Where to begin... my day today started before the day did. I'll have to explain: they sent us home yesterday after relaxing the whole day, doing devotions, worship, and listening to Jerry talk and talk and talllllllllk :), which was fun since we all had a billion questions for him. I fell asleep around 11pm and in the middle of REM sleep I hear a *BuZZ *BuZZ then a rukus and then I'm being pushed out of my bed, glancing at the clock I see it's 12:30am. I shook my clock a little to see if it was broken and then heard: "5 minutes to get out the door!"
When I get out to the street, I see the guys in the group at our door along with the ministry leader and our "extreme challenge" trainer (Jerry's son). When all the girls came out to meet them, we began a 30 minute run down dark streets and around the corners and through the neighborhoods and pausing only once for jumping jacks and military-style push-ups we arrive finally at the top of a bridge where at the bottom is a really dead-looking deer-type animal... I spit off the edge of the bridge and our trainer says non-chalantely... "ok, let's go back to bed."
You'd think, wow, what a long day - they probably won't make them do anything to difficult when they wake up at 6am, huh?
WRONG.
We eat breakfast and by 8am we were on a bus to the base of a Big Hill that we had to climb with backpacks (mine with all my homework and two Bibles and a Nalgene bottle full of water), and a very heavy odd item, like a tire, a weight, a chain, a brick, and a big giant 50- pound cross. The point, of course, being that we had to learn to work as a team and help each other up a hill without dissention or division... uhh, we failed that one. On the way back down, we got the point and stuck together, offered help and did all that a team is supposed to do.
Tomorrow is laundry day-slash- baby sitting day at the orphanage. All the staff is going to a conference at the church and we get to stay and be in charge. It'll be great! My favorite thing to do is play with the little girls... jump rope, etc. :)
Friday, February 8, 2008
06-02-07
I'm too tired to write much today... We were darn busy that's all I gotta say. Everyday we have to wake up before dawn to get ready and clean the house and eat if we want to, then we have to walk about 15 blocks to the house where our 2-hour morning devotional is held with all the young people (and some not-so-young) from the school. Yesterday it was gimnasio day. Josh, one of the pastor's kids, is IN SHAPE. He took us for an intro run about 30 blocks from the mission complex to a futbol field. We ran most of the way there, then did sprints once we arrived, then ran around the field a few laps, then did push-ups the hard way (I thought), then we did some abdominal/leg thing that left us all heaving for the air that smelled like poopy dust. Mmmmmm... poopy dust...
Anyway, just like every week we will have physical training we will also have spiritual training: a weekly fast, which I understood to be a denial of breakfast and lunch, but today they said why not skip supper too!? So, I'm hungry, exhausted, sore and HUNGRY for more!
God has already showed me so many things that I can hardly keep them straight. And then when one thing he shows me collides with another the next day, my heart does a little skip and a beat and I have but to praise Him... if only I had the energy. It was really hard to concentrate on things today. My spanish was worse than ever and I got more than one giggle out of people for my gringo slip-ups, but hey! I say it's all part of the trial. By the end of this mission I'll be fit as a fiddle, looking for God-work, and speaking spanish like a native poblana, tijuanense, tabasquena vera cruzena, and who-knows-where else-ana. These kids come from all over the country! I'm the only outsider, but I really think, with God's help and with His will in accordance, that I could do a lot to help advance the ministry. I hear lots of people think the same thing, they get involved and then find out there is too much red tape or a hierarchy that doesn't easily allow big change in the routine.
Aside from all that, I love being here. I love the people... by the way, Nancy, I got your message! I'm doing great! :)
Anyway, just like every week we will have physical training we will also have spiritual training: a weekly fast, which I understood to be a denial of breakfast and lunch, but today they said why not skip supper too!? So, I'm hungry, exhausted, sore and HUNGRY for more!
God has already showed me so many things that I can hardly keep them straight. And then when one thing he shows me collides with another the next day, my heart does a little skip and a beat and I have but to praise Him... if only I had the energy. It was really hard to concentrate on things today. My spanish was worse than ever and I got more than one giggle out of people for my gringo slip-ups, but hey! I say it's all part of the trial. By the end of this mission I'll be fit as a fiddle, looking for God-work, and speaking spanish like a native poblana, tijuanense, tabasquena vera cruzena, and who-knows-where else-ana. These kids come from all over the country! I'm the only outsider, but I really think, with God's help and with His will in accordance, that I could do a lot to help advance the ministry. I hear lots of people think the same thing, they get involved and then find out there is too much red tape or a hierarchy that doesn't easily allow big change in the routine.
Aside from all that, I love being here. I love the people... by the way, Nancy, I got your message! I'm doing great! :)
Today was easy again. I think they're waiting until we get used to the place... they must know it's not normal compared to every other normal part of the world. We already have a homework assignment. We're reading a book by Steve Thompson called “All of you can prophesy.” I'm not halfway through it yet and I already feel that God wants to show me something huge. I feel that I'm resisting though. I think I might be a little afraid of what He wants to show me. Not that I think He would have me do something that would hurt me in any way, but that He might lead me down a drastic path. That adventure that everyone talked about in youth groups – it must be true. If you're going to follow God and do whatever He wants you to without question, He's inevitably going to take you places you never imagined. I'm already thinking a lot about the spiritual aspect of this trip, which is the only aspect that we are focused on, and how resisting will hinder progress. Mom always talked about my “spiritual man” and I think here is where he is going to awaken and kick me in the pants since the alarm clock already went off years ago.
I admit I come here in a state of shame. I know for sure that this state of mind doesn't come from God, and I know for sure that even the leader of the first Christian church stumbled. I have to thank God over and over again since the mistakes I make are automatically forgiven once confessed. I CONFESS!!! I failed God one more time and He somehow finds it in his unconditional-loving heart to forgive me one more time. I simply can't understand why. My little brain and my extremely weak spirit try and try to grasp and understand His love.... to no avail.
In any case, I can tell God is working on my heart in little ways. You know what they say: admitting you have a problem is half the battle, right? Well, I have 5 billion problems... I'll talk about today for example. Yesterday they gave us a piece of paper and each one had a phrase or just a couple of words on it. Mine said, “I will always help you,” and when we did the activity, after searching for the answer the night before, I decided in the last moments of the next morning to think about it. Help. What about help does God want to make clear to me? Then, in the afternoon, I remembered a conversation I had with Juana on the bus. I told her that I had a little monster inside me called independence. I simply want to do everything myself. I don't want help and I don't want direction and I don't want people to tell me how to do things. I even mentioned that maybe this will kill the little monster inside me... or make it grow. In that moment, as I was remembering the conversation I thought to myself, I have a choice: I can resist, I can hang onto my independence and I can continue thinking that I don't need anyone; or I can surrender, I can recognize that I need God's help, that everything I try to do on my own is fruitless and ends in failure, and I can accept His hand and grow. One of these choices will kill this little monster, and the other will obviously make the little monster the modern-day Godzilla.
Then, before we all met together again to do the activity, I talked to D who went to the conference last week with so many expectations. I didn't say anything at the time, but when he first told me about waiting for something huge, I first feared that he would start talking about leaving E.V. Then I thought, passively, I think he just might not have the experience he's hoping for... He didn't. And he told me that even though he was waiting for the great revelation, it didn't come until the next day or a few days later when he spoke to one of the missionaries that was sent out from E.V. This man sat down with him and heard D tell him he was frustrated because he hadn't heard from God. The missionary thought about it and said, “You asked for God to challenge you... this is your challenge: trust Him.”
So, at the gathering where we shared all our little pieces of paper and what God had told us, boy did I have a story. First that I'm recognizing one of the billions of problems that I'm going to for sure discover here, and second the answer: open my spirit to Him and TRUST Him.
I admit I come here in a state of shame. I know for sure that this state of mind doesn't come from God, and I know for sure that even the leader of the first Christian church stumbled. I have to thank God over and over again since the mistakes I make are automatically forgiven once confessed. I CONFESS!!! I failed God one more time and He somehow finds it in his unconditional-loving heart to forgive me one more time. I simply can't understand why. My little brain and my extremely weak spirit try and try to grasp and understand His love.... to no avail.
In any case, I can tell God is working on my heart in little ways. You know what they say: admitting you have a problem is half the battle, right? Well, I have 5 billion problems... I'll talk about today for example. Yesterday they gave us a piece of paper and each one had a phrase or just a couple of words on it. Mine said, “I will always help you,” and when we did the activity, after searching for the answer the night before, I decided in the last moments of the next morning to think about it. Help. What about help does God want to make clear to me? Then, in the afternoon, I remembered a conversation I had with Juana on the bus. I told her that I had a little monster inside me called independence. I simply want to do everything myself. I don't want help and I don't want direction and I don't want people to tell me how to do things. I even mentioned that maybe this will kill the little monster inside me... or make it grow. In that moment, as I was remembering the conversation I thought to myself, I have a choice: I can resist, I can hang onto my independence and I can continue thinking that I don't need anyone; or I can surrender, I can recognize that I need God's help, that everything I try to do on my own is fruitless and ends in failure, and I can accept His hand and grow. One of these choices will kill this little monster, and the other will obviously make the little monster the modern-day Godzilla.
Then, before we all met together again to do the activity, I talked to D who went to the conference last week with so many expectations. I didn't say anything at the time, but when he first told me about waiting for something huge, I first feared that he would start talking about leaving E.V. Then I thought, passively, I think he just might not have the experience he's hoping for... He didn't. And he told me that even though he was waiting for the great revelation, it didn't come until the next day or a few days later when he spoke to one of the missionaries that was sent out from E.V. This man sat down with him and heard D tell him he was frustrated because he hadn't heard from God. The missionary thought about it and said, “You asked for God to challenge you... this is your challenge: trust Him.”
So, at the gathering where we shared all our little pieces of paper and what God had told us, boy did I have a story. First that I'm recognizing one of the billions of problems that I'm going to for sure discover here, and second the answer: open my spirit to Him and TRUST Him.
challenge #1
So far life is still normal – by that I mean the world still revolves around the axis and there is still a hole in the ozone layer that worries everyone till they get the trots – La vina is really something else, and they haven't even started in on us yet. Apparently the whole point of coming here was to learn not only about the Bible and learning how to preach and minister, but to scrub toilets, floors and get many many bouts of gas and diarrhea. No really, that hasn't happened to me so far, but they tell me that I will have to clean toilets and wash nasties all week long and that's enough to make my stomach lurch.... I've pretty much gotten used to eating practically out of garbage cans since last spring, so getting sick really doesn't enter my mind as a full-on worry-worthy thing.
Apart from the work, there are rules. LOTS of rules. I mean 3 pages full of 10-font 1. 2. 3. rules. And at the end of many of them it says, “if you can't adhere to the rule, we reserve the right to kick your butt out on the street and take all your money.” Well, maybe that's a bad translation (everything here, remember, is in spanish), but all the same, it was pretty heavy duty.
At this moment I have a little piece of paper above my bunk that says “I will always help you.” They didn't really explain what it meant, it's kind of a game I think that they play with the newbies. We are simply to pray about whatever our little papers say (everyone's is different) and know that God wants to tell us something through the short phrase found there... I read the paper three times, I still have yet to pray about it, right now I'm on my way to bed to do just that... I'm excited to write again and let you know what the result was. Apparently we're doing some sort of activity all together afterward.
I should say that everyone that I have been “stuck with” so far has been nothing short of a blessing. All the girls in the house are A) super nice B) super varied – we have a 19 year-old and a 32 year-old and one of them even has a 2 year-old waiting for her at home! And for some reason everyone gets along... so far.
I just want to mention my first challenge of the day. They told us before service (as it is Sunday today) that they didn't want us to form clicks and sit all together during service, but we are supposed to make ourselves part of the congregation and that means meeting everyone you possibly can. Since Spanish is my second language I have a complex that sometimes makes me shy (this adjective may as well also be known as the antithesis of Emily). At first the safest thing to do was sit down with one of my favorite little munchkins and after small talk with a 6 year-old I looked up and saw a family with three girls just about my age ... maybe a little younger ... so I said to the munchkin that I would sit with her but I wanted to say hello to those people “over there.”
I said hello, I think the mother's name was Rosalinda or something... but I met a girl named Sharon and her sisters (the second of which was Ruth) and talked to all of them, the whole family, for about 15 minutes, which is a friggin' long time when you're shy, but I have to say that I simply loved – yes loved – every one of them. They are loving, smiling, welcoming... and they turned me instantly into a loving, smiling, welcoming person. A little hurdle but one that I really needed to clear.
Apart from the work, there are rules. LOTS of rules. I mean 3 pages full of 10-font 1. 2. 3. rules. And at the end of many of them it says, “if you can't adhere to the rule, we reserve the right to kick your butt out on the street and take all your money.” Well, maybe that's a bad translation (everything here, remember, is in spanish), but all the same, it was pretty heavy duty.
At this moment I have a little piece of paper above my bunk that says “I will always help you.” They didn't really explain what it meant, it's kind of a game I think that they play with the newbies. We are simply to pray about whatever our little papers say (everyone's is different) and know that God wants to tell us something through the short phrase found there... I read the paper three times, I still have yet to pray about it, right now I'm on my way to bed to do just that... I'm excited to write again and let you know what the result was. Apparently we're doing some sort of activity all together afterward.
I should say that everyone that I have been “stuck with” so far has been nothing short of a blessing. All the girls in the house are A) super nice B) super varied – we have a 19 year-old and a 32 year-old and one of them even has a 2 year-old waiting for her at home! And for some reason everyone gets along... so far.
I just want to mention my first challenge of the day. They told us before service (as it is Sunday today) that they didn't want us to form clicks and sit all together during service, but we are supposed to make ourselves part of the congregation and that means meeting everyone you possibly can. Since Spanish is my second language I have a complex that sometimes makes me shy (this adjective may as well also be known as the antithesis of Emily). At first the safest thing to do was sit down with one of my favorite little munchkins and after small talk with a 6 year-old I looked up and saw a family with three girls just about my age ... maybe a little younger ... so I said to the munchkin that I would sit with her but I wanted to say hello to those people “over there.”
I said hello, I think the mother's name was Rosalinda or something... but I met a girl named Sharon and her sisters (the second of which was Ruth) and talked to all of them, the whole family, for about 15 minutes, which is a friggin' long time when you're shy, but I have to say that I simply loved – yes loved – every one of them. They are loving, smiling, welcoming... and they turned me instantly into a loving, smiling, welcoming person. A little hurdle but one that I really needed to clear.
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