Life's Blessings

 As a follower of Father Gordon MacRae's "Beyond These Stone Walls", I came across this book, Drinking From the Saucer, A Memoir, by Charlene C. Duline.  

Father Gordon happened to mention that Ms. Duline, besides being a supporter of his, she was a Foreign Service Officer.   This interested me because I wanted to be a Foreign Service Officer.  She became what I pictured myself doing.  I enjoyed her life.  What stopped me from continuing on with my dream was the requirement to speak three languages and that you needed a bachelor's degree in some sort of related international study.  I only had access to a teacher's college, so that shot down that dream, besides the language requirement. Duline's journey to the Foreign Service once again proved to me that if God wants you to take that track, you will. I believe you are what you were meant to be.  

Back to the book: Drinking from the Saucer means that her cup of life was so full that it over flowed and she had to drink from the saucer.  The reader sees Duline's early life.  She was lucky to get out but she moved away and joined the Peace Corps.  That gave her a taste of living in a foreign country and she loved it.  Also, when her tour was over, she lived in New York.  There she worked at the United Nations, which whetted her interest in working for the US government.

Her government jobs led to the foreign service.  The main part of the book tells Duline's experiences in Haiti, Liberia, Tanzania, Swaziland, Panama, and Washington DC.  She had to deal with race relations, different cultures, revolutions, and other tense situations. Everything I ever imagined.

I'm not too jealous.  My life was really different.  Although, I did work for the government in a Municipality.  I never left my home town.  However, I have three happy and productive children and a fifty-two year marriage, to show for it.  As I always claimed, God puts you where you are meant to be.