Finding home far from it

“We’re sure you’re going to fall in love with the community in Booneville.” With those words my heart dropped just a little as I feigned my initial excitement over the phone with Dave Berg upon hearing my GreaterWorks placement.

That’s not to say that I didn’t expect it to some degree. There are a couple of things you should know to help make sense of the heart-dropping feelings and lack of surprise.

For my YouthWorks! summer I had hoped to work with high school students on a rural site. I ended up on a junior high city site. Prior to committing to GreaterWorks, I had anticipated moving back to the Cincinnati area. Somewhere in my heart of hearts I felt like my personal desires would be put on the back burner and I would end up as far away from what I called home as possible.

Shortly after arriving home from my YouthWorks! summer in Rapid City, S.D., I had MapQuest searched the distance from each GreaterWorks site (save Juarez since my Spanish skills do not exceed ‘Hola, como estas?’) to my house is Maineville, Ohio. All were under a six-hour drive but one – Booneville, Arkansas.

So I booked a flight and prepared to enter into a year of what I anticipated to be a hiatus from journalism far from home.

And after a week of training I found myself adjusting to a new home with a new kind of family – my teammates. Our community contact, Pastor Mark McDonald, and his family lovingly welcomed us into the community, and as our first week continued I began to truly believe Dave’s words. I could love a place almost thirteen hours from where I had spent most of my life.

Yet another surprise came in a meeting with the Boys and Girls Club where I will be spending a significant amount of time volunteering. Contrary to my initial thoughts, I will get to keep my journalism skills strong and in use over this time. They are hoping to put together a newsletter, and I am excited that I definitely have the skills to help them with it.

So any anxieties I might have had upon first knowing where I would be spending the better part of the next year of my life have pretty much faded away over our first week here in Booneville. If there is one thing I learned from my YouthWorks! summer it is that you can fall in love with a place you least expected to. And here I am with the opportunity to learn that lesson all over again.

There’s no telling what God will teach me over the coming months, but I am definitely looking forward to finding out.

God bless,

Becca