Freelancer

I have friends who are freelancers. Freelance photographers, freelance writers, freelance videographers, etc., etc. I just realized that I am a freelance missionary. The longest I’ve ever served one mission organization was about 10 months. Sometimes I get crap for that. I need to get a real job, I need to settle down. But this is where I am right now. I come in and help start up a program, and I leave. Or I come and help fill a gap that needs to be filled for a short time. And I leave again. In a way it’s nice. I like being useful, and filling in where I am needed. In a way it sucks. I see the birth of new ministries, then leave before they really grow. I don’t make many friends, because it’s hard to make friends when everyone knows you’re only around for a few months. And it’s hard for me to bother also. There’s so much effort that goes into an introvert making friends, and sometimes it’s hard to do that, knowing that it won’t last.

I make friends, or fall in love with a place, and then I leave. And I don’t know if I’ll be back. I might, or I might wind up somewhere else. Who knows. I make plans, and they change. So I make new plans, and they change again. And it continues like that.

I had someone recently ask me why I keep changing my mind when I was explaining what my schedule has looked like this past year, and what it is looking like for the rest of the year. She didn’t understand why I wouldn’t choose one place and stay there permanently. Sometimes that sounds appealing. Staying in one place, being part of a community, a church, a family. But that’s that for me. At least not for now. It seems like this trip is more like that in this trip than it ever has been before. My timings are fluid, I meet new people, and I listen to their dreams and plans for connecting with their community. I tell them what I have learned about such things, through my experience, and through conversations with others. I connect people I’ve met across the country, people who can help each other to alter their communities, people who may not have connected otherwise. I add more to my plans as I am invited back to help with the programs they are starting; the programs that I’m helping them plan for.

There is a lot of excitement in planning a new venture. There is the consideration that there will be a lot of hard work, but that doesn’t even matter in light of the thought of the people you will be able to impact. There are the dreams of those faces of the people who will be changed, the families and communities which will be touched, the relationships which will be formed.

And that’s the hard thing. The way things are going now, I will not have these relationships. I will help others plan and design. I will help them to get the resources to start their businesses or ministries. And then I will leave, and they will build the program. They will bring people in, work with them, and form deep, life-changing relationships. And I will be onto my next place; a new place where I will stay for a few months, or even a few days, trying to make myself build relationships, even knowing that the relationship will probably falter when I leave and it goes to an internet friendship.

I travel, and I love traveling. I enjoy what I am doing, and I like to help where I am needed, then move on. In a way. But some days it is hard. Some days I want friends who are nearby that I can invite over for coffee, or a movie night or whatever. I want people that I can really talk to, having spent enough time to create genuine trust between us.

But I also have new friends who come into my life, and we make a difference to each other, then never see each other again. It’s a different kind of friendship, but still entirely valid.

And really, is it more important in the long run to have all of the things I want, or to be doing the things I’m supposed to be doing? I’d say the latter is far more important.