I am currently sitting at a picnic table on the terrace of the Jerusalem University College garden. Above me is a tangle of grape vines shading me from the morning sun. It is almost a miniature paradise here. Birds are singing everywhere; I can hear their wings beating through the air as they move from perch to perch. Yellow butterflies float about the fruit trees of which their are many varieties: pomegranets, grapes, olives, and figs. All of these are in season and we are free to pick from them as we wish. It is another beautiful day; there is no better weather anywhere than in Jerusalem.
Sitting here is very amiable to reflection on the past month of September and the events leading up to my departure for Israel. Afterall, when I found out I was to come to Jerusalem for a year it was as much a suprise to me as it was to anyone else who has learned that I was to come here. Truely, it has been a lng road to Israel, one that began long before I knew. And if I must give you the news of my Israel experience so far, then I may as well give you all of it. Not being one to leave out any details when I am writing, I hope that you will be patient enough to hear all that I have to say. Only then do I hope that you can see all that I have learned and how the Lord has exceedingly blessed me by allowing me to be here, in my opinion, most undeservedly. Indeed, there is not a thing that I have done to be qualified for the great honor and priveledge that he has lavished on me. Only by his great love and goodness, which definitely exceeds all things, am I able to gaze at the Promised Land. It has been a long road to this present moment, and my first step in this direction began in the winter of 2001. May I make it clear that this step, and each following step, were each selfish.
I was a first semester sophomore at Bryan College in tiny Dayton, Tennessee. I was unhappy there, and I knew that very well. Oh, I had been very happy as a freshman, do not get me wrong. Then I had the largest case of false identity you could imagine. Instead of the Steve who I am, I was the Steve everyone wanted me to be. Yes, it was fun alot of the time, and when it was not I forced myself to believe otherwise. The truth is no one really knew who I was, and worse than that I myself was beginning to forget. One thing that stands true in my heart: I want people to know who I am. And my sophomore year disillusionment set in, which no one regardless of how strong-willed they are can live with for long. I could not hold up the facade and it fell through. One by one I silently lost my friends. It was not some big ordeal or the result of unreconcilable arguments between us. Friendship is like electricity, you can tell when it gets disconnected.
So I spent my days going to class and my evenings playing Spades with my three remaining friends. Late nights and into the early morning hours I wrote in my journal, which reflects much more sorrow then I would like to admit. This was not how I wanted my life to be.
Over Christmas break I became resolute not to return, and it was not because "they don't have my major" or "I don't have enough money to stay". I left Bryan College running like a madman from what I deamed a failure. Already I can see God's providence. Normally a man who runs from his fears is a man who runs from a satisfying life, but God used these fleeing steps as the first steps in the direction of the wildest adventure of a lifetime, one whose fruit has only begun to ripen.
I had one month during Christmas break to decide where to go to college to continue with my education. After speaking with my parents, friends and parents of friends two colleges rose to the surface for me: Columbia International University and Southern Methodist College. Prayer had nothing to do with my decision, in fact, my prayer life was nonexistent at that time. I did not care where I went to college or what God had to say about it or if he even had anything to say about it. I was running. Anyplace but Dayton would suffice. I chose SMC.
An interesting choice I must admit. I am not even a Methodist. Actually I would have never heard of this minute campus in Orangeburg, South Carolina if my grandfather, Dr. Arlie Adkins, had not been one of its founding fathers. There are two admirable things worth noting about SMC: one, the first semester you attend your tuition fee is waived; two, Mr. Fender my professor for four out of six classes. This is not meant as an insult to the institution, but these are the only things I enjoyed while I was there. I was exceedingly unhappy. At Bryan College I was alone among hundreds of people, here I was alone because there was no one. That is how I saw it anyway. The ego that had grown so rampintly within me in Dayton stuck with me in Orangeburg. I thought I was better than everyone else, and I acted that way. My time was spent studying for a nineteen hour course load and doing work study in the library. I can honestly say I have never hated a job more than working in the library at SMC. If I had known it would be better for my character to do a good job there though I loathed it, then I would have worked happily every day like I was supposed to. But I did not. Despite occasional scoldings from my supervisor I only worked sporadically. One day my supervisor had had enough, and with a trembling voice she fired the founder's grandson. Good for her!
I was a fool and miserable. And though I could find many things to blame it on, I knew the heart of the issue was that I had wandered far from God. I did not depend on him, but on things that could not possibly satisfy me. "Jesus satisfies all my longings." That hymn holds such marvelous wisdom, yet at that time I apparently thought wisdom was for the birds and I quickly declined in spirit. My journal entries reflected sorrow, then frustration, then anger, then bitterness.
At the end of the school year I vowed never to return.
The summer of 2002 arrived giving me a glimmer of hope. Those things upon which my dependency had shifted onto from God existed at home, and I was more than happy just to focus on those things. It was a false glimmer of hope. I have come to learn that dependency on anything other than God is to set oneself up for definate emotional disaster, if not physically as well. The summer of 2002 was horrible because of this. If I could write one good thing about it then I would, but I cannot. I remember at the end of the summer before a congregation at a Vespers program at the Jaars center, I shared my experience of a mission trip to Arizona I participated in. With narrow eyes holding back tears I lied through my teeth saying that that mission trip, and my experience with God there, had made me the "happiest person on earth". I hardly wrote in my journal all summer knowing that things were ugly enough in my mind. I did not need to see it on paper.
