Salutations.

The weather outside is contradicting itself, as it so often does in Georgia. I’m sitting inside click-clacking away while the sky is all greys, the ground is sopping and yet the birds are singing like it’s the first day of spring. That makes me smile.

By way of introductions, I should explain who we are, why we’re blogging and why in the world our blog is named after a fictitious lion. We are Dallas and Bethany (you’re currently speaking with Bethany), 23 year old almost college graduates who have very little idea about what we’re doing in life. We made our 3 year old relationship official on a quiet October morning this past year as our friends and family surrounded us and celebrated our new marriage. Since then we have led a quiet life trying to find where our place is in this big world. We think we’re starting to find out. That’s the who we are part.

Not everyone wants to be a missionary. I know that because I can remember having visiting missionaries at church when I was growing up and thinking, “Why would they want to go live in a hut just to tell people about Jesus?” I saw “End of the Spear” about Jim Elliot and quietly questioned whether I could sacrifice myself for Christ in some remote jungle, never knowing if my life made any difference at all. So I know those feelings and I know them well. But despite that, here we are. Dallas and I are going to Kenya this August to spend 30 days with unreached tribes. Aside from all the trepidation that may come with a scary decision like this one, we are both confident that this is something Jesus has asked of us, and we are excited.  So, that’s the why we’re blogging.

If you are at all familiar with Clive Staples Lewis, then you may know that in his most famous stories of Aslan and Narnia, Aslan the lion represents a God figure. In my favorite passage (coming from The Magician’s Nephew), Aslan sings Narnia into existence, and I believe that this is the loveliest piece of literature to have ever been conceived by man. In a completely fictitious setting, Lewis paints a word picture of the creation story that stops my heart.

“The earth was of many colors; they were fresh, hot and vivid. They made you feel excited; until you saw the Singer himself, and then you forgot everything else. It was a lion. Huge, shaggy, and bright, it stood facing the risen sun. Its mouth was wide open in song…”

This is our first introduction to Aslan, and I remember falling in love with him when I first read these words as a little girl. Later on in the series (Prince Caspian to be exact) when the Pevensie children have come back to Narnia and discovered that it is not at all how they remembered, they find that Aslan is nowhere to be found. Throughout the entire series, Aslan seems to allude the children, showing up only at the last possible moment and never when they think he should, but always in his timing. Which is always good. Dallas and I thought that the concept of trying to find Aslan (Jesus) was worth naming our blog after. And there you have it. That’s the why we named our blog after an imaginary lion.

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