Iesh Ismak?

I walked into the hotel cafe just barely a hundred yards away from my house. Climbed the bowed staircase into the open second floor lobby. I walked to the same four-chair, maroon covered table just off-center from being the middle of the room. I waved to the server as I sat down, and received a welcoming smile and a "hello" that were becoming commonplace.

Today, I had a few leftover afternoon tasks that I didn't finish before I left the office, so I came here to work on them.

So I sat down, opened my laptop, and looked up to find the server bringing my tea and a cup of water to the table. He was still wearing his smile from ear to ear. It is always fun to come to a place long enough that they know your order or your name.

Now, I have to add another task to my time here tonight. I have to learn his name.

Excerpt from a journal

Here is a recent journal entry. It is a quick view into some of my thoughts lately.

Two summers ago I sat here in the cafe of the hotel on the end of our street. I wrote about passions I believe God planted and nurtured in my heart and mind. The dream of going to Mosul has faded for the moment. It is a city of pain, discord and ethnic diversity. This is a city brimming with violence and, beneath the surface, teeming with a capacity for beauty.

Proof that I'm working: a collared shirt and a moleskin

I would give much for the opportunity to help her inhabitants draw the beauty from the midst of their discord. Now, though, this is impossible. We are often given dreams, visions, hopes and desires for specific people, places or actions and these dreams do not always come to fruition. They are at times, simply stepping stones rather than the next destination. Sometimes we are given hopes so that we might learn to let these hopes go. In my mind this correlates with dying to myself. I hope the gospel is at work in my willingness to lay certain hopes and dreams at the feet of Jesus. I offer them to Him that He might return them to me renewed with His purpose or replace them with His greater glory.

I don't know the purpose of this passion for the city of Mosul. I am forced to trust God with the pains and joys of her citizens, people who are both so near and so very far from me.