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Sigh.
Before I even started my PhD, I attended a summer school called The Nida School, named after Bible translator and founding theorist, Eugene Nida, whom I even got to meet a couple of days before the start of the summer school but I digress.

Anyway, the Nida School played a big part in my researcher development, linked me up with some cool other researchers, and ended up creating space for a later workshop I'd go on to co-ordinate. I even hoped to go back one day.

But the Nida School has shed its links to Bible translation, has a different team behind it and has gone all theoretical and philosophical, at the same time as I'm trying to think more practically and working through how to get better at using my research to make a duff to churches.

I can't fully put my finger on why the growing gap between me and the Nida School is actually affecting me. Maybe it's a reminder that I never will fit into the traditional academic mode and will be doing any research as an outsider, scraping whatever funding and opportunities God gives, outside of universities. Maybe because it feels like cutting loose a part of my story. Maybe it's because there is no summer school for my interests anywhere in the world.

I don't know. I'm just sad and disappointed and maybe a little bit lonely. I don't know if anyone can relate but here felt a safe space to share.