knowing where our internship site will be so I can determine what half-marathons will be nearby.

3. Travel to Stockholm, Sweden, the Laplands and Germany.  Stockholm and the Laplands are nearby and not too expensive to get to.  Germany is our goal for June, but it will depend on how much money we have left at that point.  And that depends on living costs, food, transportation, etc.  So Germany is our stretch goal here.

4. Write a book about what I have learned about the church in Finland and how it relates to mission redevelopment in the US.  I’ve learned a ton and have lots of notes so far with a great deal more to go.  I’ve got to do something with all of these notes and things I’ve learned.  The goal may change based on what advice I get about this, but the idea is to do something with what I have learned.

5. Do 20 speaking engagements concerning our trip to Finland and what I learned about the church here and how it applies to mission redevelopment.  I have a few reasons for this – 1. it would be fun – yes, some people would rather die than speak in public, but I love public speaking.  2. The more you talk about something/read something/think about something/write about something – the deeper you delve into it and gain a different understanding about it.  I also expect to receive a lot of questions for me to consider and ponder, which will help me delve in even further and understand what other people are thinking and care about.  I know I’ll be writing plenty on this, but speaking is no guarantee, so this is a stretch goal.

There’s the list for 2015.  There’s one more thing about this list – it’s not set in stone.  I see it more as a guide, than something concrete that has to happen.  The goal list gives me a sense of direction.  But by not being attached to it, I am open to other possibilities.

Do you have goals for 2015 that you want to share?  I’d love to hear what you have – you might inspire me or others.