So imagine this for a moment: you are asleep in your bed, having wonderful dreams. And then around 1:30am you wake up to the sound that's the equivalent of hail hitting your car in the winter (something I don't have a lot of experience with but work with me). But of course, after a second your brain realizes it's the rainy season in Belize and considering your house has a tin roof, rain is hitting basically a giant speaker system. Then it hits you.. "Whoa! Next Thursday I will be getting ready to board a plane to go home!!" Which gets you thinking about everything you have experienced the past six months and things you hope to experience when you get home and the next thing you know it's 4am and you haven't really done much sleeping. The whole point of that story is me saying that I GET TO BE HOME IN A WEEK!! And again, not that I don't love Belize, I just really miss America.
But before I get carried away, here is a little bit of what has been going on. Last Thursday, I got to go back to 7 Miles because one of my host sisters was graduating primary school! It took our siblings a bit to warm back up to us but it didn't take long for us to pick right back up where we left off. Our 7 Miles parents were super excited to have us back. They even begged us to stay the night with them but considering it's an hour car ride to get back to Santa Elena and there is no phone reception, we had to say no and return home. It was hard leaving them the first time when we knew we were
going to be coming back but it was really hard to leave them that time. We left with the hope that maybe one day God will give us an opportunity to return to this family that loved us like one of their own.
This week has been one full of projects to keep ourselves busy while we prepare for returning home. There is a week long team in a city not too far from where we are so a few of us have gone every day to help out with their project. It is a fine line between being helpful and being invasive. One of their leaders asked us to give their group a summary of what our trip is about which is nice sometimes to be reminded that yeah, what we are doing is pretty cool! It can be easy to (in a weird way) take this trip for granted because it is our life for the moment. But it is actually pretty awesome.
Yesterday we went to this place called "A Painted Conversation". This lady had this vision to create a mural that represents this area and get people of the community involved in making something beautiful. I'm not exactly sure how she put it together but basically, she created this image on the computer that she traces block by block onto these very large painting papers and creates like a paint by number. Then groups or individuals can come in and paint part of it and when it is finished, it will be a big, beautiful masterpiece inspired and put together by members of this community. It was really cool just listening to her vision of the mural and explaining everything she feels like it represents. Plus, I find paint by numbers very relaxing and they require no actual talent so it was right up my ally!
Since this is my last blog post before I return home, I would like to end it with something for you to contemplate. And not just in a "hmm... interesting" way but in a "whoa! Maybe I should really think/ pray about that" kind of way. So the other day, we were downtown and we saw someone had grafittied "Be dangerous. It's safe out there." Which at first just seems kind of funny because normally you would switch the words "safe" and "dangerous" but then I got thinking about how
different life would be if we lived like that. Not just like in a way where we would maybe go on more adventures but what if you lived your spiritual life dangerously? It's so easy to live our lives in a spiritual safety zone with our safe churches. And safe friends. But what would happen if you let God lead you out of that safety net? I don't want to really give examples of that because I don't want to limit your ideas but think about it. What would happen if you decided to live dangerously for Christ? Yeah, it's kind of a scary thought but God breathed galaxies into exhistance! He can do some pretty cool stuff! Why not be a part of it? Who knows, you might get to do something cool like live for a while in some cool foreign places ;)
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
I Can't Belize It!
This past week we reached a very pivital date. June 12th marked 5 months since we left home and officially less than 3 weeks until we get to be back! This trip has been great and I definitely wouldn't trade my experience for anything but being away from home for so long really makes you miss it a lot. Especially because it seems the closer we get, the more we dream about being home. Maybe because we can actually deram about all the things we miss with the hope it will one day soon be our reality. Belize really isn't all that bad though. For instance, I am currently writing this blog from an air conditioned ice cream shop... Sometimes you just kind of need to spoil yourself a bit :)
The weekend was a very fun but very crazy one. Our sister had her quinceanera on Sunday which meant all this past week, we had various people coming in and out of our house helping our mom with cooking and preparing decorations. Saturday night, we had like 20 people come over to our house to help make tamales. Like several hundred tamales. And since Bekah an I are unexperienced tamale makers, we were given the glamorous job of cleaning leaves (which if you have never made tamales before, it acutally is an important part of the process). Oh and if you read my last blog post, I said we were going to try to get fun party dresses. Well, we kept going in and out of stores confused why none of the stuff was fitting us properly until someone finally told us that all of the clothes are in petite sizes. And considering I am 5'8" and my roommate is 5'10", it's no wonder none of this stuff fit us. We didn't need to start weight watchers when we got home, we just are a lot bigger than the people that live here are. So even though we had to wear the same church apparel that we have been wearing for the past 5 months, we still had a good time at the party... Until a rain storm decided to come through and make an appearance. Picture experiencing a small hurricane in a building with no windows and a tin roof. It makes it sound and feel a lot more dramatic than it probably was but it definitely sent everyone in a panic. But hey, at least it wasn't hot anymore.
So as you may or may not know, our team is the first immersion team to come to Belize which is cool because it's new to not just us but also to our organization but also hard because we don't really have any of the solid connections we have had in the other places. Which leaves your team with two options: either be bored and frustrated or go out and find stuff to do! So some people on our team have started making connections for us to get involved with some preschools and apparently Thursday we are going to go paint a mural that will be put up on some public place. So we will be getting to make a visible mark on the community. Maybe it will be something other teams will get to see and know that we did that!
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of love. Love of family. Love of friends. Love of strangers. Love of people who maybe are difficult to love. In God's mind, choosing to love people isn't an option. It's the only option. Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God with all we got and love our neighbors as ourselves. There doesn't need to be any more instructions than that because if we are so focused on loving others and loving God, we won't want to commit sin that would hurt them. Everything else just kind of falls into place when we put the needs of ourselves aside and love others with everything inside of us. And that's what I am going to keep doing for these last 16 days. Loving with all of my everything.
The weekend was a very fun but very crazy one. Our sister had her quinceanera on Sunday which meant all this past week, we had various people coming in and out of our house helping our mom with cooking and preparing decorations. Saturday night, we had like 20 people come over to our house to help make tamales. Like several hundred tamales. And since Bekah an I are unexperienced tamale makers, we were given the glamorous job of cleaning leaves (which if you have never made tamales before, it acutally is an important part of the process). Oh and if you read my last blog post, I said we were going to try to get fun party dresses. Well, we kept going in and out of stores confused why none of the stuff was fitting us properly until someone finally told us that all of the clothes are in petite sizes. And considering I am 5'8" and my roommate is 5'10", it's no wonder none of this stuff fit us. We didn't need to start weight watchers when we got home, we just are a lot bigger than the people that live here are. So even though we had to wear the same church apparel that we have been wearing for the past 5 months, we still had a good time at the party... Until a rain storm decided to come through and make an appearance. Picture experiencing a small hurricane in a building with no windows and a tin roof. It makes it sound and feel a lot more dramatic than it probably was but it definitely sent everyone in a panic. But hey, at least it wasn't hot anymore.
So as you may or may not know, our team is the first immersion team to come to Belize which is cool because it's new to not just us but also to our organization but also hard because we don't really have any of the solid connections we have had in the other places. Which leaves your team with two options: either be bored and frustrated or go out and find stuff to do! So some people on our team have started making connections for us to get involved with some preschools and apparently Thursday we are going to go paint a mural that will be put up on some public place. So we will be getting to make a visible mark on the community. Maybe it will be something other teams will get to see and know that we did that!
Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the concept of love. Love of family. Love of friends. Love of strangers. Love of people who maybe are difficult to love. In God's mind, choosing to love people isn't an option. It's the only option. Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God with all we got and love our neighbors as ourselves. There doesn't need to be any more instructions than that because if we are so focused on loving others and loving God, we won't want to commit sin that would hurt them. Everything else just kind of falls into place when we put the needs of ourselves aside and love others with everything inside of us. And that's what I am going to keep doing for these last 16 days. Loving with all of my everything.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
Last Stop: Santa Elana!
Well, I didn't think we would ever actually get here but we have finally made it to our last stop on our trip! Last Saturday, we made our last move from 7 Miles to Santa Elana, Belize. Which even though both are in Belize, they are very different because Santa Elana is a city and we haven't lived in a city for a while. It is kind of weird to be around so much traffic and so close to so many stores. And this isn't even that big of a city! Further proof of how going home is going to be a major adjustment.
Our last few weeks in 7 Miles were ones filled with lots of adventure hikes and even more peanuts. But Rachel and I did manage to get all of them done! Our family obviously did most of the work because apparently we are not very fast. Our last day, our family took us to the river for one last day of swimming. We got to play around in the water with our siblings and even started teaching them how to swim! The thing that was so amazing about our 7 Miles family is how much they felt like family. We have lived with several different families throughout our trip and although I have never felt like I didn't belong in a house or questioned their hospitality, this family made me feel like one of their own. Like our parents really became our parents and took care of us when we were sick and our siblings really became our siblings and we all laughed like siblings and sometimes even got on each other's nerves like real brothers and sisters. There were lots of tears and hugs when we left. But hopefully, God will let me come back to visit my 7 Miles family.
In my Santa Elana family, I have my parents and then 2 teenage sisters and a 12 year old brother, which it is fun having siblings closer to my age. Our dad is a brick mason and our mom keeps herself busy selling kitchen products and helping make food for all of the parties that we attend. Which with all of the graduations and stuff going on right now is a lot. Plus, we go to church like all the time. Like if people got doughnuts every time they went to church, the whole country would have diabetes. And one of our sisters is having her quinceanera next Sunday!! So we have been helping get all of the decorations together and our sisters are helping us go shopping for the perfect party dress. It is actually very helpful to be so busy because it helps distract from the fact we are so close to being home!! (as of 6/4 we are 28 days away from being home!)
So I have been reading through 1 and 2 Kings because I don't really even know when I have read those through all the way and I came across this story that just blew my mind! It's found in 2 Kings 6 and Elisha is in a sticky situation because a king wants him dead and has surrounded the city he is in with an army. So naturally, Elisha's friend that is with him starts freaking out because there doesn't really seem to be a way out. Then Elisha prays that God will open his friend's eyes and his friend looks again and the Bible says he saw "the hills full of horses and chariots of fire". Like what?! Can you imagine how cool that must have been to see?? And the thing is that God has us surrounded by His army all the time, keeping us safe from all that is after us. Like that song by Chris Tomlin! God's angel army is by our side!
Our last few weeks in 7 Miles were ones filled with lots of adventure hikes and even more peanuts. But Rachel and I did manage to get all of them done! Our family obviously did most of the work because apparently we are not very fast. Our last day, our family took us to the river for one last day of swimming. We got to play around in the water with our siblings and even started teaching them how to swim! The thing that was so amazing about our 7 Miles family is how much they felt like family. We have lived with several different families throughout our trip and although I have never felt like I didn't belong in a house or questioned their hospitality, this family made me feel like one of their own. Like our parents really became our parents and took care of us when we were sick and our siblings really became our siblings and we all laughed like siblings and sometimes even got on each other's nerves like real brothers and sisters. There were lots of tears and hugs when we left. But hopefully, God will let me come back to visit my 7 Miles family.
In my Santa Elana family, I have my parents and then 2 teenage sisters and a 12 year old brother, which it is fun having siblings closer to my age. Our dad is a brick mason and our mom keeps herself busy selling kitchen products and helping make food for all of the parties that we attend. Which with all of the graduations and stuff going on right now is a lot. Plus, we go to church like all the time. Like if people got doughnuts every time they went to church, the whole country would have diabetes. And one of our sisters is having her quinceanera next Sunday!! So we have been helping get all of the decorations together and our sisters are helping us go shopping for the perfect party dress. It is actually very helpful to be so busy because it helps distract from the fact we are so close to being home!! (as of 6/4 we are 28 days away from being home!)
So I have been reading through 1 and 2 Kings because I don't really even know when I have read those through all the way and I came across this story that just blew my mind! It's found in 2 Kings 6 and Elisha is in a sticky situation because a king wants him dead and has surrounded the city he is in with an army. So naturally, Elisha's friend that is with him starts freaking out because there doesn't really seem to be a way out. Then Elisha prays that God will open his friend's eyes and his friend looks again and the Bible says he saw "the hills full of horses and chariots of fire". Like what?! Can you imagine how cool that must have been to see?? And the thing is that God has us surrounded by His army all the time, keeping us safe from all that is after us. Like that song by Chris Tomlin! God's angel army is by our side!
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