The pleasure of unexpected meetings and understanding my calling

Again, in the World's Smallest Big City I run into people I know. This time I didn't run into one person, but I came across about ten at one time, as I was wandering back to my hotel room. This time it was almost the entire group of UCA Camp Counselors I happened upon after I finished my dinner. They had just completed camp yesterday and had arrived today in Bishkek after a job well done.

I have been enjoying my vacation and have relished time alone, expansive moments of silence, and being the master of my time. There were days when I was staying on Lake Issyk-kul when I didn't utter more than 15 words between the time I got up in the morning and when I returned to bed at night. And that's a very happy fact I'm reciting.

Yet, after meeting the counselors this evening and hanging out with some of them in Bishkek Park for awhile, I also experienced the same level of joy that I had received from my recent days of silence. And I felt a pang of regret that I had not had the chance to work with this fine group because, though I am an introvert at heart, I also feel a strong pull to the work I have engaged in much of my life--the difficult, but intensely rewarding, job of helping young adults learn and grow. And perhaps the part of the job I enjoy the most is collaborating and teaming up with other like-minded people to get this work done, in a spirit of mirth and light-heartedness, whenever one can manage such things. What a paradoxical person I am living simultaneously on such opposite poles.

After our hanging out was completed and they headed toward their dinners, I returned to my silent hotel room, where I will savor that quiet while also considering the joys of interacting with those who make up my life's calling.