{"id":1423,"date":"2019-04-02T13:28:07","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T18:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/?p=1423"},"modified":"2021-12-06T16:04:39","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T21:04:39","slug":"its-a-balancing-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/2019\/04\/02\/its-a-balancing-act\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a balancing act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sometimes life feels like a balancing act.  Or like the scene from the musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” where Tevye keeps thinking about “…on the other hand.”  Here are a few of things happening in my life, as well as their “…on the other hand” counterparts.

On the one hand, I’m really excited to be heading back to West Africa for a month between Easter and Memorial Day for a People Group Assessment (PGA) trip and to see leadership and other missionaries there.  And I even get to finish it out with a few days in France – 2 days of vacation, and 2 days of a linguistics conference! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, it will be weird to be so close to My Country and not be able to go “home” to that home.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


On the one hand, I’m excited that while I’m in West Africa, I’ll be able to pick up a few of my things from My Country, since someone will be able to bring them to Senegal for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, I was thinking that I may be able to send some fun little surprises back to some friends in My Country, but it’s sad that it doesn’t look like it’s going to be possible at this time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nOn the one hand, it’s so nice to be in the US and spend time with\nmy family and friends here.  It’s even starting to warm up here in\nWisconsin, and we are able to start coming out of “hibernation!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, I miss my friends and “family” in My Country.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nOn the one hand, I feel like I’ve been making progress on some of\nthe projects I’ve been working on: I taught the 3-week class at Ethnos360’s\nBible school, I translated over 50 pages of PGA reports from French to English,\nplans are starting to come together for this upcoming trip, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, there are always more projects to do.  My next big project is working on a discourse analysis write up of the Jula language, better preparing me to be able to help other people with their languages.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\nOn the one hand, it’s exciting to watch God continue to direct my\nsteps.  For example, He worked out the details for this upcoming trip to\nSenegal, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, and France!  For about a week at the end\nof February, things were changing multiple times a day, and then when\neverything worked, it didn’t change anymore.  There’s now actually\nsomething in my life that looks planned!  It’s also very clear that I\nshould continue my studies this summer, since if I take 2 more months of\nclasses, I’ll be almost finished with my master’s degree except for my thesis\n(which will hopefully be about Jula discourse analysis, too – two birds with\none stone!).  I wasn’t planning on getting my master’s at the moment, but\nit seems to be God’s plan.  If I didn’t attend school this June and July,\ninstead of taking 2 months to finish my coursework it would take two full\nsemesters.  Ok, God, I get the picture, and am planning on going!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, sometimes it’s still hard to be living in the unknown and not know where I’m headed.\u00a0 I know that none of us knows the future, but we often like to think we do.\u00a0 Last month I got to talk with members of different leadership boards of Ethnos360 and it was nice to get to actually meet some of them, but there are still no answers about returning to My Country.\u00a0 Still waiting, and waiting can still be hard.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Well, there you have it.\u00a0 On one hand, God is good.\u00a0 But on the other hand, life can still be hard.\u00a0 <\/em>But on the other hand, it gives us opportunities to trust Him more.\u00a0 But on the other hand, growth sometimes hurts.<\/em>\u00a0 But on the other hand, it’s when it hurts that you can experience His\u00a0peace that passes understanding.\u00a0\u00a0

Thanks for your continued prayers for me, for My People, and for My Country! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes life feels like a balancing act.  Or like the scene from the musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” where Tevye keeps thinking about “…on the other hand.”  Here are a few of things happening in my life, as well as their “…on the other hand” counterparts. On the one hand, I’m really excited to be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}