Booking Pilgrimages, Part 1,376

I'm glad that I did not know what I was in for when I decided that students should actually take a pilgrimage for my class.

I like to think of myself as an administrative type--but even so, my mental energy output is redlining. There are thirty students with one pilgrimage each--how hard can it be? Each student has their own reflections describing where they want to go and why. We've gone through two drafts of that. And they each have proposed an itinerary and budget. We're starting booking this week.

And honestly, the strain of processing which parts of proposals are valid and which are not is just about to do me in. Do I say no to someone's dream because it doesn't meet project criteria? Is it more fair for everyone to get the same amount of money, or get the equal opportunity to go where they feel led even if it is more (or less) expensive than others'? 

Besides all of the approval process questions, there are the logistical ones. How do we make payment for literally hundreds of different hostel rooms, bus rides, and train fares? Prepay or reimburse? Procedures? I am charting new territory here. We are charting it--because Jesse is patiently talking through the tough decisions and procedures with me. Thanks to him, we're having a booking party here tomorrow afternoon!

Tonight I met with students to discuss some issues to be resolved before then. I'm so grateful for this work and to get front-row seats at how the students are stretching and growing in these far-off places. They are not the only ones growing and stretching, though. I am learning how to both walk students through tough decisions and how to make them myself. I am praying for wisdom--and some of them are praying for me, as well.

Since starting this post I have taken a break for a fabulous Facetime date with my beautiful new niece. She's three days old, and the text alert on my phone is still set to joyous church bells ringing--what I woke to during the night she was born. Glorious.

I have also spent about 90 minutes wrestling with the aforementioned budget. Alas, my brilliant Co-Director has long since gone to bed (and I'm past my 1am self-imposed deadline). Time to walk away. "And all will be well."

And there was just a glimpse of that this afternoon--Jesse and I had a date afternoon instead of Date Night so that we could go riding bikes together. It has been a little dream to ride bikes in Tuscany, and here we are. Up the river, down the river, Florence and occasionally the Duomo in view. And then to the grocery store for dinner, and return the bikes and walk home. Family dinner--cooked food! (Thanks, Jesse). A little sweet spot of dreams-coming-true and salve for unnamed homesickness all cosily wrapped into an afternoon.



I didn't know that I needed comfort food, but I'm grateful for the comfort of old and new (pork chops and potato gnocchi in mushroom sauce--truly, the span of my life in the meal). And while I do enjoy being deliciously scared, I'd frankly rather take on a raging thunderstorm than seem to hold the hopes, dreams and logistics of these 30 students in my hands. That's the kind of scary growing that's happening here.

Fortunately, while they are squarely within my realm of concern, I'm not responsible for how they experience the world or their pilgrimages, can't make them grow or love or appreciate. As I'm ever telling them, they are responsible for wrestling and being faithful in the pursuit of Jesus. And we'll all see what the One who sends the lightning bolts on their way has in store for all of us in the days and on the road ahead.