At a loss for profoundness

The funny thing about coming home after being away on a 10 month adventure is you feel a lot of pressure to have a really fantastic coming home post... haha, I've got nothing.

For me, it's been what's it's been.  A crazy first day of seeing all the familiar things again, trying to remember that the 10 1/2 months I spent away was not just a really long dream.  It's not as weird as I thought it would be because 10 months is not long enough to have forgotten all that you've known so well all your life... but it is strange that it isn't more strange coming back.

I didn't post much about the last week mostly for lack of time, but it was sweet.  Lots of good-byes.  Lots of well-wishing.  Lots of trying-not-to-think-too-hard-about-it moments.  It was sad to leave.  I think the hardest thing to process is having all of those memories so vividly on my mind all the while looking around me and being in a very different world again.

God has been so good to me this year.  If I were to try to recount it all I would need volumes and I'm sure that I can't even remember or understand all the ways he has guided, led, corrected, and taught me this past year.  What can I say?  Other than this is not the end of the adventure.  Like I told the teachers at Maranatha: I'm home again but I'm not really home until I reach my dwelling place with Christ.  Now there is a place that seems really far away sometimes.  But we're moving closer and on to the next phase of the journey.  Further up and further in as Christ leads.  How great his grace must continue to be to allow me to continue in this journey after so much failure!  To his name be the glory forever.

"I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind and therefore, I have hope:
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; 
Great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.'"

You just NEVER know...

We have an on-going joke here about never, never, NEVER assuming that you know what is going to happen any given day when you get up in the morning.  For example, last day of exam week for all the students (so essentially their last day of school for the year), I assumed I would be sitting in the teacher room most of the day working on grades and writing recuperation tests for the kids who failed the normal year.  Wrong.  Instead...

I'm at a pool by 10:00 am watching 34 fifth graders, trying to make sure none of them drown.  Haha!  Thankfully, yes they all made it out alive despite there being a deep end, a diving board, no life guard, and only two teachers monitoring the chaos.

By yesterday (Saturday) I was very much ready for a relaxing day at home which was more or less accomplished, but got a little melancholy when my house mate started moving out (to the new apartment she'll be in next fall).

There's the lovely desk the boys at the farm made for me and have thoroughly enjoyed these last 11 months!  It's going to her new apartment so she can enjoy it another year.  With the desk gone and all the packing begun, my room is just looking sad...

Nothing like bare walls and empty space to remind you you're leaving soon.  Not that I could forget :-)  Oh, how I'm going to miss these precious little children!

God, may it be in remembrance of these, and the countless others like them who are in need of your loving-kindness that I move forward into the next phase of training in my life and for their sake, finish the education I started to serve them better.  Help them to always be in the forefront of my mind and heart as they are in yours.  Amen.

El Roi

This is just too beautiful... if only I were a better writer, but I will do my best to communicate the beauty with which this series of thoughts struck me.


As it is my last week and a half here, a few days ago I had been contemplating writing a devo for the young mothers at the Buen Pastor project.  My thoughts had been something about being known by God and assured that even in the darkest moments we are not truly in the middle of the obscurity our hearts feel.  Which tonight led me to read a little about the name of God El Roi only found once in scripture: the story of Hagar, the Egyptian slave, running away from Sarai, her mistress in Genesis 16.


Just before this small inquiry, I had been preoccupied and praying about my desperate lack of self-discipline especially concerning the "spiritual disciplines" (prayer, Scripture study, etc.)  My prayers were quite frustrated and desperate as I struggled through just wanting to read something for fun and go to sleep (isn't this the daily, obnoxious, and surprisingly difficult battle we all fight with everyday?  whether it is the TV, our own agenda, our habits, we always seem to have something else more desirable to do then focus on our Lord).  But my spirit, my conscious, the Spirit of the Lord--however you want to call it--just wouldn't leave me alone.  I had to sit down, I had to read my Bible, I had to pray.  My flesh did NOT want to, but it surrendered to the hunger of my spirit and after a little study and prayer is when I found myself looking up this name of God...


My initial thoughts on the "God who sees" had to do with not feeling like you are just one in a million, lost in a crowd, obscure, and unconsidered by anyone.  Especially as chicas, I think it is easy to feel this way and we have quite the job trying to convince ourselves that God really does care about us individually and profoundly.  But then I found this commentary about the above mentioned passage:

Whither wilt thou go? Thou art running into sin; if Hagar return to Egypt, she will return to idol gods, and into danger in the wilderness through which she must travel. Recollecting who we are, would often teach us our duty. Inquiring whence we came, would show us our sin and folly. Considering whither we shall go, discovers our danger and misery... Hagar could not but admire the Lord's mercy, and feel, Have I, who am so unworthy, been favoured with a gracious visit from the Lord? She was brought to a better temper, returned, and by her behaviour softened Sarai, and received more gentle treatment. Would that we were always suitably impressed with this thought, Thou God seest me!

God is El Roi to me tonight.  Because in my lack of self-discipline, in my frustration with myself, and my desire to give up the fight of the flesh and turn to what is easiest, He sends his Spirit to me to lead me back to where I belong.  He is El Roi not just because he removes me from obscurity, but because he cares enough for me and the little moments in my life to intervene in my weakness, rescue me, turn me around, and set me back on the path on which my passage was paid for in blood.

I must stop thinking that the little moments and decisions and wastes and foolish uses of time or money are meaningless to the God who sees me.  The little things make up our lives and if it is important enough for the God of Heaven and Earth to intervene with me tonight on how a spend an hour or two before bed, then how can I ever neglect the importance of even the smallest task, opportunity, moment, decision, etc.?

God sees us.  God fights for us.  God cares about the little things and how they will effect eternally.  We accuse him of not caring, when in actuality, I'm beginning to think he cares infinitely more than we do.

2 weeks, q rapido!

Friday was the last day of classes with the 5th, 7th, and 8th graders.  What a day.  It was not emotional knowing that I would be seeing them all again this week for exams, but the goofiness, the joy of seeing understanding on their faces after a difficult explanation, the jokes, the hugs, the "Good morning, Miss!" 's... these things I will miss.  And although some of them have mad me royally angry at times and others I never got to know as well as I would like, here are the classes I'm so very proud of and so thankful God put in my life this year...

5th grade section "A"

5th grade section "B"

7th section "B" (probably my best class, but shhhhhh!... it's a secret, they get big heads really easily)

8th "B" the girls

8th "B" the infamous boys (I'm relatively sure one of them is getting his butt pinched in the picture... hopefully some of them will grow out of it...maybe...eventually)

8th "A" the girls

8th "A" the boys

7th section "A"

And as all of us missionaries keep on saying to each other:  I can't believe the year is already over!  Just like any experience such as this there is no way to capture in words or explain what it has meant to me.  I can only thank God for the experiences, encounters, and lessons learned and pray that my students saw glimpses of Him in me.

Hace mucha falta!

So now that I'm feeling nice and sad, here's the funnies from last week:

4th grade student in Kadian's class: MISS!!! Alejandro just erupted!!! ("eruptar" meaning "to burp" in Spanish;-)

At the grocery store, Kadian to the armed guard (pointing to the 'grocery' price tag on his gun): "Con permiso... cuanto cuesta?"

I'M ALREADY MISSING IT HERE!

Reflections on the Night...

I have a lot to catch up on here, (the least of which is not the last day of classes today!!!) but I'll add that maybe tomorrow.  For now I just want to reflect a little on tonight's Bible study with the hogar girls.  We had a good crowd there tonight and all of the regulars (except one) were back from various absences the last couple of weeks.  The topic for tonight was: Lies having to do with Satan.  There were some obviously relevant topics, especially having to do with horoscopes, witchcraft, etc.  But toward the end of the study a storm blew in and it became difficult to hear and talk for the rain pounding on the roof...

Lightening struck several times very near and the girls started getting nervous.  Whether or not they were just putting on a show because its fun to act scared with a bunch of girls, I don't know.  But one of the claps of thunder had all of the girls sitting near the window on the floor after having jumped out of their seats from fright.  One girl made the comment, "God's angry about something."  And in that moment, a dozen thoughts whirred through my head leaving me with the most potent desire to help those girls see the God that I see when I watch and listen to a storm.

God is to be feared.  He is terrible to behold in all is glory and might.  And indeed a small taste of that can be seen in the storms and in the lightening, and the startling claps of thunder.  His majesty and holiness are nothing to joke about, but everything to fear since we are but rebellious sinners who have done nothing in our lives but defile that majesty and holiness with our words, actions, thoughts, and attitudes.  However, the glory of God can only be fully revealed if we understand and respect this aspect of God while acknowledging and gazing upon his desire to demonstrate his love toward us.  How amazing that a completely Holy God can look upon us who are as guilty as sin and say, "innocent."

But the question is how in the world could I begin to get those girls to see that too?  How can I begin to help anybody see that too who hasn't come to that realization?  God-sized job.

Nap & Coffee

After a 3 hour nap this afternoon, I realized how tired I really must have been after this past week.  One more week like that of classes and then we are done with the normal weeks.  All that's left is exams of various kinds: final exams, partial recuperation exams, reinforcement tutoring, and annual recuperation exams.  Not to mention grades, grades, grades... Lol.

But the nap in combination with coffee during card night with the Brewsters has be up at this ridiculous hour.  So not wanting to do more school work tonight, the only thing left to do....

Start the packing process :-)  I think it has finally sunk in that yes, June 15th is going to arrive, and quicker than expected.  And yes, I really am going home.  Weirdest feeling ever, but it'll be sweet once we get through and arrive on the other side.

"In you, LORD my God, 

   I put my trust.

 ² I trust in you;
   do not let me be put to shame,
   nor let my enemies triumph over me.
³ No one who hopes in you
   will ever be put to shame,
but shame will come on those
   who are treacherous without cause.

 ⁴ Show me your ways, LORD,
   teach me your paths.
⁵ Guide me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are God my Savior,
   and my hope is in you all day long."

Psalm 25:1-5

One down, three to go...

Friday marked the end of classes with 6th grade.  They had their final exams last week, so aside from the 4 of them I will be giving recuperation class and tests to, I've had my last classes with those crazy kids.  Although my lessons were not really that fun, they were probably one of the more fun grades to teach.  So much personality packed into 44 students: from the girly girls, the class clowns (Mariano and Angel), and the smarty-pants (David, Martinez, William, and Gustavo) of 6A to the ruckus and chaos that was 6B.  It's been a good year with them.  And no matter how much I did or didn't manage to teach them in this short year, I hope I always remember how they taught me to laugh.

the 6B class

The best and worst student of 6B, both of whom could make me laugh no matter how mad I was at the class.

The ridiculous boys of 6A, class clown Mariano right in the middle falling because he'd jumped off a chair for the pic.

German and Carlos sliding across the floors.  They had a little too much energy to be inside... Always.

The 6A girls who were very loving even if they weren't the best students all the time.

Inside the 6A classroom after I finally pried the Sharpies out of their hands .  They were a little enthusiastic about decorating the flag.  But where were the boys?....

Doing what they loved best of course!

One grade done.  Now I just have to get the other three to finish up :-)