How can three simple letters on a printed page - I. S. I. - signal a momentous shift in a person’s future? A future to be played out in a land half the world away, in a setting quite unlike any encountered before? (OK, ISI is not three letters. Just two. One getting repeated) When shifts occur in our lives (they come to us all), we find ourselves carried into new and different ‘spaces.’ We may meet them with wonder or trepidation or adventure. Or another kind of emotion.
How can three simple letters on a printed page - I. S. I. - signal a momentous shift in a person’s future? A future to be played out in a land half the world away, in a setting quite unlike any encountered before? (OK, ISI is not three letters. Just two. One getting repeated) When shifts occur in our lives (they come to us all), we find ourselves carried into new and different ‘spaces.’ We may meet them with wonder or trepidation or adventure. Or another kind of emotion.
I think of such turning points as thresholds. Threshold - a place of beginning, doorway, brink.
At the time of spotting the letters, I S I, on the page of a modest quarterly publication those years ago, I could never have guessed their import. After all, International Students Inc. sat nestled in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies while my home lay in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro - a really long way off.
Beyond the range of my understanding, a hint at an approaching shift with life-altering turns was signaling from that one page of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly lying open before me.
Laying the magazine aside, my attention pivoted.
Dad had taken gravely ill in Oklahoma. I had a plane to catch.
© 2023 Jerry Lout Writer/Speaker Jerry Lout grew up in Okmulgee County. Jerry’s “Living with a Limp” and “Giants in the Rough” are available through Amazon. Current projects include “Inside-Out” and “Thresholds” - a string of narratives highlighting surprises, sorrows and adventure in the post-Africa years. Jerry welcomes reader comments at jerrylout@gmail.com and 918-857-4373.
