Carolyn and her husband Jon, both Mennonites, had spent 10 years in Africa
working for Mennonite Central Committee, the relief, service and peace agency of
the Mennonite Church in North America. Carolyn Rudy had always known that the time to get going would come. But that didn't make it any easier. From early spring through most of the summer, I watched Carolyn cry.
She cried standing in the kitchen of her rented house on College Avenue in Harrisonburg, Virginia; she cried in the prayer-room at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, she cried on walks across the Virginia countryside she'd grown to love. As a friend, all I could do was hug and listen. Then in August, just before she left to spend six years in the Philippines, Carolyn's tears of grief finally turned to joy -- but not without some hard faith lessons along the way.
"We left Africa with the intention of going back," she told me one afternoon when we were at the seminary because the only thing left at her house was a few dozen boxes and the family sleeping bags on the floor. "These two years have been like a watering hole, an oasis, and now it's time to go."
Carolyn and her husband Jon, both Mennonites, had spent 10 years in Africa
working for Mennonite Central Committee, the relief, service and peace agency of
the Mennonite Church in North America.
After two stints in Africa, first in a refugee camp and other posts in
Somalia and then as joint "country director" in Swaziland, the Rudys had come
back to the United States to earn masters degrees, fully expecting to return to
Africa. What Carolyn hadn't expected, however, was to put down roots during her
two-year study break in the United States.
"Coming out of our six years in Swaziland, Jon and I felt really dry and drained spiritually. After doing a six year term in an administrative position where you're care-taking people and looking at vision for programs, there comes a time when you need soul-care," she continued.
"To come home and do that in context of the seminary where we're studying, enjoying the chapels and being intellectually and academically challenged, that nurturing has happened. The image I get is when you stick your straw down and you start to suck. After a bit that dryness is gone. That's what it's felt like. And now it's time to go," she repeated.
But Carolyn's peace didn't come easily. She first realized just how deep her new roots had gone when Jon accepted a job as MCC's "Asia Regional Peace Coordinator," a position connecting resources with a peace emphasis, that would take the family to Davao City on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines. That's when the crying started.
To her surprise, the idea of leaving, something Carolyn had known would happen, suddenly hurt. Friends, the church quilting circle, the Appalachian mountains, the beauty of four seasons and her fourth-hand piano seemed precious and dear. The Rudys' sons, Solly (10) and David (8) were equally distressed at the thought of the move. Carolyn even wondered if she and Jon had been truly called to the Philippines, if it really was time to get going, or if the family was simply being swept along in Jon's desire to work overseas.
Discernment, Carolyn discovered, always precedes departure. Along the way she also learned some important lessons about herself and the ways in which God calls.
"I was knocking myself on the head thinking 'how did you discern to go to the Philippines, did you spend time on your knees praying?' That's certainly the expected or the held up thing," Carolyn said.
"But for me it wasn't this dramatic stuff, and because it wasn't dramatic, I think it was easy for me to discount it or to question it. The other thing that led me to question is that, in our Mennonite culture, it is expected that when you're in service to the Lord, you should suffer. We always made jokes in Africa that our suffering index wasn't very high. So I've also had that in the back of my brain, although when I'd sit with it, God would just sort of blow on it -- like blowing away a dandelion seed.
"Coming here to seminary I've learned that my first job is to be faithful to the relationship with God. That's not a showy thing. It's going into your room and shutting the door and praying to your Father in heaven contrasted to the Pharisees' prayers. So even though my journey has felt very happen-stance, not thought out, that doesn't mean my call's not genuine."
In Africa, first considering seminary, Carolyn was prompted to study spiritual direction. It proved to be a perfect fit. Her half-time position in the Philippines includes providing spiritual direction for other MCC workers and serving as a resource person for worship services and retreats.
According to Carolyn, this new vocation is one more reason she knew it was time to get going -- that staying at the watering hole, no matter how much she might want to, would be a mistake.
"You'd get water-logged because you weren't using the nourishment you got for God's work. You would just be sitting there staying cool and comfortable instead of going into the heat -- literally," Carolyn said, referring to her new home on the equator.
"I had written a song before we left Africa and today I went through my journals and found it. The chorus was a prayer asking God to draw me nearer. 'Draw me near, draw me to You. I long to trust You every moment, not just when the way seems clear' -- that was written when we didn't have a clue what we were going to do -- 'draw me closer, breathe Your love into my ear.'
"When I was still in Africa, I said that the thing I most desire is to be where God wants me to be. And I've always believed that when I'm where God wants me to be, there's always peace. So if I don't go where the doors are opening, I will live a very frustrating life. It seems simple to say that's where I'll be the happiest because it's not that I'm always happy, but it's where I feel the most at peace.
Although at peace themselves, Jon and Carolyn's call also meant that their children had to get going as well. As parents, the couple strongly felt that it was their job to prepare Solly and David to do just that.
"Jon and I made the decision that as we learned something about the Philippines, we would tell them the part that was appropriate. But we did not bring them into the decision-making. A family therapist friend in Africa said that's too heavy for children and if the family hates living there, the kids have all this guilt. So we were the ones who made the decision," Carolyn said.
"The last few weeks we've been intentional about having evening prayer time
together. Before we pray, each of us reflects on where we have seen God working
today. That's helped us stay present to what's happening now even while we're
looking ahead. It will also help in the Philippines. If we can see God is
working in Harrisonburg, we can see it there. Some nights we really struggle
with where did we see God working today, but that's all right. We still see God
working."
That approach had other value as well. "One of the things I've really struggled with is how to help the children with their fear of volcanoes, earthquakes, typhoons and hostage taking," Carolyn said.
"All four of those happen in the Philippines so that's another reason to be aware of where and how God is working, and to realize that God's presence is not thwarted by these types of things, that God is always there," she continued.
"I think about that verse that says 'my peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives' because to go where God asks you to go, you have to face your fears. That's why that verse about the peace that passes understanding is also true.
"I now realize how much our culture is based on fear. Our culture teaches us to react to fear and in fear. But part of surrender is to admit those fears and then just surrender. That's how we get going. That's how we get closer to God."
Julie Gochenour, contributing editor for F@W Magazine, is an Episcopalian and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). She and her husband live on the family farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
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