broken.

Maybe I was trying to escape. Maybe I was trying to get away from all of the mediocrity in myself that was so easy to see in the states. Maybe I secretly just wanted to go away so that the things I didn't like about myself would go away. 

Maybe I really did have a true and noble purpose, but maybe I was also afraid. 

What if I didn't know how to face myself, and I thought going to a different country again would change me as much as it did the last time? What if I couldn't put my finger on the problem and so I ran as hard and as fast as I could, until I ended up in another hemisphere, with all the same problems and fears? What if I just want to change something, but the fear of mediocrity dogs me to until death?

What if there was nothing left where I was, and there was nothing I thought I could change?

What if I wasn't enough to bring the change they needed, and what if I ran away to start over, to show my best sides again, to bring to light the parts of me that I still enjoy?

What if all this running is my attempt to find Someone? Someone I am supposed to be able to find, Someone who is supposed to want to be found.

What if the biggest lie is that I am alone?

This has been a two year battle. I think I am realizing as I write this sentence the fullness of what my time in Costa Rica did to me. The things in me that broke the first time I went overseas were not all meant to be broken. My heart, yes. Sure. My heart is good for breaking. Break it for the poor, for the orphans, for the old women who don't have husbands and are treated like trash. Break it for the children who don't have parents and live literally in the streets, with infected feet, worms in their bellies, and not enough food to keep them walking. Break it for the trash in the streets of a country that has lost so much that it has forgotten how to care for itself. Break it for the teen boys in the parks who will fight and kill each other for their pride, who never once were hugged by their fathers. Break it for the men in chains whose hearts have changed but won't get a chance to change their worlds. Let it fall in pieces for the little girls who have no idea of their worth, who have been left for the men of this world who would use a child for their pleasure. Rip is with glass for the families torn by war, who have no fathers, and cannot learn to be fathers themselves. Drop it on the ground and watch it shatter. Crack it in half. A broken heart will only make me mourn for a little while, and after that, it will grow back, more full, more capable of love, more able to be broken. Softer, but more strong. 

I can deal with the things that happen when my heart is hurt.

But I think what happened in Costa Rica was more than my heart being hurt. There has been one sentence in my mind for two years. One sentence that runs and runs and runs through my head, relentlessly, and it comes back with a vengeance when people leave. 

I never thought this would be my story. I never thought I would be the typical girl with daddy problems and abandonment issues. For any of you that have either of those, I am so, so terribly sorry. I am not in any way belittling your struggle. All I am saying is that it is a common struggle, and I have never counted myself among your numbers. 

Many things happened in Costa Rica, and for those of you who don't know, our team dynamics were not...exemplary. Many times there was not much maturity in how situations were handled, and there was quite a bit of fighting. At one point, I think an argument between two of the people in charge actually came to blows. I say "I think," because I was in a different room and all I heard was a loud noise like something or someone falling over and a cry for help. However. At this point in the trip, the other member of the school decided he could no longer work with the group, because he did not believe that either Christ or the gospel were being represented well, and he couldn't, in good conscience, continue to support what the leadership was doing. The day that he decided he couldn't work with the team anymore, he left me alone. He left our team and he left me with the two fighting leaders and he left me to do the ministry on my own. 

I laid on my face on someone else's wooden library floor on the very edge of the Costa Rican jungle, not even a mile across the river from Nicaragua, and my spirit broke. It broke right in half and for four hours I laid there, crying so hard I couldn't make any noise, while a lie came in that has haunted me in every ministry I've been a part of since that day. 

Now you are truly alone.

I thought I was sad, and I thought it hurt, and I thought, "Well, this will be pretty hard." But I didn't smile for three months after I came back to the states. It took me even longer to laugh. I'd forgotten how to joke and I didn't remember the fun things I'd done freshman year. It was hard to get up in the morning and I hated myself for being rich and having an air conditioned room and a mattress. I hated myself for not wanting my education. I hated myself for eating more than I needed, but I was caught. All of the things that had broken my heart continued to break my heart, and I wanted nothing but to fix the world, to heal it from all the poverty and brokenness and pain and suffering and hatred and maldad. I was caught because, in my mind, ever since that day, I have been alone. Yes, I have been with Jesus, and I have lead ministries, and I'm in a different country, helping missionaries lead children to the Lord. 

I thought it hurt but I had no idea what the ramifications would look like. And please don't get me wrong. I have forgiven every person involved with this situation. I have forgiven them, and when old pain and anger comes up, I forgive them again. But I had no idea what would come from one man's decision in the middle of nowhere to do what he thought was right, and leave.

And so, in my mind, I am alone. There's a thick wall between the things that are me and the things that are everyone else, because I [resolved that I] would never, not ever, put myself in a situation where someone else had the power to break me like I was broken in Costa Rica, in the library at Glenda and Gonzalez' house. I don't think I even knew until just now that I had that wall. I don't think I knew, really. [[This is common for me: I'm an external processor, so I come to conclusions as I'm talking, not in thought. I don't realize what I think or believe until I'm saying it.]]

I think this is something that needs turned around, but I don't know how. There's nowhere else to run, and I'm tired. I want to be done fighting, but I am afraid.

Another thing: I am tired of being convinced that I am not doing anything worth doing, wherever I am. It doesn't matter where I go or how much I do, there is a pervasive and continuous assurance in my mind that I'm not really doing anything...that nothing I am doing is worthwhile, and that none of it will last. I think I want to be done with that as well, because I have a story to tell. I have something real to do, something powerful to say, and I'm not so sure it can't be said in the states. I'm not so sure it wouldn't be better said in the states. I'm not so sure it isn't more necessary in the states than it is here. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. (:

For now, I must crawl into my bed, because I have to leave the house tomorrow at 7:15am. Po and I are going to Mbocayatou (I have no idea how to spell it. It's a Guarani word) again to translate for the team from Somerset, PA, so they can do a VBS type thing and spend time teaching the kids there. Please continue praying for me to know my purpose, and if you'd like to write me, please don't hesitate. My email address is llwellynmcamis@tfc.edu.