so you think i should go to spain?

(this is the email I sent out to hundreds of friends
and family the night before I left for 4 months in
Spain. I'm going to publish a few more of these.)

Here I am sitting at my computer at 2:42, the dawn of
the new year.  2005 excites me. It excites me not
because of the promise of new cell phones that are
thinner than Paris Hilton or the joy that comes with
knowing that there will soon be mp3 players that take
pictures and file your taxes.  None of these things do
the trick.  These days there is only one thing that
keeps me tossing and turning.  It's a flight at
6:45PM,  New Years Day. It's a place called Spain.

I can go way back in my memories to my earliest ones
as a little Tatum, running around the house in College
Park, GA.  We lived seconds from the busiest airport
in the world, and my grandmother was a long time
employee of Delta's.  We would spend hours and hours
taking trips through our living room and over the
Pacific of our imagination, carrying us to Hong Kong
for jewels, England for gold, and Turkey
for...well...turkey.  Nothing has changed much since.
I am still completely fascinated with taking flight,
with packing my bags, with loading up on a train that
is just pulling out of the station.  I long for
delays, for layovers, for the anticipation, for the
travel.  However, there is one thing that has changed:
There is now a new treasure I seek, a new jewel to
share with the world.

I cannot put into mere words the immense difficulty it
has been to get myself to this point.  A point where I
know that I am going.  A point where God has done
everything besides speaking audibly that He wants me
to be in Europe for four months.  I have hidden in
fear so many times, thinking that surely it was a
mistake, that they had chosen the wrong guy for the
wrong team.  But that my friends, is only evidence to
my own stupidity. A case built against my
shortsightedness, my lack of faith.  For God wants us
there, even though it seems strange, even if we feel
we have so little to offer, even if the road is
completely unknown.

The one thing that I know for sure, is that I have no
idea what we are getting ourselves into.  This is a
new continent for Globalscope, with a completely
different culture and perspective on Jesus.  The only
thing that we can bank on for sure is that there is
something about Jesus, when he shows up and is met
without all of the pretense and religion, that is
quite undeniable.

For years it has been my mantra that what I wanted
from life was that it be an adventure.  The funny
thing about adventures is that you can't plan an
itinerary around them.  You have to take the bumps and
the bruises and the mountaintops and the sunsets.  And
you take it as it comes, but you go knowing that we
walk a road marked with the footprints of Jesus.

So pray for us.  Please pray for us.  I'll share our
stories as we share our lives with our new
friends...and I'll look forward to hearing from you.
I hope you all sleep well as I toss and turn.

So long,

Jason Tatum