Throughout my time being homeschooled, I always sprang into action when my family took an educational field trip out of town. I would minutely research museums and unique places for us to visit, discover where the best parking was located, map out how to travel from our hotel to the restaurant, and back again (when printing MapQuest directions was still necessary). These were tasks I performed with joy, feeling the most productive for my family. I have been staring in admiration at my trip across the Atlantic, feeling as though it is my greatest test thus far. It will be my first solo trip anywhere, my first time abroad, my first flight. I am continually running through my itinerary in my head, reciting it as if preparing to parachute through the clouds and stick the landing.

I will be embarking, just as autumn will begin its own descent upon the Appalachians. And I will be creating a vacancy there. This will be the first time I will not witness a Pennsylvania autumn during my 21 years of being alive, a notion about which I have been particularly sentimental. I notice the subliminal alterations in the landscape, the tips of maple leaves shifting in hue, the trees (whose name I can never quite place) along the road that are always premature to turn, the apples swelling then signs being posted for cider and picking. Because the semesters in England are shorter than American ones, this period of waiting has made me feel like I am lagging behind everyone and everything around me. I am a particularly late bloom this season, but my time of arrival will come.

I have been starting to feel the ache to be in an academic environment again. Seeing all of my fellow students returning to campuses and classes, while I am still working and waiting for my time in Oxford has made the sentiment grow. Observing the familiar aspects of Messiah College culture on social media has stirred up various forms of anxious within me. In the words of Bertrand Russel:

The unknown creates speculation as we try to fill in the gaps of knowledge with everything from educated guesses to fear-inspired myths about what lies beyond the edge of our understanding.

It has been the simple things such as first-year residence hall games, class listings for which I cannot sign up, roommates from which I had to part, that have been on my mind as I await the time to shift into my new direction this semester. Throughout my summer of waiting and stillness, I decided to quiet my restless soul by planning more details of my trip.

For the past few months, I worked as a server at a country club, putting away money each week for my expenses in England and gradually purchasing the remaining items I needed for my trip. It was thrilling to apply for my own passport, quite literally a ticket to my wildest dreams. I have always envisioned myself traveling around the world, with so many locations I wish to occupy. England has always been my essential venue. It seems so fitting that it will serve as the first place I will ever visit out of the country.

Lately God has placed me in a miraculous season of firsts, which has been thrilling, gratifying, and terrifying simultaneously. For a little context I need to backpedal a bit. Every year in May since 2013 I have spent a Sunday morning in prayer and celebration of who God is, where He has led me, and what He has revealed to me throughout the past year about myself and my place in the world. In the midst of this worship God will place a lesson or concept on my heart, in the form of one word, to unravel throughout the imminent year. So far my words for each year have been “breathe”, “fearless”, “joy”, “aim”, “light”, “hike”, and “genesis”.

This current season of firsts began last year, when my word was “hike”. My initial expectation of what the year would bring with such a word was that I would spend time in fantastic adventure. I was wrong. Instead I was met with challenge after challenge, questioning why I believe and live as I do. By the end of my year of hiking, I began to gain a better understanding of what I had been doing since the previous spring. God had essentially placed me on a hike through the wilderness, challenging me to rethink and reshape my life to resemble the goals that I have and the new passions sparked within me. I was challenged to allow myself the space to part with the well-trodden path, to disrupt and desert expectations placed upon me. As I was sorting through such challenges last year, God was building a foundation for the opportunities He is currently revealing.

This past spring, my new word became “genesis”. Instantly I saw last year’s word with full clarity. I thought “hike” would mean spectacular visions and favors. Yet I was forgetting what it was like to truly hike on an untrodden path. In order to reach the summit, to view the entire glorious image overlooking each challenge I had faced and what direction I will take next, I needed to struggle along the way. In order to have my genesis, I need to hike first. As I tiptoe along the shore of my study abroad experience I have begun to look back, in the same way, with gratitude at my summer of waiting and preparing, knowing that such a time was necessary in order to be ready for all that awaits me across the Atlantic.

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