As clichéd as it sounds, if you asked me a year ago where I’d be today, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to give you an answer.

Now, if you would have told me I’d travel to Ghana, Africa in August, I would’ve smiled and said, “I wish.” Then, if you would have said that during my travels I’d visit a village with a broken water pipe, and that I’d be so changed by the experience that I’d come back home and raise the money to fix the pipe, I would have definitely – definitely – laughed in your face. Both of these experiences have come true for me in the last 4 months. I write these words a bit more than one year after I began my journey here at the UUA and reflect that I am not where I thought I’d be. I am humbled because over the past year, but more specifically during the past 4 months, I have experienced two major life events that have transformed my future. It’s a big subject, the start of a great journey. More than can be shared in one sitting, and this blog is the start of a series of entries I’ll write as an open look at my journey as I attempt to make sense of it all. I invite you to join me, as I reflect on my experiences with Spirituality and Service and ask the question: how did I get here? - Erik is currently on a service trip to Haiti with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) and will be write more when he returns. - Ed.