Surprised by Joy

When I was on the race the Lord taught me a lot about choosing joy. It’s something that I have to constantly remind myself to do, and sometimes I choose not to be joyful. We can let the little things frustrate us, and bring us down, or we can laugh about it and choose to be joyful. Today the Lord gave us the opportunity to choose joy and what a blessing it turned out to be.

Every afternoon after school, Ming, the daughter of the pastor, takes us home and drops us off right in front of our gate. This afternoon, when I opened the gate, I couldn’t get it to close. That was just the beginning of our problems. Terri went to open the door to our house and both doors were locked from the inside. There was no way in. We found a coat hanger and tried to pick the lock that locked the door to the floor, but it was a futile attempt. We called the pastor, and he said he would be there in a few minutes. Terri and I decided we would just wait on our swing. Just when we thought that matters couldn’t have gotten any worse that’s when it started to sprinkle. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t really have to use the bathroom.

But then that’s when I saw her. Badee.

A student from school who despite our language barrier always seemed to find me and stay by my side after school until her ride came.  I decided I would go and try and talk to her, and I found some more friends. I recognized a few of them from church on Sunday. I tried to talk to them, but they were being silly boys and making up words when I asked for their name, so I walked back to the house. Meanwhile, the pastor came over and we showed him what had happened. The children had of course followed me, and were now in our front yard. The pastor had the children move a table over to the benches. The table was really heavy, so Terri and I helped them. When we turned around, the pastor had fixed the door!! I ran inside, went to the bathroom, and grabbed some candies that I had picked up a few days before from a 7-11. The kids were so thankful for the snack, and we played rock, paper, scissors for a while.

It didn’t take long before we were tired of playing that game; so naturally, I started a game of tickle tag. At first, it was just me tickling the kids, but they soon came after me too! We even had the opportunity to review a song we taught some the children at church and teach it to the others! I will never forget the smile on Ba Dee face as she sung, “God our father…”. I taught the kids a silly song that is similar to “Father Abraham”. They really enjoyed that! One of the girls went back to her home and brought back a home-made jump rope and badminton equipment.  We had so much fun! Praise God for the opportunity to build relationships with these kids and to be able to give them a safe place to play. When Ming came to pick us up for dinner, we let the kids stay in our yard. She just told one of the boys to close the gate when they left.

Thank you Lord for your sovereignty and for taking what could have been a frustrating experience and turning it into a blessing. Thank you for surprising us with joy!

A Guatemalan Song

Throw back Sunday! Ok not really, I just have been procrastinating to write this blog. :-) But it's written now. So enjoy! 

While I was in Guatemala, I felt like the Lord was leading me to read through Psalms. So I did. While I was reading the poems of David (and other authors) it dawned on me that I hadn't written poetry in a while. Here's a little fact about me, I used to write poetry all the time. I have journals from when I was in middle school that only have poems written in them. So why had I stopped? Was I too busy to be still and just enjoy the presence of God? Feeling convicted, I started to write. I'll spare you the words I wrote down then. They were forced, and I was trying so hard to have the words rhyme and they didn't connect. It wasn't time yet. A couple of weeks went by, and we are having one of our last family times with our Casa Verde family. This time, I felt the Holy Spirit lead me to write these words:

There is hope in the darkness.
There is a light with in us.
We've got the Good News.
Let's go.

He wipes away every tear.
He casts away every fear.
What do we have to lose?
Let's go.

There are people that are hurting
There are people who need healing
all we have to do is choose
Let's go!

Little did I know that I was writing a song. The chorus came last:

To the nations we will go.
By fulfilling His mission we grow.
Give God the glory
For He alone is worthy.
Let's spread His fame
and glorify His name.

I almost choose to not go to Guatemala. I had a fear of missing out. Missing out on what? Well, the Revelation Series at church, and hanging out with my friends. Well, that's why we have podcasts and Skype. :-) The consequences of not going to Guatemala were greater. Those four months were a blessing, a gift from the Lord. I grew so much in my knowledge of him, and in wisdom. I learned how to "love the least of these" and to love those who are difficult to love.

And now, a few months later, as I am getting ready to go to Thailand, I'm asking myself, what do I have to lose? Yes, I will probably miss out on a few weddings, and graduations. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Why? Because God alone is worthy of the worship of every.single.being. This life is temporary, and I want it to have an eternal impact. That's why we go.

Training Camp

I have been looking forward to May 18th for a very long time. May 18th, there's something about that date! 05/18/2011 was the day that my Race ended and 05/18/2013 is the day when this new journey is actually beginning.

Anyways, let's start from the beginning. I arrive at the airport and am picked up at the airport where I meet Terri, the girl who is going to be my partner for the next two years. We drop off our bags and walk over to Jim's office. He is our director and is over the Thailand teachers program. At this meeting we are told all the details that I've been wanting to know for weeks. We will be living in the Nakhon Phanom Province, which borders Laos. We will most likely be staying on campus in a house.  We don't know if the house will be furnished, or have AC, or even if it will have a western toilet, but we're excited to found out!!

When we first arrive to Thailand we will have one week of training in Chiang Mai and then two weeks of training and getting acclimated to village life. Then we will start teaching in mid October. Because Terri and I will be the only teachers for a while, we will have visitors (other Christian workers) who live in Chiang Mai come visit us once a month. Hopefully, in May, more Americans will come join our team!

After that meeting with Jim we had dinner and orientation. The next morning we got to Skype with our contacts in Thailand. The rest of the week was filled with teaching sessions. Sessions on disciple- making, peace-making, child safety, world-view, crisis and security. As well as going over fundraising and insurance policies.

So what did I learn in all those sessions? I'm glad you asked! We learned that all trials will tempt us to sin, but no trail will cause us to sin. Negative responses to trials reveal the sinful lusts in our hearts, and that true change begins with heart repentance. True change restores God's image in us. Basically, in every day life we will face trials and temptations. We are responsible for how we respond to them. We can either respond in a fleshly manner or a godly one. And when we respond in a negative manner it will reveal some thing in us that requires change.  

My favorite session was on world view and learning on how to learn culture. There are 12 different aspects of language. They are verbal, written, numeric, pictorial, artifactual, audio, kinesic, optical, tactile, spacial, temporal, & olfactory, pretty much the five senses. We were told to keep a work book of all our observations and reflections of our culture. Then we got to practice it! We walked a few blocks to the grocery store and made observations. After about 30 minutes we came back to the conference room and talked about our observations. We wanted to find out what about this grocery store made this a Kansas City grocery store? One team mate suggested it was the whole shelf dedicated to mayonnaise and bbq sauce. :-)

Overall it was a great couple of days and I'm super excited to see what the Lord has in store for us in Thailand.

Terri and me!

Brokenness Revisited

I remember the first time I experienced brokenness. I had just returned from spending three weeks in Chiang Mai, Thailand; where I had spent most of my time working with orphans. Those children stole my heart and taught me so much about the Father's love, more so than I taught them!I was such a mess. I cried a whole lot and wanted to drop out of school and move to the orphanage. I remember my heart physically aching to be back in that country, a feeling I am now experiencing again...

The Lord knew what He was doing when He sent me to Guatemala. He sent me there to lead my amazing team, and to have my heart break once again for the things that break His. So many times the Lord allows our hearts to be broken so that He can heal and restore them. In my spare time these past few weeks, I've been looking through pictures and reminiscing on my time in Guatemala. I hear stories about how the Lord is moving in the people I left behind. I rejoice with tears. Then I realize my tears are not just tears of joy, but tears of sorrow because I want to be there, and I'm not.

As I am writing this blog, my iTunes chooses to play the song Give Me Faith and the lyrics hit me straight to the heart:

I need You, to soften my heart, and break me apart. I need you to open my eyes, and see that You're shaping my life. All I am, I surrender. Give me faith to trust what you say. That You're good and Your love is great. I'm broken inside, I give you my life.

My problem is I don't trust the Lord with Andres, Dani, Carlos and Maria. I want to be the one Andres runs to when he falls. I want to be the one he talks to and plays with. I want to see Dani sing in her church and make sure that she lives in a loving home. I want to be Maria's friend and hold her hand when she cries and paint her nails to make her feel valued. I want to make her laugh! I want to be there in the dump and make sure Carlos doesn't get involved with the wrong group of friends.These are all good things but they are so selfish. The Lord wants all these things and so much more for these people I have grown to love so much. He loves them more than I ever could. He alone can satisfy their every need. Pray that I would have faith to trust Him with their lives. I have no problem trusting Him with mine. I want to save them, but I am no savior. He alone is mighty to save. 
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Home

Home, it's such a relative word, and I don't think I even know what it means anymore, much less where mine is.

The first place I ever lived, I don't remember at all. All I know is that it was in Mexico City. When we moved to the States we rented a nice little green house. Three bedroom one bathroom. After a few years of living there we moved once again to a beautiful brick house in West Homewood. When I was 19 years old I put on my big girl pants and moved to Riverside, Ca. California Baptist University would be my home for the next four years. My closest friends were my roommates, and my peers lived in my neighborhood. It was there that I experienced Christian Community for the first time. I loved it! While at CBU I had the opportunity to visit several different countries and for 3 weeks after my Sophomore year Tegucigalpa, Honduras was home.

 Little did I know that after my Junior year I would go to Chiang Mai, Thailand and my life would be changed forever. I will never forget stepping off the plane and having the humidity hit me, and saying, "it feels like home outside." Little did I know that in just three weeks my heart would find the place where I felt most at home. 

Oh Tailandia ¡me encanta!

Senior Year I would visit Hawaii during spring break and live in Turkey for 5 weeks. Calling each place home while I was there. When I moved back to Alabama I started going to Brook Hills and joined an amazing small group there, and together we went to Peru. It was amazing to visit the place where my grandfather had grown up, with friends that were like family.

Some of us in Peru!

 By this time I was no longer living with my parents but with a wonderful friend in an apartment in Hoover. I was on my own. Paying rent and bills. I was a real adult. Until some sketchy stuff happened in our apartment complex and we decided that it was no longer a good idea for us to live there. She moved in with a wonderful family, and I moved in back with my parents. Which ended up being a good idea because I was just about to go on the World Race and needed to start saving money! On the race I lived in 10 different places, in four different countries, in 7 different cities. Each one I called home. 

The view from our hostel in Cambodia

After the race I went with Adventures in Missions (the same organization that did the World Race) to Nicaragua. I helped lead 26 college students and for 2 months that place was home.

Sunset in Nica

It was time to move back home. Or at least to my parents house. While I was away, they had decided to move from the house that I had grew up in to another house in Hoover. After about 10 months of being in Birmingham it was time for me to leave again and I went to Thailand for the Summer. It was my third time in that country, and the Lord confirmed to me that I would be spending a majority of my life there, however, I was so ready to return to Alabama by the end of the Summer. After being back at my parents house for a couple of weeks, AIM asked me to lead the Fall trip to Guatemala, and the Lord made it pretty evident that I would need to spend my Fall there. Which leads me to where I am today.

at the special needs school

 The past 3 months have been absolutely amazing. I have grown very much attached to this place. Puerto Barrios, Guatemala has become home. The Lord has blessed me with an amazing community of girls here to lead and do life with. The people we have met have been so generous and hospitable. I have learned so much about the body of Christ. I don't know what "home" will look like when I return. I know it will be different. Some of my closest friends no longer live in Alabama. I have changed while I have been here, and so have the ones I left behind. I don't know how long exactly I will call Alabama home, before I pack up and leave again. Someone once said, "Home is where the heart is," well if that's true, then my heart is broken. My heart is in California, Thailand, Guatemala, Cambodia, and Alabama, because people I love are in those places. It's been really hard living with a broken heart. I wish I could take everyone with me/be in all these places at the same time. But we all know that can't happen. The good news is, that this world is not my home. And one day I won't have to decide where to live so that I can be with all the people that mean so much to me, because we will all be living together with our King.

One less orphan

I knew coming to Guatemala that I would get to have lots of cultural experiences. However, I never thought I'd have to experience a Guatemalan funeral. Julio was just a baby when he went on to be with the Lord. We met him at the orphanage. As soon as I met Julio, I knew why he was there. See, Julio was born with a cleft palate, and his mother looking on his physical deformity didn't want him. Reminds me of someone else I know, Isaiah prophesied what the Messiah would look like: He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him (53:2a).

However, his story is more tragic than that, not only did his mother not want him, she took him to the local garbage dump, and left him there. As soon as he was born, he was literally thrown away. The person who was supposed to love him and treasure him, thought of him as garbage. Fortunately, the people at the basurero thought more of him and took him to the orphanage. There he received so much love, from the staff and from several teams. A medical team of doctors from the US had come to Guatemala to do free surgeries. His first surgery went really well. The team had come back for the second surgery and it seemed that all would be well. However, during the night, liquid filled his lungs and he was gone. As I was struggling to find peace with the loss of this precious baby boy the Lord reminded me, that Julio is in a much better place. He will no longer be rejected by men because of what he looks like. Julio never had the opportunity to be loved by a mother and a father here on this earth, but he will forever be in the presence of the Heavenly Father. Julio is no longer an orphan. He is in his Daddy's arms, and will never be hurt by this world again. To be honest, I'm a little bit jealous. The Lord says that He makes all things work out for our good and His glory. Just like God received glory through the death of His Son, I know He will receive glory through the death of this precious child. The medical team that operated on Julio was not a "Christian" medical team. I am praying that through his death they may come to find the One who can give eternal life. 

At some point after the funeral, one of my teammates started singing Beautiful Things by Gungor, I want to share some of the lyrics with you:

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth

Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

That's exactly what the Lord wants to do! What the world sees as garbage, the Lord sees as treasure, and He takes us and refines us and makes us beautiful.

There is now one less orphan on this earth; but Julio never really was an orphan. He may not have been wanted by his biological mother, but he was never forgotten by his Heavenly Father, and neither are we.

Seasons

A few days ago, during team time, we asked the Lord what we needed to surrender so that we could fully be present for our last month in Guatemala. I realized that I had been trying to lead on my own strength, and I was so tired. I cannot do this own my own. I desperately need Him. Ever since the Lord showed me this I have had Desert Song by Hillsong stuck in my head. The song goes like this:

This is my prayer in the desert
And all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in the hunger in me
My God is a God who provides

And this is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved
Of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flames
And I will bring praise
I will bring praise
No weapon forged against me shall remain I will rejoice
I will declare
God is my victory and He is here
And this is my prayer in the battle
And triumph is still on it's way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise I'll stand
All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship
This is my prayer in the harvest
When favor and providence flow
I know I'm filled to be emptied againThe seed I've received I will sow

We all go through seasons in our life. Some seasons are flat out hard. Some friends we have for just a season in our life, and some for a couple of seasons. You may live in one apartment for a season, and then a house in another state or country for another. Life is full of many different seasons. Some will flourish and feel like Spring others might be really hard and feel like Winter. Seasons will come and go, but God is still God. Even through trials and pain, through times of mourning and rejoicing, He is still worthy of all praise and glory. The beauty of it all is that God still knows what we are going through. Sunday night, at church, I felt like the Lord was leading me to read Psalm 63:

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you;my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

The Lord knew exactly what I needed to read. I want to thirst for the Lord. I am tired of being in this desert. The only way to get out of the desert is to drink from the Word. Fill me up God! Let me no longer rely on my own understanding and help me to be thankful for every.single.season.