I am an introvert. One of the things that means is I do not like the telephone. Caller ID, with the ability to screen calls, was the greatest invention since the wheel (not that I’ve ever screened your call).

More than answering the phone, I don’t like making phone calls. Much of that goes to my personal issues, however. I’m always thinking the person on the other end is doing something important, and end up getting interrupted by me, and things, “ugh, him.” [as I said, I have issues]. That’s why I love email…you have a question for a person, you send it to them, and at a time that works well for them, they respond. Simple…clean…nobody gets hurt. (well, unless you accidentally send that email to a person who was not supposed to see it.)

Well, now that I am in full support raising mode so that our family can move to Ireland this summer, I am starting to spend a lot of time on the phone. (actually, I spend a lot of time stressing about making phone calls…trying to keep the butterflies down, then I make the call….when it goes to the answering machine part of me feels relieved, part of me thinks, “are they screening my calls?”:-)

So why might I start liking the phone? Actually, that is probably stretching it a bit. But as we’ve been into this process, I’ve gotten to talk to a handful of people who were part of the Ithaca Vineyard & have since moved on to other places. Some of them left 5 years ago or so & haven’t really been back to Ithaca since. (if you know anything about geography, Ithaca is a destination…it is not actually on the way to anywhere…” centrally isolated” as we say around here.)

But once my initial fear of making the call is over, and I’m actually talking to my old friends, it feels like we just spoke last month, not 6 years ago. On the one hand, I think that says a lot about the amazing people God has brought into our lives in our time in Ithaca…but I also believe it has a lot to do with who God knits your heart with people when you are united & working for His Kingdom.

It has been a real blessing in a place I was not expecting.