Tahira: When In ROMA...

Questa farfalla è pronta a volare! Many of you may know by now, but the past year has been filled with transition and transcendence. A pruning year, I have said goodbye to jobs with communities of people dear to my heart. I’ve bid farewell to friends and family who I’ve lost. I’ve been a tuned to a new normal, adjusting to renewed life within me. And even still, the call remains. Let me tell you a story...Last year this time, I started school as usual. 7th year at this school, 4th year as performing arts coordinator... I told myself, wow, I think I’m getting the hang of this! Feeling as if in fact, this seventh year could be my -completion- But whoa there! I can’t just be done that is too much to fathom! I can see there are plenty of areas that still need me... maybe I’ll just step down from department chair...Without completing that very sentence, I heard “Did I not say?”[chills... in California September]Still unsure why I’d leave something I finally felt comfortable in, I shuttered at the familiarity of said feeling... As my mentor would say, I am a “seed planter...” and this would not be the first time I was on the ground floor of something, cultivating the soil, doing the dirty work to create the sprouts of life. How could I be surprised by the inward charge to move to a new barren land. This consternation continued into the Fall, as I reached a point of daily ease and nightly dis-ease about what this next stage could be. I knew I’d been called overseas, but where this time, what land is being readied for me?October almost complete, I looked forward to the intimacy of my midweek... there were only a few of us then. Them and I shared a meal and challenged one another into the places God has for us to step into, we didn’t spare the hard stuff. My heart was conflicted... God why would you call me away, when I finally feel at home? VIVE is just that, LIFE in a desperate era. It’s more than a church for me, it is an opportunity to taste and see the face of heaven here on earth. If you don’t know, you should ask somebody, because context is key. If you knew what I thought I was losing, you would be asking God the same questions! [For the sake of this writing, I will only mention this next destination] My friends asked me, “are you sure it’s Country X?” And without thinking twice, I said, “if it’s not Country X, it’s Italy.” Period. End-quote. — Midweek: Wednesday —Fast forward to — Vision Gala: Friday — “Our fifth VIVE campus ... ROME”- ps Adam SmallcombeImmediate heart confirmation. I knew then, I was home!Let’s just call this part ONE of my ROMA story... one year later, preparations have begun, and here we are.