the hardest semester of my life.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. Do you ever have those days? Where crying is an option but you've been sad for too long and it would be silly to be sad about this thing and so you have to laugh at yourself? I had one of those moments just now, thinking about how long it's been that I've been seeing myself as invincible. 

Like I can bounce back from anything, or like nothing can really hurt me. 
Like coming back from two months in Paraguay and thinking six days was enough cushion time between re-entering the country and beginning my senior year of college. 
Like taking 18 hours for the third semester in a row when the first time I had to drop the extra class, the second time I nearly died trying (I literally locked myself in the attic until my work was done...except I pulled up the fold-y stairs behind me and I couldn't get down until my roommate came home), and the third time, well. I dropped the extra class and then nearly died anyhow. 
Like how in January, I thought I could handle 22 hours of extra-curricular activities per week, 18 hours of classes (really 15 hours the first half of the semester and 21 hours the second half--online classes are only half a semester), sleeping, eating, an hour a day with Jesus, Working out, and interpersonal relationships without a hitch. 
Like when, during high school, I thought one of my closest friends killed himself because I couldn't handle his secrets. I cried myself to sleep for a month, dripping in guilt and regret and tiredness. And then someone told me it was time to get over it, and so I did.

I don't think people are made for things like this. I think when we make ourselves bounce back too soon, we break ourselves. I think our minds and bodies are made to tell us when enough is enough, and that is something I have been through this semester. 
For a long time, I have been saying that all I want is for everything to stop. Have you ever had a day, or a week, or a month like that? When everything moves so quickly and so relentlessly that it's just exactly like you're the guy in the movie, flying downstream, bashing his head against the rocks, just trying to catch a little gulp of air whenever his chin comes above water? You go to bed at night and it's like your little heart is tired. It just can't go anymore. 
And so for almost ten months now, that's what I've been saying. I just want everything to stop, for six months, and I can just lay on the ground and stare at the sky. I imagine little birds coming like in Princess movies and wrapping up all my cuts and bruises. I imagine the rainwater filling my mouth when I get thirsty. I imagine the ground and the air and the sky being my friends and the world being good and agreeable again like when I was little.
Well, the problem is, I don't stop. I am always adding another thing to my schedule. I am always agreeing to be in charge of something else. I can't help it! I want to be useful and helpful and I feel like anything that's not running how I think it should is my responsibility. Or anything that needs a leader. Or anything that needs anything, really. I am always doing. I don't stop doing, because when I stop doing things, I feel as if I've lost my purpose. 
The hitch, however, is that when I am busy like a bee, I lay down at night in my bed and I think of all the ramble scramble things I am doing throughout my day, and I wonder what I am actually accomplishing. I wonder what I am really doing, of consequence, in this world. What am I actually changing? What effect have I had? Why can't I see it better? WELL. I suppose if I am not having a visible impact on my environment at all times and I don't see a big relational shift or ministry-related result everyday, I MUST NOT BE DOING ENOUGH THINGS. Or maybe I'm not doing my things well enough! Something must be fixed.
And then I am off to fix it. [whatever that looks like, haha]

This semester, however, was bound to be a little bit different. 
It was bound to be from the start because I didn't even buy my school books until two and a half weeks of the semester were past. I would sit outside the coffee shop staring at the sky and people would stop and talk to me. My favorite professor passed by one day and he just looked at me for a moment, and then said, "you're not back yet, are you?" And I said, "no," and I bit my bottom lip and tried not to cry. 
I cried in public, a lot. 
It was bound to be different from the start because I didn't know what I thought about God anymore. That's a great thing to not know when you're in charge of the campus Prayer Room. 
I knew it would be different because there wasn't enough sunshine in my blocky basement dorm room and my kitchen felt like it wasn't really mine and the people in my house (at school) are clearly not a family. Because my camera was broken and so I stopped looking at trees and birds and the sky. Because it became a burden to interact with people. Because I didn't know any of the new freshmen. Because my mentor went back to Cambodia. 
And in all of this, I thought to myself, "I don't know how to mourn." And so the problem became my lack of ability to mourn my losses, and I set out to fix myself and my problem, but on the way, everything got so heavy.

I don't know how much experience any of you have with Depression or Anxiety
But those are the stickers I have now. I think what happened is that I have been going all my life... I have never stopped doing things, but last semester, Everything In Me Stopped. I had one class that I didn't do one single assignment for until the last three weeks of school. Somehow I came out with a D+, but I think I'll still have to re-take it for it to count towards my major. 
But I stopped. All of me, just stopped. And some people told me to put myself together, and others told me to let myself lay in pieces and I scolded myself quite a bit for not doing better or being better or something about Better. But I woke up in the mornings and there was no reason I could see for me to go to class or chapel or talk to people. I lost interest in every single relationship I had except for maybe two. I said "fuck" a lot. I slammed doors and ran away from people who cared. I got irrationally angry at all the questions. I stopped being able to do homework. I threw things against the wall. My ADD took over. I started going to weekly counseling. I gained 40 lbs from laying on the couch and in the bed and on the floor, staring at the wall or the ceiling or the sky. I watched three seasons of Dr. Who and I cried so hard when Rose got stuck in the alternate universe. I stopped thinking about important things (God, the future, my relationships, the "real" meaning of what was going on with me, where it came from, how to fix it) because they were too painful and difficult. 
I used to be the least broken of all the people I knew. I used to always be the mother and the healer and the listener. I would always have a BandAid and some neosporin. I would always be cooking for other people. I was the kissy monster to all the kids I knew and I was the one that people came to for hugs and advice and a good smack upside the head when they were being stupid. 
But now I am the most broken, messy, fragile person I know. I don't know anyone more messed up than me. I tense up when people stand behind me and I don't like anyone standing too close to me and I get angry about silly things and I am quiet a lot. I don't sing as much as I used to and I want to be alone more often. People make me tired. I am glad for the camera my grandma gave me for Christmas, because now I have a reason to go outside that doesn't have to include people. 
Sometimes I just want this to be over, and sometimes I wish for an easy way out. You know what I mean. But I have never been a giver-upper, not on anyone else, at least. And I think I deserve the same chance I give others. 

Also, there is something that has to go. 
I argued with myself a little over whether I should put in the sentence about how often I say "fuck." It's an ugly word. People react strongly to it. People's mouths look angry saying it. 
But it's not the end of the world. The important things in this life don't revolve around how often i say "fuck." My identity is not based in how often or with how much severity i shout "fuck" when the hot oil spits on me while I'm trying to make plantain chips or when I stub my toe on some heavy box someone left in the dark hall on the way to the bathroom or when the light changes three seconds too soon and I'm in a hurry to somewhere important.
The problem is that I have been censoring myself all my life. My roommate, Pexia, from last year, wrote this in one of her first blogs about "Grace," her OneWord for 2013. 

“I heard somewhere that humans were not made to withstand every shake. Just as tall buildings in earthquake-prone areas are made with a bit of flexibility to them, so also are people made to ‘wobble’ a bit. Grace is what lets us struggle like buildings in an earthquake. If we were always strong, we would never wobble, and a single catastrophe would ruin our lives. But if we allow ourselves to struggle, if we allow ourselves grace, we will not crumble at the first sign of disaster. We will weather the storm. Don’t bottle it in; let yourself feel and move and wobble.”

Touchy-feely though it may sound, this shit is real. I've been standing up straight for twenty-two years, and this year broke me. I've been leading things and being in charge and having people's eyes on me as an example almost since I was born, and I always said I wished I had a real testimony. Because I never felt like God saved me from anything. I went to church before I was born. There's never been a time I actually fully truly got lost. 
Well, here I am, and I've always been kind of loud, but I think this is the kind of messy we're supposed to be. I don't think we're supposed to hide our struggles and look nice and I know I've said that before but this time it's me. I think if all of you know that I say "fuck," we might be better off.
We might be quicker to say, "i'm not okay" when someone asks how we are. So when I say that wholeness is the OneWord I've chosen for 2014, I am serious. I mean I am going to be all of me. I am going to allow myself to be okay with the struggle. I am going to forget about facades. I am going to ask for help when I need it. I am going to stop wallowing. I am going to allow myself alone time. When I thought of "wholeness" before, I thought of "wholesome," which means things that are earthy or green or good for you, meaning only the presentable side of me. The side that runs a prayer room and gives advice. But wholeness isn't about the best parts of me. Wholeness is about all of me. 
I saw a video from Ted Talks once by a lady whose name starts with a B. She talked about vulnerability. I've seen the video three times, and I could write about it for you, but I think you'd better just listen to her. Anyway, she says something about whole-hearted people, and I think that's what I'm going for. 

And so what I have come to is summed up well by Gungor lyrics:
"This is not the end, this is not the end of this.
We will open our eyes wide, wider."

the children and the stars: Itaugua.

It has been quite a while since I last wrote. Sorry! Things have been very busy here, and an hour and a half of typing at the end of every day has been about the last thing on my list. (: But here I am, sick and on bed rest, and so I have literally nothing else to do. I already cleaned my room and organized everything I call mine, and started a load of laundry. Then I made coffee and found out when the futbol game is tonight (Olimpia is playing for the Copa!) and cleaned up my little downstairs bathroom. The doctor (who I saw yesterday, by myself!) gave me antibiotics so that this recurring cough doesn't turn into walking pneumonia, as well as cough syrup with Codeine. So I took that last night and didn't wake up until 10:30 this morning. Which, by the way, was well after Po had been off to the airport. So I am on my own here, now, and my room is clean, and I have nothing left but to tell you all about the things that have been happening.

This is the post I started when I was in Itaugua:

(By the by: on our way to trying to get to Itaugua, I stepped out of a moving bus, backwards, while carrying two pieces of luggage, in the middle of the street. Bus drivers seriously stop for nothing. I heard my ankle crack and I landed on my butt on the road, amid oncoming traffic which graciously waited until I could get up and hobble back across the street. I am pretty sure my ankle was only twisted because I walked on it until it got better, but it's still a little bruised and very easily pained, two weeks later.)

Today I am in Itaugua. Itaugua is outside of Asuncion, and Po and I got here by bus. I just woke up, and it’s lovely here. I feel like I’m on vacation from the city! There’s grass everywhere and a huge soccer field in front of my house and three houses full of real orphans and house parents and messy dinners and terere. There is only one road, and all our houses are along one side, while the administration building, soccer field, volleyball court, and multi-purpose house are on the other. Further down the road there is a school house for the orphans as well as children from the community, but they’re on winter break right now.

My camera is broken. I have been praying fervently that it will start working again. When I turn it on, it makes a terrific grinding noise and the lens readjusts three times, and then the display screen turns black and says, “lens error: restart camera.” But when you restart it, the lens does the same thing. Over, and over, and over. So…the lens won’t shut. Last time it did this was right before my camera warranty was up, so they fixed it for free. But that was three-ish years ago. So I am not holding onto much for it. It is a crying shame (yes, a crying one) because I really really want to take pictures of this place! (another side note: I broke it trying to take a picture of an armed bank guard. Secretly. Out of a bus window. He would never have seen me, I know it. Go figure.)

Another awesome thing is that you can actually see the stars from here! Let me tell you something. I am not a city person. It’s amazing that I am having as good of a time in Asuncion as I am, because I (dare I say it?) hate cities. I greatly and fervently dislike them. There are a great many reasons why, but I will not dwell on them because I have to go back there. (: But! I can tell you what I love about not cities! I love the smell of fresh-cut grass and I love dirt paths and big fields. I love tall trees covering up parts of the sky, and I love farms. I love kids being able to play outside barefoot in the yard together, and I love the night sounds of forests and jungles. The crickets chirp and little animals rustle and the birds coo as their babies fall asleep. The wind is always moving something, and the night air holds everything gently. And it’s so dark at night! I could see myriads of stars I’d never met before, and my eyes kept trying to make something familiar out of them, but if I was being honest, I would tell you it was a completely different sky. It was like meeting a brand new friend that I’d been waiting to meet and heard very good things about. Only I didn’t have very much time to talk to my new friend, the night sky of the southern hemisphere, because there were lots of children who desperately needed to be tickled and hugged.

I think my favorite thing here is how much everyone likes each other. It’s like a huge happy family, of eight parents and thirty seven children, and they all live together and play together and go to school together and are happy! I think there’s a community here at Hogar Ganar (the name of the orphanage) that I had not thus far anywhere. I love it. I want to stay here forever. (:

The children are beautiful and young and tricky, and there is a very slow Hope that kind of falls off of them onto everyone else. They love to joke. Po and I spent dinner with the third house of children on Thursday night. The first night, Wednesday night, we had dinner with the first house, and they had already eaten when we arrived, because all the kids were hungry early. The second day, Thursday, we had lunch with the second house, but none of the kids were hungry when we arrived, and we were taking a break from a job we had to get back to, so we ate alone there too. So for this third house, on Thursday night, we arrived at about 7:30 pm, after we had spent an hour or so supervising volleyball, motorcycles zipping around, babies climbing all over the place, translating TobyMac songs for one of the girls, and eating cake from a random man who showed up in a van and wanted to give us all cake! When we walked in the door, there were kids sitting in front of the TV watching some kind of cartoon in Spanish. They brought our dinner out immediately, but I asked if we couldn’t wait and eat with them. They said that all the children had to take showers before they could all sit down and eat, and it would be an hour wait. I didn’t care. (: So we watched cartoons with them until everyone was sparkly clean, at which point two rushed out the back door to go get more chairs and the rest rushed to the table. We had The Best Hamburgers Of All Time. I am serious. First of all, the sandwich bread was huge. Second, let me tell you the contents, from the bottom up. On the very bottom was the bottom half of the sandwich bread, then a slice of ham lunchmeat, then the burger, then a fried egg, then tomatoes and lettuce, and then mayonnaise and ketchup. I couldn’t even keep the juice from falling out of the bottom of it. It was SO GOOD.

After dinner, the boys got out a bunch of mini playing cards from the states that someone had given them. They had this little broken thing that looked like a calculator, but they’d removed the screen and could slip things into where the screen was so that it looked like their makeshift “phone” had pictures on its screen… So of course, all of the pictures from the “old maid” game were used to play like the boys were taking pictures of Po and I, and the old maids or doctors were our pictures. Then there were the go-fish cards, with sharks and seahorses and underwater monsters. We seriously played “tell the Americans they look like sea creatures” for almost an hour. (: Then one of the older girls tried to convince me that her tonal gibberish was Chinese, in which she was fluent. Lots of laughter surrounded that one.

We finally had to go home because we were both so tired, but we came back the next morning before we left to take a picture with the family.

I didn’t stay there very long, but I fell in love a little. Only a little. It was like a vacation for my little heart, which was very tired and not resting well. I didn’t do much and there was no reason for me to be there except to see the ministry and to love on the children. I did it, and it was wonderful. And I saw some stars in the midst of the whole thing.

i feel bad for the Pharisees. [but this is War]

Usually, I'm the type that looks down on the disciples for all their problems. I'm not even going to pretend like I'm the only one that's thought it: "How could the Disciples fail to understand every single thing that Jesus said? I would never have denied Jesus three times. I would have known what He meant about temptation being sneaky and sin knocking at the door, and I would have given that girl by the campfire a firm stare and declared loudly that I was indeed a follower of the Son of God. Maybe Jesus just picked the dense ones on purpose or something." 
I just re-read that paragraph and I feel all squirmy inside, like I said something I knew wasn't true and now I can't take it back. But that's really how I used to feel about the Disciples. I used to wish that I could have been there so that Jesus would have had at least one disciple in scripture that listened to Him and understood Him and got things right the first time. Hah! That's a joke. Looking at my life, at any human life, should wither the pride in that italicized paragraph. 
But today I was reading in Matthew, and something very strange happened in me when I read the "Seven Woes to the Scribes and Pharisees" in Chapter 23. Go read it. 
I felt so bad for them. In me, somewhere, there was something that identified with a proud and ancient people, asking of others what had been asked of them, trying to be a little better than the last guy, propagating the same teaching that had been taught to them, staunch in ideologies but a little weary of heart. I connected with a people who had been taught the teachings of well-respected men since their childhood, and knew how to say the right answers and look like the best kind of person and be just exactly who they were supposed to be in church. I knew what it was to be surprised by a person who didn't make sense, claiming ludicrous things that went against every single idea I had been taught, and to react with disdain and judgment. I cringed when I remembered all of the people that I had written off because they didn't line up with my theology or because they went about their lives in a completely different manner than I did, or just because they didn't have any social skills. Come on!
When these men stood up to preach in the synagogue, they didn't read the scriptures! They read the commentaries of whichever scribe or pharisee was the most to be respected, and they cited sources back through the generations for every sentence they spoke. Timidity reigned. When Jesus stood up to talk, He blew their minds. He spoke with authority and He said His own words and He interpreted scripture in a way that destroyed the paradigms that built their daily lives. And all of the people, sensing something they had never sensed before, flocked to Him. They couldn't get enough of authority and love and challenges to their daily routine and dead religion.
How am I to be surprised that when a not-very-attractive man came from a disreputable community with a raggedy band of extremist followers (Peter and his sword didn't do anything in half-measures) and went to tell all of the preachers and theologians that they were wrong and dirty and sons of Satan, they wanted to kill Him? I would too! If someone knocked over everything I'd pridefully stood for my entire life, toppling my respect in the community and challenging every single thing that I had been able to convince my people of, I would react with hatred. Indignation. Disbelief. I wouldn't even entertain the thought that He might, just might, be telling the truth. 
And even if there was something in Him that drew me, even if I knew, deep down, that there was more and that maybe He had it... How many times have I felt that really, for real, in this life, and ignored it? How many times have a known that tug at my heart and decided it was silly and emotional and that maybe right now wasn't the time to risk looking crazy?

For a very long time in my life, I have been enchanted by the idea of being a Marine. I don't tell people that, and I don't hardly ever bring it up. But last year, two girls I grew up with, one of whom to which I am kind-of-not-quite related, joined. They signed their lives over and disappeared to Bootcamp and then came back for a little while with harder faces and slower smiles and they stood up very straight. Their bodies were strong and their minds were good at keeping a cap on rebellion and there were so many stories they'd lived without us that it was like there wasn't a way to tell them and they'd made kind of a wall. 

In a very real sense, they had been set apart.

All the rest of us were on the civilian side and they weren't anymore, but there was a strange honor that floated around them. Something in the air that said they had been through the fire and lived, that they'd made the commitment and they weren't backing out, that they had lived through unspeakable things and would live through more, and that if they were afraid, it wasn't worth showing. Maybe I'm romanticizing what they've done and the things they've been through, but I've never been this close to the transformation before.
But the more and more I read of scripture, Matthew especially, the more I see that I don't think I wanted to see. In my sometimes-complacent and mostly comfortable life, I would have been content with not being run over by this new, undeniable truth. There is a call that is not optional. And it is not partial. The things that He tells us to do are absolute. Forgive. Give to the poor. 
We cannot paint watercolors over it and call it a goal and talk about how the Holy Spirit helps us but we'll never really get there, so just remember that Jesus forgives you and that way we can all keep not giving our all. I am being a little bit facetious, but that is how it comes out sounding most of the time. And I know this is not a popular theme. Me a month ago would have told me today to stop being legalistic. 
I am not saying that God doesn't love or forgive. That would be entirely untrue. I am saying that we are in an Army. We are enlisted. We are soldiers in training, and if we don't do the exercises assigned to us, we will never have bodies or minds that are prepared to fight.
I don't think we can ever understand the value of our freedom and our inheritance as sons until we understand the weight of the commands that have been given us. 
________________________________________________________________________

P.S.: I don't mean to sound harsh and angry. I am just very, very convicted. I have never seen this before in my readings of scripture. It was like it was jumping out of the words at me. I know that's crazy I've-been-a-christian-too-long talk to some of you, but the Lord reveals new things in His time. I was told by someone once to only live in the revelation that God had given me. I didn't like the advice because I always wanted to try to make myself better, and to learn new things all the time, but I have realized that they were right. When I try to live according to revelation that the Lord has given to someone else, but not to me, I end up hurt and confused and feeling legalistic and lazy at the same time. It's so, so easy for Satan to pin all kinds of condemnation to me when I don't understand the thing I'm trying to live out. 
So. If this is not something that the Lord has revealed to you yet, let it go. I am serious. I want to say, gently, that this is what Grace is for. The Lord reveals in His time, and when it's your time to understand this thing that I have so suddenly discovered, you will understand it, and then you will be held accountable for it. 

and what about giving up things?

I miss Mozzarella Cheese. 

I miss having my household of things around me, orderly, giving structure to my world and setting boundaries for my brain. I miss being able to bring out my dishes and cook for someone, or being able to pull out my compilation of First Aid supplies and fix up any cat scratch, dangly toenail, or roadburn. I miss understanding the jokes that people make when I'm talking to them, and I miss having guyfriends. You wouldn't think that guyfriends would be such a taboo, but they really are. Every time I go to a social function, there are groups of guys talking to each other and groups of girls talking to each other. I am not good at being friends with girls. I never have been. Not even in English. And I detest small talk.

I miss the depth of the relationships that I have at home. I miss being able to walk up to my best friend at church, and, knowing almost all of her life history as it coincides with mine, ask her any easy question and thus begin a conversation that lasts two hours, through lunch, and into an Audrey Hepburn movie and a nap on the floor with tea. 

I miss touchy people who like to hold my hands and lean on me and let me put my head on their shoulders. I miss cuddling with my roommate, and I miss my prayer team. I miss ice cream with fudge ripples, and cold water.

I miss being able to text people that I already know, to make plans that I can understand, in a city I know how to get around. I miss spontaneously inviting people over to my house. I miss being a hostess and feeding all my boys fresh bread with my grandma's Raspberry Jam. I miss having my books on my shelf like sentries, every title holding a story in words and a story in memories, wrapping up in a binding each point in my life that was marked by its reading. I miss my tea kettle and the little sound it makes that only I can hear that lets me know when the water is exactly the right temperature. 

It is okay to miss those things. It is not bad to recognize a blessing and to notice its absence when it's gone. 

I've been reading a blog called Kisses from Katie, and I think I have been more challenged by her posts than by anything in my life. In one of her posts, she talks about feeding/clothing the poor and how Jesus says that those who believed in him and those who did not will be separated in the end of time. Matthew 25:41-46 says, 

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." 

I have never actually contemplated these words. I cannot escape them. I am very afraid, because I cannot ignore them, and I don't like what I think they mean. I've been trying to escape it ever since I read it, and I don't think I can any longer.  There's always this tug-of-war in me when I see someone who needs and I know I have a little extra. I think of exactly how much I have, and how much is coming soon, and my budget, and things I would like to buy, and the list of expenditures that certain amounts of my money are allotted to, and I rationalize my way out of just handing the poor man all my nickels and dimes, or ten of my cans of string beans that are in my back seat, or the loaf of bread I just bought and my jar of peanut butter. Why? Why do I think my way out of giving someone what I have? Why do I redefine "a little extra" every time there is an opportunity to be to another person what God has been to me? 

[[side story: I can't even tell you how many times I've seen someone on the side of the street and I've looked away. We have all done it. There's been a time in every single one of our lives when each of us has seen someone who had less and we chose to look away, and I will be the first to say: that is wrong. Who gave me the right to refuse to look at someone, simply on grounds that I knew they were asking for something that I didn't want to give? After all, what are they really asking for? Money would be useful, yes. Employment? Shelter? What if really every person on the corner of the street is just asking for a little dignity? What if all they want is for someone to look at them and See them? 
There's a lady from a band that did a Ted Talk, and her name's Amanda Palmer. The talk is called "The Art of Asking," and while I may not agree with her whole lifestyle, she makes a very good point. She talks about the unspoken moment of recognition and appreciation that would occur every time she would lock eyes with a donor and hand them a flower. After having watched the video three or four times and contemplating its contents, I think really what she's talking about is dignity. How dare I, even if I have nothing to give, avert my eyes and steal away the dignity of a person created in the image of God?]]

But I'm really not even talking about Dignity and Homeless people and Making Eye Contact. All of these things that I miss, they are good things. But they are not the most important. In the New Testament, there a several times that Jesus addresses the words, "Follow me," to someone. There are two commands that Jesus used most often in conjunction with that phrase, and they are used an equal number of times. The first, we hear about all the time: "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and Follow me." The second is not so common to hear: "Sell all you have and give to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."
Now, this is a very haunting thing to me. Because I have heard all my life about taking up our crosses and bearing them and how that means we aren't supposed to sin, or that there's a certain burden that we'll have our whole lives. 
[[Among the list of things I have heard mentioned as or thought of as crosses that some people just have to bear are: ugliness, bad marriages, obesity, poverty, illness, faulty church theology, and dead end jobs. Are you kidding me?! But that is a rant for another day.]] 

But I have never once heard a pastor preach on how Jesus said that to follow him, 

something necessary for perfection (like He said to the rich young ruler) was that we sell all we have and give to the poor. 

I said I was afraid. I am afraid because there is something in those verses that is entirely absolute. 1 John 3:17 says, "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" Now, Jesus talks an awful lot about how if we love Him, we'll do what He says. All my life, I have had this backwards. Somehow in my head, this turned into: "Do all these things so that everyone will know you love me," instead of what He meant, which was: "Fall in love with me, and watch these behaviors come out of your love." The reason I am afraid is that I really do enjoy all of the things I talked about in the beginning of this post. I enjoy fudge ripples in my ice cream and having guy friends and cuddling with my best friends and being I've-lived-here-21-years familiar with a city. I enjoy having quality kitchenware in which to cook. I like buying bulk medical supplies on sale so I can mommy people at school. I would like to own a MacBook and a really big nice camera that takes 18 megapixel pictures of adorable children. I would like to have an apartment and collect old stoneware dishes and eat organic food and buy a gym membership. I would like to spend $40 on 5 lbs of looseleaf tea online from an underground store in California. I would like to get engaged and not feel bad for spending $1,856 on a ring. I like to go thrift store shopping and get cool looking things that I don't really need but that seem trendy when I set them just right in my room. But I can't. I can't, I can't. Every time I try to go somewhere nice for dinner, every time I eat more than I need, every time I look at how little sugar Po and I have left for our tea and coffee and think of how it's almost time to get more, my heart gets very restless. 
I think somehow we have talked ourselves out of the moral wrongness of misappropriating God's funds. It's his money, isn't it? Don't we pray for him to provide? and Doesn't He? 
I want to apologize for writing this. I want to say, "Maybe it doesn't apply to everyone. Maybe it's okay for some Christians to have yachts and $500,000 houses and eight cars for their five person family. We can justify some of this, right? It's okay for me to look into buying a motorcycle when I already have a car, right? And I could justify owning an iPad, if it would help with my schoolwork. What if someone, just out of the goodness of their heart, gave me a Canon EOS 5D Mark II Camera? How far does this have to go?" 
But He said it. He said it. He said: sell all you have and give to the poor; follow me." The nomadic lifestyle that Jesus was suggesting was directly related to His being a nomad and wanting His disciples with Him, physically following Him. So maybe it's okay to live in a house.
I sound insane. Out of my mind. But something is seriously wrong here, and I can't keep putting off my decision. When it came down to crunch time, Orpah kissed Naomi goodbye, while Ruth clung to her. It's kiss-or-cling time. 

the last four days.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I spent almost entirely in Mbocayaty (I looked it up on Google Maps, and that's how they spelled it, but it could still be entirely wrong.) We spent all three days teaching biblical lessons, singing bouncy songs, and corralling children into and out of rooms, brainstorming how to make sure that each of 200 children only get one Rice Krispie treat each. It was awful. The field director's wife was almost crushed against the back door of the church because the boys that were inside with her were so uncontrollably eager to get outside. They pushed so hard to get out the door that they actually got stuck and couldn't move. 
It was ugly and scary and horrific and disappointing and sad. I saw the dirtiest, most hateful, most greedy and impatient side of every single child there. When I told them what to do, they mocked my words. They spat my words back at me and laughed in my face. They said ugly sounding things in Guarani that I couldn't understand, glancing at me sideways and then refusing to do what I'd asked. They ignored the leaders and almost destroyed every single thing we brought to play with them. 
There was a profound thanklessness that I couldn't understand, and it angered me severely that children who had so little could be ungrateful for so much.
And then I woke up a little and I realized how very, very poor I am, and how very, very thankless I have acted. And then I remembered the greatest gift in the universe, and how, so often, I forget that I haven't acted worthily of it, and it's still mine anyway...and continue to treat it poorly.
And then I remembered how home lives effect the children that come out of them, and I remembered what I was like in 7th grade, and how my youth pastor chose to love me, and how it changed me. And I remembered what I was like in 11th grade, and how my Chemistry teacher chose to love me, and how it changed me. And I remembered what I was like freshman year and how the leader of the prayer team chose to love me, and how much it changed me. 
And then I knew that there was nothing I owed anyone on this earth except the debt of love that I owe to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, payable to the meanest and rudest and dirtiest of us, payable to the ones who hurt me and disrespect me, payable to those who just seem insignificant or annoying.
And so I chose to be gentle and to be patient and to be kind. Not mine, of course, that I should boast. But I chose, and when I chose, He gave me more of what I needed, and then it just came out of me like water, like kisses, like Hope. It came out in Love, because when you Love someone, you're choosing to believe that they are capable of attaining their full potential. You're choosing to believe that they will choose what needs to be chosen, and you're choosing to act in Love on their behalf, even though they haven't made their behlaf look like it's worth much. 
That is Hope.
That is what Jesus had for us, while we were still sinners. While we were still his enemies. 
Love is Hope in action.

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.

today i drank the water.

We had our staff meeting this morning at about ten. Lo and Po and I walked (read: jogged) to the HiperSeis this morning to go and get all the fried chicken for the Somerset team's lunch today, as well as the Tartes for their lunch tomorrow. I bought two liters of milk, which is incredible here. They sell milk in sealed cardboard boxes, by the liter, and it's whole. I don't know that there's a kind that isn't whole. It's not even Vitamin D Milk with the red cap that only your 50 year old uncle drinks because his wife can't convince him that skim tastes better (because that's not true, duh). It's like cream floating on the top, makes your coffee thicker, and you probably shouldn't have it with your cereal every morning whole. So. Good. 
So we got all of our things from the HiperSeis and then took a bus to the church so we could make sandwiches out of the fried chicken. We assembled thirty chicken sandwiches with mayonnaise and fresh cut pan felipe in less than ten minutes, packed them in baggies, sliced up probably 10 oranges and cleaned up after ourselves, all before the staff meeting. 
John read 1 Corinthians 13:1-8, but he read it more slowly than I think I have ever heard it read. It was so slow that I actually had a chance to process each one before he read the next one. At first, for each one, I was thinking of ways that other people in my life didn't do it well or didn't live up to the standards, but once he read, "keeps no record of wrongs," I was stuck. It was no longer everyone else's turn.
He apologized for ways that he'd talked about some people in the church in the past among the leadership (no person I knew, and no situation of which I'd heard) and called us all to a higher standard of speech. We prayed for a little while after that, and then talked logistics for about an hour and a half. After we got the week nailed down, Lo and Po and I carried Somerset's food out to John's car and he went to drop it off for them, while the three of us caught a bus home. I have seriously been sitting here in my dining room, since lunch, catching up on blog posts.
Also, we have no drinking water. So today I am drinking the tap water. Also, my coffee was made with the tap water. So we shall see what comes of that. (:
It is getting increasingly more and more difficult to write these posts in English. I know that there are quite a few of you who could still understand me if I mixed in Spanish here and there where I could no longer think of my English words, but I don't want to be rude to the rest of you. Because I like you! (: So. 
I think I shall go lay in my bed for a little while, and re-heat my coffee. WHICH, by the way, is made with whole cream instead of that powdery corn starch stuff. Po and I have made a grand discovery. Whole cream instead of milk/powder in tea and coffee. WAHHHHH! It's SO good. 
I think that is all for today. (: Tonight I am going to Lisa Sappia's house to compile the pictures from Oansa into a video, and then I am coming home and going to bed. Pretty nice as far as Mondays go.

saturday-sunday.

This weekend has been a blur. 
I have been secretly resentful of the pots and pans in the kitchen. They're Teflon (non-stick black stuff that you can't clean with a real dish scrubber). I hate Teflon. I have been resentful of the water here that comes in big blue bottles and makes my Nalgene smell like diesel exhaust when I open it. I have been resentful of the shower that's not as hot as it could be and the weather that's not as warm as it could be and the food that's not as cheap as it could be and my schedule that's not as organized as it could be. I have been festering in my mind, a week spent in rebellion of the changes that are what they are and the things that somehow, somewhere, secretly, I feel like I deserve. I feel like we've been over this already. But Saturday it took an entire shower for me to realize that things don't have to be what I want in order for me to enjoy them. I was chagrined when I realized what I had realized and how long it had taken, but I knew when I knew it that I knew it for sure. It was like a thing broke off of me, and all the sudden I was free to enjoy things that were less than I wanted them to be, and to see as a blessing things that had been taken for granted before. 
I let go of not having my own space in the kitchen. I chose to forget how much the dishes annoy me when everything I cook sticks to the bottom of the pan. I chose to be grateful for the plastic dishes we have instead of spending my time wishing I had my favorite earthenware bowl from home. And I know this is not all bad. It's not bad to want the familiar and to miss it when it's gone. It's not bad to know that my dishes at home are nicer and that my utensils work better and that my coffee from my french press is incredible. But it is bad to be resentful of everything I am offered simply because I have known something different, even something better. It is wrong when I am ill every time I cook because my food wouldn't stick to the bottom of my pan. I think you get the picture. It's okay to enjoy nice things. It's not okay to resent everything that isn't up to your standards of nice. 
Saturday I went to Oansa at a park near Mi Esperanza church, and met a whole haggle of new children. They played games for about an hour, ate a snack and heard a bible story, and then played soccer for another 45 minutes. I took pictures the whole time for Lisa Sappia so that we could later put together a video for a church that wants to support the Oansas here. 
Saturday night we came back to the church again to do iPraise, which basically means that Sylvia Harmon and Lo taught music lessons to individual kids while the other played board games with John and Po and I, along with 2 other adult helpers. For the lesson, John used his wallet to represent sin and his hands to represent God and us (and Jesus, at one point) and he did a demonstration about how Jesus takes our sin so we can be in right relationship with God. Just at the peak moment, when everyone was staring in rapt attention and John was almost whispering, a man, about 24, screeched the door open and came shambling in the room. And, true to Paraguayan style, everyone greeted him as he made his way to the table in the middle of the room. His name is Milcherd, and he's currently the worship leader for Mi Esperanza. He was there to have practice for the next morning's service. I had to laugh. 
After that, I spent about 45 minutes chasing the younger kids around and tickling them, during which I made best friend with a girl named Tara. She's about 9, and loves to be chased. I don't know if she was learning an instrument or not, but she was there for the whole night. It was so cold that we ended up hugging for a very long time. 
The next morning in Church, the short-term team from Somerset, PA was introduced to the congregation. They'd arrived about 4am and they left soon after their introduction to go and be introduced to another church. John preached on Ephesians, where it says that women should submit to their husbands, but also that husbands should love their wives like Christ loved the church, even laying down their lives for their wives. This is a completely foreign concept to most Paraguayans. Men don't sacrifice anything for women, certainly not in order to love or cherish. But John made it perfectly clear that the Lord's intent here was for the men to give love and the women to give respect. It was something I knew well, and was familiar with it from the book by Emerson Eggerichs called "Love and Respect," but it was all new to the congregation, from what it sounded like to me.
After church, Po and I went home with one of the ladies from her ESL class. Her name was Adriana, and we rode to her house in a taxi. I had never ridden in a taxi before (except that one time in Vegas at 4:30am when my whole family was leaving Nevada after visiting cousins in Reno and staying at the Four Queens was the cheapest thing to do) and it was very strange. He actually drove us all the way to her house, which I didn't expect since it was so far out into the cobblestone/dirt roads. We sat there with her eating Bijou (like chipa, only flat with parmesan cheese on the outside) and drinking Maté and watching The Disney Channel in Spanish for 
about 40 minutes while her mother and brother finished making lunch. For lunch, we 
had spaghetti and chicken, both in red sauces I'd never tasted, but were SO good. We also had
salad (tomatoes, green bell peppers, shredded carrots, and onions, on a bed of shredded 
cabbage, sprinkled with salt, lemon juice, and olive oil) and Sopa. Sopa, the word that means 
"soup," also means a kind of cornbread made with onions and spices, and very thick. We had 
the cornbread kind of Sopa, which is actually called Sopa Paraguayi. I ate as slowly as I could, but they still ate more slowly than me, and so the mother got up immediately and put more chicken on my plate. I stifled a groan. The food was so good, but I couldn't eat anymore! I finished all but the smallest bite of my chicken, enough so I ate it respectfully and not to waste, but also with enough left that she wouldn't give me more food. She still passed me the salad and the Parmesan cheese, in case there was anything else I wanted, but I tried as gratefully as I could to say "no," and "thank you," at the same time. It's a difficult combination. 
When everyone was finished eating, the family began cleaning the table of all the plates and food, and Po and I felt fairly useless. I was mentally preparing to say our goodbyes and find a taxi or walk to the nearest bus stop when Adriana came back in the room and asked whether we would prefer Maté or Cocido. Po and I both said, "Cocido!" with big grins, but our grins faded as Adriana smilingly put on her coat and rainboots to walk two houses down and get some Cocido for her mother to make. How are we ever to know which thing they have and which they don't, when they offer both?! I get frustrated about that, but I think frustration probably isn't necessary. There's no way to know which is which, and they're not going to stop offering. So let's just all be friends. (: 
Po and I, after Cocido, a half hour more of Disney Cartoons, a visit to one of Adriana's friend's houses to make a veterinary call about a cat that needed castrated, and more Maté, finally made our way to a bus stop, back towards home. We probably looked like Mennonites, wearing full length skirts and dresses, with white skin, riding a bus on a Sunday afternoon. Neither of us could feel our toes, and our feet were red with the mud from the streets around Adriana's house, but we had to go to the HiperSeis before we walked home (the HiperSeis is at the bus stop where we get off to go home. Down our street, home, to the right, or left to cross the street and go to HiperSeis) since the only thing I had in the fridge were six eggs. So we waltzed into the HiperSeis with tired and freezing legs, bought all the things I needed, and walked home. 
One of the things I needed was ground beef, which they don't just have in a cooler in the store. You have to go get in the meat line and take a little paper and they call your number and then tell them what you want. "Medio kilo de carne molido." A half a kilo is about 45g more than a pound. Anyway, my first time in the meat line, Yay! (:
Then Sunday night, Po and I took a bus to the Schell's house to meet the Somerset, PA team and have pizza with them, and also to hear the orientation class from Forest, since I hadn't heard it yet at that point. We had to wait for a bus, though, and so with walking and bussing and waiting, we didn't make it there until 5:30. 
After all of the formalities were over and when dinner was well underway, I finally worked up the social courage to talk to more new people that I didn't know, who would be leaving my life in less than 7 days, and try to make some kind of connection with at least a few of them. I managed to find a girl who went to Cedarville (where I have friends and had relatives), a woman whose sister's friend works at TFC, and a guy who works at a truck dispatch that sends people to Akron, Ohio all the time. So there. I did it. (: Then I escaped to the children's rooms to chase them around and threaten their lives and livelihoods with the looming curse of kisses. They have dubbed me the kissy monster, and the only words that keep them at bay are, "ya no mas, ya no mas," with an imperial wag of the finger. I love them. AND. The Sappia's youngest son, Caleb, actually chased me around to get a kiss from me. I was so surprised. He's not a very social boy, and he doesn't do well in social situations, but he was perfectly okay with chasing me around yelling, "kiss me, kiss me!" It was a happy night for me. (:

i don't think i have any more toes.

Friday morning, Po and I had to get to the orphanage a half hour early so that we could leave a half hour early, since we were scheduled to have lunch with the Sappia family, the family of the lead pastor of Mi Esperanza. It takes almost an hour to get to the orphanage from our house. There are 15 minutes of walking from my house to the bus stop, 0-20 minutes waiting for the bus, anywhere from 10-30 minutes on the bus, and about 20 minutes of walking from the bus stop to the orphanage. We left the house at 8 am and didn't get to the orphanage until about 9. The bus ride was much less chaotic this time, and there was room for everyone to breathe. Breathing was nice. (:

When we got to the orphanage, Po and I went to our same respective rooms as last time, and I was glad that I already kind of knew the names of the kids in my room and the workers I would be with. It seemed much less difficult since I knew what was expected of the children and what semblance of a schedule we would attempt to hold. 

The workers recognized me and said hello when I came in the room, and one of the girls, whose name I couldn't get out of anyone, came running up to me, saying, "Tia, Tia, Tia, Tia!" I was so happy that they remembered me. My cuddler, Daniel, found me quickly as well, and spent more than half the class in my lap, handing plastic puzzle pieces to me to put together and then taking them apart once he had them back in his hands. He and another girl, Tati, traded me back and forth fairly often. Halfway through the morning, we took the boys to the bathroom, and went through almost the same procedure as last time. The difference this time was that we had them brush their teeth, and we didn't put diapers on them. I guess these kids are little enough that it's not a big deal that they don't wear underwear, but it still came as a shock that no one really minded leaving them without. Po said later that they might have been doing a form of potty training in which the ones who peed in their pants just had to live with the wet/cold, but the kids were taken as group to the bathroom. So there wasn't really any opportunity for them to choose between going to the bathroom early or peeing in their pants.
We fed them sweet rice with sausage for breakfast, and they played in the play room together until it was time to take naps. Po and I had to leave during nap time, because we were scheduled to be waiting at the church for Lisa Sappia (the pastor's wife) to pick us up at 11:45. [[By the by, I am slowly mastering the bus. I discovered this morning (Monday) on the way home from staff meeting, that it's all in the hips. If you plant your feet about shoulder-width apart and hold on tight to whichever greasy piece of bus-metal that you're currently holding, then your center of gravity is fluid enough that it can move with the momentum of the bus and you don't necessarily have to fall into the very-good-smelling guy with wonderful hair who is holding the bar in front of you. But that is another story: Latin men smell wonderful.]]
Lunch with the Sappia family was exactly what I needed. John gave us sheets of paper with all kinds of responsibilities, and we talked almost all the way through the lists before the tears began. I was doing a really really good job of keeping them in, until John said, "Now, Lula, I don't know you. Are you alright? I feel like you're shutting down on me, but I don't know you yet. How are you doing?" Firstly, I was amazed that he stopped what he was doing to address my partial emotional deterioration. Secondly, I was shocked that he cared that I was stressed out (about--you guessed it--the home visits). Thirdly and finally, it didn't make sense to me that it was okay for me to be stressed out as long as I was still committed to challenging myself and to getting the most out of my time here relationship-wise. But. All of those things were true. John told me that they weren't having Po and I do home visits because they couldn't do them or didn't want to. They (both John and Forest) wanted Po and I to be doing home visits so that we would be in the lives of the people we were working with. In Latin American countries in general, relationships are the most important things that anyone can have, and home visits are one of the ways that the missionaries here connect with the people to become parts of their everyday lives, so that the church is more like a body than a gathering. John and Forest want Po and I to be a part of that relationship link so that (in John's words) we don't leave here and say, "Oh, yes. Paraguay. That was nice. They had pretty good food," but instead that, when it comes time for us to leave, we have people to say goodbye to and relationships to miss. So that we know that we have built something in the time we were here. 
At the end of this meeting/lunch/conversation, John asked if we had any questions, and at first, I didn't. But I thought for a moment about why I felt so overwhelmed and I realized that since I had arrived, I had been given lists of tasks and appointments, but never had I caught on to the vision that the missionaries here were working towards. This was due to many things, one of which being that the Orientation class that interns/short term workers here normally take their first or second day had been postponed for me so many times that I had been here a week before I had an idea of why. It wasn't anyone's fault, but it was a problem for me. So I asked John what he saw the Lord doing here, and what their purpose in ministry was, and what end goal they were working towards. 
John told me about two miraculous healings that had occurred in the church, one last month(ish) and one five or six months ago. He told me about a man that had finally, after being in the church more than 8 years, accepted Christ as both his king and his redeemer. He told me about kids who loved the children's ministry so much that they were attracting other family members to the congregation. He told me how the children who come to Oansa (Awana, on Saturday mornings) and the teens who attend iPraise (guitar/keyboard lessons combined with youth group-like atmosphere and a bible lesson on Saturday nights) have no other Godly influence in their lives, and almost certainly no positive father figure. 
(Sunday night) I learned how the war that Paraguay had with Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina in the 1800's took the lives of 8 out of every 10 men of fighting age, destroyed the institution and cultural importance of marriage, and created a matriarchal family structure. I learned that Machis (manliness) is characterized by having multiple sexual relationships outside of marriage, abusing those under your power, being able to handle large amounts of alcohol, and being unpredictable. Marianis (femininity) means being soft and gentle, a virgin, submissive to every man, strong, the spiritual leader of your family, and reliable, since you'll have to run just about everything in your house.
John told me that their purpose is to raise up a new generation and to disciple the ones who are already adults. They want to foster Godly attitudes and character in a culture that calls them weak and useless. When I caught wind of what the Lord is doing here in Paraguay, all my tasks made sense. They all had meaning. I understand how each is important, and I know what I'm working towards. 
I am still praying about what the Lord's purpose is in me specifically being here, and what he'd like to teach me in my life through this experience, but I have caught the other vision, the long term one. When I told John why I asked what I asked, and about how I'd been given all tasks and no vision, He wrote on his paper to remind him, "Vision before tasks." After some of the experiences I've had in my life, it's incredible to be under the leadership of people who want to work with each other, to forgive each other, to talk about problems, out loud, together, and to fix what they can and forgive what they can't.

After lunch, Po and I an Lo went with the Schell's to one of Sarah's friend's houses for dinner, and we were there until almost 11pm. It was wonderful to be in the presence of all english-speakers, and to understand each other's jokes, and to play board games together and (for Forest and I) to win! (: Also, there was a fireplace in this lady's house. And for the first time in about a week, I felt my toes. 

it has been a day full of thinking.

**Sometimes I go on side rants/points. Bunny trails, if you will. Those will be in double brackets. You can skip them if you want, and the rest will still make sense. Also, comments seem to not be working, and I don't know what to do about that. If you'd like to talk to me about something I said or brought up, or even to say that you're praying for me, I'm all over facebook and my email address is llwellynmcamis@tfc.edu. Thank You!**

I woke up this morning and I was so surprised by the attitude that came out of me. Lo and Po and I were scheduled this morning to go visit some of the families of the Mi Esperanza church and of the children who attend the OANSA (awana) on Saturday mornings. I was originally supposed to go with another lady, but she cancelled because she had other things to do. The pastor wanted me to go with Lo and Po anyway, however, to get a handle on what we do during home visits and to practice my Spanish (which is, as I learned today, called "Castellana" here). In the waking moments of my brain's activity, however, it was very unfair that I had to get up and go visit people I didn't know when the other lady wasn't going to. By rights, I should get to stay in bed, right? Let me insert here that it's been drizzling and raining, off and on, for three days now. It is cold, and the air in my room was cold, and my nose was stuffy when I woke up. Also, since there is no interior heating and the houses here are made out of concrete blocks, the cold air readily seeps through the windows and hangs over my poor stuffy nose. Yes. It was a regular pity party in my room this morning. Also showering in air that cold with a stuffy nose should be a crime. 

Since it was raining, however, not many people would come out of their houses to acknowledge us, let alone talk to us. The first stop we made, the family took pity on us and invited us inside. After that, however, Lo simply went up to the gates to deliver the medicine she was bringing, because the people clearly did not want to be bothered on such a miserable day. I was relieved. Primarily, I was relieved because I'm embarrassed of my Spanish. Everyone makes out like I'm fluent and I know what I'm doing, but I don't know just about anything of conjugations, and the words don't come to my mind readily when I'm trying to explain something. More often than not, when I'm called upon to speak, all my Spanish disappears and it takes half my English with it. I thought in the car for a while about what I was going to do when it came time for me to go on visits by myself, and I think the thought actually made me a little nauseous. But what I have realized is this: I have got to stop looking at Ministry as something where I have all of my buttons in one bowl. (hahahaha. I just made that up.) I don't know why this never comes to my mind in the moment, but if I will just admit to people that I probably don't know what I'm doing, then they're much more likely to be forgiving when I use a word here that means something completely different than it did in Costa Rica.  

I think the real problem here is that I have not come to a point where I have an intentional purpose for being where I am and doing what I'm doing. This has literally been a theme for all of my life. That's embarrassing. Also, it's scary. It's scary that the Lord brought together enough money to send me to the other half of the world, and I don't have a specific purpose in mind for being here. But maybe I do. Maybe there is something in my mind that I want to do, because when Forest Schell (Sarah's husband--they planted Mi Esperanza) asked me why I was here, I told him I wanted to have a permanent and lasting impact on something in the world. I wanted to do something lasting. And that is a true and noble cause, indeed, but the problem comes when I try to decide, at the end of all this, if I have or have not had a permanent and lasting impact on anything. 

[[Here is what it comes to: life doesn't come with a soundtrack, usually the lighting sucks, and you don't often get to see the final outcome of what you planted. Believe you me: we have tons of experience with this in the Prayer Room at my college. Many, many, many times, the Lord puts something on our hearts to pray for, and we pray for it. I have been praying for freedom and for revival for almost three years at my college...and it is only every couple of months that I get a glimpse of something that looks a little like freedom or revival. Does that mean that the Lord isn't answering our prayers? Absolutely not. He has never been unfaithful, and He will not start now.]]

I feel like an outsider here, and that's natural. I've not even been here a week, I'm not fluent in the language, I don't understand (fully) the monetary system, the traffic scares the poop out of me (almost), and I don't know anyone except the girl I share a room with. Not really, really know. And so, like so many times in the past year of my life, I find myself kind of floating, a little bit alone and a little bit crowded. A little bit overwhelmed and a little bit passive. I don't like it.

[[There was a time between school and Paraguay that was dedicated to rest and a complete lack of responsibility. That is a good thing, and beautiful thing. My mentor, a missionary lady from Cambodia, says in reference to rest: "I think it is time for all of the things to stop." I love that. You can see how she's a good mentor for me. (: One day I will understand the difference between taking time for required rest (even in the midst of a struggle) and becoming stagnant or giving up. Far too often, the first turns into the latter, but just as often, the first is ignored for fear of the latter. So we must all draw careful lines.]]

I don't like it because I don't know how to get out of it. I don't want this to be the norm, and I feel like it has been for far too long.  A friend from school has been talking for a while about being on the sidelines, and how it's time for him to get back in the battle, and I think I might be in the same place. I am thinking that "too long" is just about approaching for me. It is time to re-enter the battle. I am going to ask the Lord for a specific direction that He would like me to move in while I am here in Paraguay. I would like you to pray with me. I don't want a task to accomplish or an objective to fulfill; I want to know where His heart would have my heart try to lead other hearts. Am I making sense? I don't want a grocery list where failure is perfectly defined and the stakes are high enough to discourage me. I don't want the Ikea instruction manual to a perfectly organized cross-cultural ministry. I don't want a honey-do list that I can't accomplish, and I certainly don't want to expect disappointment in His eyes. [[side note: how could an omniscient God ever be disappointed?]] I want to know where His heart is and follow it, no matter how dark the road, how bumpy the path, or how dangerous the sounds from under the brush.

Since today was so rainy and think-y, and we didn't have a whole lot to do, I spent quite a bit of time thinking. The first conclusion I came to was that I miss the jungle. I don't know if I will ever stop missing the jungle. Asuncion is beautiful, but I miss the song of the jungle outside my window at night. I love Latin culture, but I still don't like cities. I do not think those two things will change. The second conclusion that I came to was that I am not at home here either. I will not be at home here, just like I will not be at home anywhere on this earth. I think ever since the end of my junior year of high school, when I stood on the stairs between my bedroom and the living room and realized that the house I lived in was no longer my home, I have been running to something. I have been running as hard as I can, and I have been searching frantically for somewhere that I can call home. I haven't found it yet. Sometimes I think that if I just run fast enough, I will arrive somewhere, I will see someone, and I will say, "Oh. This is where I am supposed to be." And I am not saying that Paraguay is not where I am supposed to be. I am saying that my heart will not be at rest until I am Home, and that Home is Jesus. You know when you haven't cried in a long time, and then you do, and right before the tears fall, your eyes hurt, like it's painful to make the tears? That's what my heart feels like when I think about Home.

Another conclusion I came to is that a part of the reason I came to Paraguay was because I love adventure. I have accepted it: I like change. I want things to shift and move. I don't want to be in the same place for the rest of my life. I suppose that there will come a time when I will stop searching for an ideal place and decide that the one I am  in is perfect for my family and I, but for now, for now. And I have been struck since I have been here how normal everything is. People have the same struggles here as they do in America. They're impatient with traffic and they have to budget their money and they don't always get what they want. Some are poor and some are rich; some are friendly and some are not. They wear cologne and tight pants and their children cause a ruckus in the grocery store and sometimes they pick their noses on the bus when they think no one is looking. They don't always know what to believe, and sometimes they don't care, and the appreciate beauty and nature and cool looking buildings. So why am I here? What am I here to do? There is nothing special about me. I don't even speak their language very well. What am I doing more than 6,000 miles away from my home, in a place where I don't know anything about anything about anything, thinking I am going to help someone? 

Before, when I would ask these questions, a sort of strange depression would set in. These questions have always been the source of my discouragement, because I didn't know the answers. I couldn't justify the actions of my Father in placing me exactly where I was, and I couldn't answer for how I had stewarded the time I had been given in the place where I was. I think this time that will not be the case, simply because of the above paragraph with the bold letters. I know that there will be people praying for me, and I know that I will be praying. And for now, my purpose will be to find where Jesus is and put myself there. 

sometimes all you need is a 20 minute nap in Kate's bed. also another cup of coffee.

This morning (Wednesday) we got up early enough to be ten minutes away at 8am and look like our brains were on for an organization/prayer group of the Alliance missionaries in Asuncion. The meeting was wonderful and lasted about four hours. They called it my welcome breakfast, and we had fruit and coffee and french toast casserole and an egg casserole with bacon (YUM BACON) and it was all around quite lovely. It's funny how as soon as someone says, "tell us a little bit about yourself," you forget absolutely every fact you ever knew about yourself and can't remember even your own name. Also, you start thinking, "hmm, what interesting things can I tell these people about my interesting life and my awesome sense of humor?" And then you try to make a joke and forget all your english. It just evaporates out of your head. Then you really start thinking, and you realize your life isn't really all that interesting and everything that makes you sound distinguished in the Estados Unidos just makes you sound kind of silly when you say it here. So yes. I had a mild internal identity crisis this morning, over coffee and mangoes.
When the meeting was done, Sarah showed me the budget sheet and kind of where my money will go while I'm here. I pay my own rent and utilities and I buy my own groceries. I also ride the bus just about wherever I need to go, unless Lo is going there as well, in which case, Po and I ride with her. 
When the money/business things were finished up, Lo, Sarah, Po and I went to a place called God's Pan, which means "God's Bread." I'm not sure why they used the English for God, but that's what it is. Lo wanted to go to check out prices for Paraguayan Stroganoff (a very different thing than american stroganoff) for a short term team coming in Sunday morning. God's Pan is a type of restaurant called comida por kilo, which means "food by the kilo," or "food by weight." Basically you see what they have and pay for how many kilos you want. I mean, unless it's for a party, people don't usually walk in and buy six kilos of alfredo, but the main point is that there's a unit price and you pay by the weight of the amount of food you want. 
After that, Po and I went back to Sarah's house and ate our empanadas from God's Pan. I had one ham and cheese empanada and one chicken empanada. I think I liked the ham and cheese better, because their chicken (like in the tarte I had for lunch on monday and dinner today) was ground and mixed with some vegetables and spices. I like chicken, but the ground stuff is a strange texture. 
So after lunch, Sarah and Po and I started talking about schedules for the next couple weeks. I didn't have a planner at that point, and we were discussing logistics for 3 or 4 appointments a day, for 14 different days. My mind almost exploded. I am a very visual person, and so I like to write things in a linear manner (like in a planner) [hey, manner, planner! haha] and sort them all ouot in my brain until I can remember them in their correct spots. But all of this information, you see, was bouncing around in my head like 27 children drinking Red Bull in a bouncy house. I hope you all enjoy that visual. (: So my mental state was very quickly going downhill, but I was making a pretty solid effort to stay focused and keep working. I guess my eyes were starting to do something weird, because Sarah looked up at me and said, "Let me know when we're reaching overload, okay? We're doing tons of information today, so we can totally take breaks." I then asked if I could just put my head down for a couple minutes, but Sarah promptly banished me from the dining room while she made a few organizational calls, and told me I would be retrieved from Kate's (one of the twins) bed when I was needed again.
I can't even tell you how grateful I was for Kate's bed. With its fluffy pink pillow and pink and yellow quilt (both matching Little Lauren's across the room), there was nothing more I could ask for in the napping arena. I don't think I even fell asleep, but I talked to Jesus a little bit and mentally pulled all of the poky information out of my brain so it could organize itself on the pillow while I closed my eyes and smiled.
When we finished with all the logistics and planning talk, about a half hour later, and Forest had drawn the most beautiful map of our area of Asuncion in the back of my journal, complete with highlighted bus routes and labeled streets and starred missionary houses, we decided to go to the store to get a new sim card for the Nokia brick that was to be my cell phone. It cost about $7.50 (30 mil guaranias) to get a new sim card and quite a few minutes, and then Sarah left Po and I in the mall to find the SuperSeis (another version of the HiperSeis, a grocery store/ supermarket) and ride the bus home. 
Let me tell you about that bus. Every time I get on the bus, it's right before dinner, and we eat dinner very late here in Paraguay. Also my lunches have been pretty small, and so I'm generally pretty hungry. But on both days we've ridden buses, I've been particularly hungry, and the adrenaline rush of bus riding (not a joke) actually causes my blood sugar to drop. The first time we rode a bus, it was raining outside, which meant everyone was inside, and there was barely anyone on the bus. Today, however, was my second time on the bus, and there was no rain. I am telling you, if I had let go of that pipe that goes along the top of the bus that you're supposed to hold onto, I would not have fallen over. and everyone who gets on the bus permiso's their way to the back of the bus so they can be right there when it's time to get off. Well let me tell you what. When it was my turn to get to the back of that bus, they were stacked four thick on each side, plus the ones in the seats. It was kind of like popping a pimple. Sorry, bad analogy. Ummm. It was kind of like...nope. Pimple analogy is all I've got. I kept moving further and further back, and the further back I got in the bus, the more people there were, and the tighter the squeeze. There was a peak point where I seriously just had to shove through. Also may I note that Lauren shouted for the bus driver to wait because he was about to leave because Lauren had already safely and soundly gotten off, and he wasn't waiting any longer. However. We are both alive. In these kinds of situations, I am especially tempted to be ashamed of my US American-ness, as well as my body size and manly voice and whatever else I can think of. But when it comes down to it, everybody rides the bus and everybody gets squished. Let me tell you. It is very strange to have that many strangers' butts touch your butt (yes, accidentally, but still) in one afternoon and have to tell yourself that this is a culturally acceptable form of communication. You heard me. Bus people communicate through butts.  
Also elbows.
It has been a long day. (: