Cliff diving and other adventures...

I got a call last Friday that sent me jumping around my apartment in excitement. In fact, I haven't really stopped jumping around about it since. It is the opportunity to do something awesome. It is an opportunity that, in all honesty, I didn't think I would actually get. But I did.

And now I'm staring at this big, unknown adventure.
It kind of like I'm about to dive off a cliff with no idea where I'll land.
Once upon a time this would have scared me. I wouldn't have even been brave enough to dream of it being possible.

I guess there are still things that scare me. Mostly about how real life is going to happen and I will return to being a responsible adult after this adventure. It occurred to me tonight that I only have one year left in school and then I'm supposed to be on to the "real world" doing "grown-up" things. I know what I want to do, but I don't know how to make that happen. And it's hard to keep those things from affecting the now. It's hard to keep them from clouding my excitement about this opportunity.

Wouldn't it be easier to stay where I am?
Wouldn't it be safer to do what I know?
Wouldn't it be more responsible to save and save to ensure an easier and more secure future?

Yes. The answer to all of those is yes, I know it is.

But I don't want easy.
I don't want safe.
And to a degree, I don't want "responsible."

I want radical.
I want world changing.
I want such unshakable trust in the Lord that I will walk into anything He has for me.
I want to stand on the edge of those cliffs and know that jumping doesn't mean I'm falling into the unknown; it means I'm jumping into the arms of the Father.

Where I'm going to land: Glorieta, New Mexico

Being in America is weird...

I've been back from Nicaragua for just over a week now. It was a phenomenal trip. But coming back this year has been harder to process than last year.

Honestly, being in the states brings a steady stream of frustrations for me.

For example...I wait tables on the weekends. I make more in tips in one day than it costs to send a kid to school for an entire year at one of the schools we worked at. Why is that a reality?!? Why are there kids who can't go to school when people can hand me outlandish amounts of money just for bringing them cashew chicken? I literally do not understand this.

Why do I get to sit here on my big comfortable bed, in my nice comfortable apartment while there's a family in Tipitapa huddled together in one bed tonight because they only have one mosquito net in their home that's just one room? 

Why do I complain about my homework when most of the world will never even get the chance to go to school?

Why am I stashing money away in a savings account when there are children starving all over the world and even right in my own city?

What did I ever do to deserve the blessing that is simply being born in the richest country in the world?

Nothing. I don't deserve this. None of us do.

But that's how it is.

 

So do we just go on living it up as rich Americans and occasionally saying thanks to God for having so richly blessed us?

I REALLY don't think so. And I really think we've gotten it largely wrong so far.

I know that we've been so blessed because we have a mission in this world. Those are our brothers and sisters out there in the world and they need our love. Sometimes showing love means sharing our the abundant resources that God has placed in our care.  

Poverty, hunger, homelessness, human trafficking, and every other ill in this world are not nameless faceless issues. They are full of faces of people who need our love. People who have stories just like you and I do. My hearts aches for them. My soul yearns to be sitting side by side with them, living this life, fighting its battles, and praising God together.

But right now I'm here. Right now I'm trying not to get frustrated with the world around me as it spins on, largely unaware of what I've seen and the people I've met and grown to love. Right now I'm in America, and it's weird.

Nicaragua 2014

A bit more than a year ago, I first entertained the idea of MAYBE going to Nicaragua.....but I was scared. That's when a very wise friend of mine gave me some of the best advice I've ever gotten, "It scares you? You know what that means, right? It means you HAVE to do it."

When applications for the trip came out this year, I wanted nothing more than to return to the place that I had so grown to love, the place that I'd thought and prayed about almost daily since I first left it.

And thanks to God placing in my life some amazing churches and individuals who partnered with me, I was able to end 2013 the same way I began it; watching fireworks and burning scarecrows through the gate of Pequeño Benjamin. And I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Our first day at Pequeño Benjamin didn't go quite as planned. Seeing as it was New Year's day and it poured down rain that morning, we had no kids around. So Alexandra, the director of the school, told us she had some classrooms that could use painting. We set to work right away by taking everything off the walls, spraying them with water, and scrubbing them down to get them ready for fresh paint. After all of this we got the chance to sit down and talk with Marcus, the missionary we work with in Nicaragua, and hear about his vision and why he does what he does. He's a really cool guy and he's doing lots of big things for God!

After listening to Marcus, some of the older kids ( ages11-15 or so) from the school came to start work on a drama that Blake had written for them. Being that age of kids, I think we were all worried they would hate it...but they really got into, even on the first day, which was so fun to see.

After everyone had gotten to experience their first bucket showers, our team spent the evening eating dinner, worshiping, and talking together. All in all, it was a great start to the trip!

 Day 2 was much like the first with the exception that the kids actually showed up :). We kicked off with some fun VBS type songs and a short devo before the boys took off for the soccer field. Those of us not playing soccer spent the morning coloring, making bracelets, playing jump rope, and just generally hanging out with the kiddos. After our lunch break it was back to work on the classrooms that we now had paint for. I, and some others, spent the rest of the day painting away while some people worked on the drama and others went with Pedro to help out with moving some stuff at the farm. We wrapped up our day in our usual style, dinner as a team and later some worship and a devo...my devo, which I was kind of freaking out about before hand. But I think it went well.

I don't want to bore you with repetition so let's just say ditto for day 3. That night was different because we got to do home stays. Courtney and I were welcomed into the home of a single mother and her two kids.They shared their photo albums with us and told us all about their lives then took us on a short walk around Tipitapa before heading back to the house. Their home was literally just one big room for everything and still they welcomed us, complete strangers, in and shared all they had with us. That kind of thing really gets to you, let me tell ya. 

Saturday was our 4th day in the country and our first time to venture past the walls of the school. We headed out to Marcus' farm to clean up the storage area and get it ready for the next shipment that he was waiting on from the states. We also cleaned up all the trash that was around the farm while we were there. That day we finally finished up the painting work! And those classrooms looked totally new and amazing, if I do say so myself. That evening, the kids in the drama met us at school to walk to church for the youth service. As we set out, I noticed that the boys from the school spread out and were walking in a sort of circle around us. Alexandra told me that the boys had said they were going to protect us as we walked. The kids did their drama and it was amazing! We got to worship in Spanish which was also so great. When the time came to head back to the school, the boys again volunteered to walk with us. They led the way and stood on each side, making sure we were safe. Seeing them do that really touched my heart.

Sunday we got up bright and early to head off to Granada for the day. We got to go to a church service that was in both English and Spanish. We walked around Granada and went to a burger joint for lunch, which really made the team happy. Later that day we went to Masaya for shopping at the market and to see the volcano. We didn't get too close to the volcano because there was too much activity, it was still cool though. We finished off our day with what else but Papa John's for dinner before heading back to school.

On Monday, we got to head to San Benito to the school where Valerie worked for 6 months. It was way different than Tipitapa. The houses are smaller and look more like shacks. The school is newer so it's still small and being developed. The kids, we were told, spend most of their days fending for themselves because their parents often get on the bus really early to go to work in Managua. Monday is also the day I began feeling ill. It was terrible because I felt totally useless all day, which I really hated. Still, I enjoyed seeing a new place and meeting new kids as well as the teachers at the school in San Benito.

Tuesday was also spent in San Benito, where we were hosting a soccer tournament. We also played jump rope and things with the kids who weren't playing soccer. Our afternoon work projects in San Benito consisted of the boys helping put up a concrete fence and us girls working on scraping walls so they could be repainted. I was still not feeling great on Tuesday and spent some of the morning napping in the truck before we could get medicine in town at lunch time. I was so worn out from not feeling good that I slept straight through our evening devo time and didn't wake up until the next day.

Wednesday was much the same. We wrapped up the soccer tourney and then headed out to the farm to help Marcus with one last project. The project was bringing big bundles of cornstalks in from the field. We even got to ride on top of the cornstalks after they were piled up on the trailer.

And that was it. We cleaned up Pequeño Benjamin and headed off to Managua to stay the night before leaving the next morning. While in Managua we got to eat dinner at the house where Valerie lived and we got to here stories from many of our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters. It was a wonderful night filled with laughter and love like you'd find at your typical family dinner.

Despite the fact that my stomach started hating me halfway through this trip, it was a truly amazing experience. I'm still in awe of the fact that God has let me go love on these amazing people 2 times now. My eyes have been opened up wide to this great big family we have in Christ. My heart longs to meet my brothers and sisters all over the world and get the chance to love on them and spend time with them and hear their stories. I want all of my days to feel like my days in Nicaragua, like I'm waking up with purpose and have a job to get done that is about more than me. I've realized that I wasn't born into the richest country in the world by pure luck. God wants me to do something with that blessing. And looking into the future, I can see it. I can see myself all over the world helping my brothers and sisters and loving them because God loves them and we're family in the grand scheme of things. And that makes me so ready to go, so ready to chaseafter these dreams, so ready to be His hands and feet in this world.

If you've read all the way to here, thanks! Sorry it was long...I tried to condense, but there's lots of greatness to share :) If you want to hear more or have questions about my trip, hit me up some time.

'Tis the Season

I love Christmas.
I love the lights.
I love the decorations.
I love the music.
I love the movies.
I love Christmas cookies.
I love the sound of bells.
I love spending time with loved ones.

But this year, as with most before, I look around and I don't like what I see.
Because what I see is not a picture of cheer and love and hope and faith and togetherness.

What I see is greed.
What I see is excess.
What I see focuses more on what's beneath the tree than it does who's sitting around it.
What I see is kids learning that the list they write to Santa is what Christmas is all about.

I was recently in a conversation about Christmas shopping that led to me talking about why I hate Christmas shopping. I hate it because in most cases it exemplifies everything that is wrong with this season. We give each other lists of things that we don't actually need. We spend money on trivial things that the people we buy them for people could buy themselves.
Does your kid need that $500 Xbox?
Do you need that iphone 5s or whatever you're asking for?
No matter what it is, in most cases, if we really needed it we would buy it for ourselves. If we wanted it bad enough, we'd buy it ourselves. 

So why do we spend so much money on people that already have so much?

How much of a difference could we make in our own community and the world if we took all of that money and spent it people who actually might need it? How many kids out there would know they are loved and that there are good people in this world if they got even just  a small gift? How many families need something to eat this year? How many people don't even have a coat to keep them warm this winter?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I handle Christmas perfectly either. I made my Christmas list when I was asked to. But now I'm wishing I hadn't. I'm wishing I'd asked for the money that was going to be spent on buying me things to go toward adopting a kid for Christmas instead. Or to a million other places besides into things. Things that I don't need.

I am of the belief that nothing in this world really belongs to us anyway. It belongs to the One who created it all, we are just stewards. We are just the hands to do His work according to His purpose. What better time than when we're celebrating the birth of our Savior to reach out and show His love by focusing on others?

So my challenge to you, and for myself, is to make it more. Make Christmas a time for love, hope, cheer, togetherness. Find out what you can do to make the world a little bit better and do it, all the time. Let this Christmas be a kick starter for a lifetime of doing more for others than for you. 
'Tis the season, so let's make it count.

Lessons Learned

"And every tear that had to fall from my eyes,
Everyday I wondered how I'd get through the night,
Every change, life has thrown me,
I'm thankful, for every break in my heart,
I'm grateful, for every scar,
Some pages turned,
Some bridges burned,
But there were lessons learned." 

(Carrie Underwood- Lessons Learned)

I may have had a bit of a break down last week...ok, maybe it was more than a bit of one. It was a full blown melt down. 

I decided I was finished with people.

I was over trying to be part of a community that I didn't feel wanted me.

I was through trying to show love to people who didn't love me back.

I was done caring for people who didn't seem to care about me.

It hurt. 

And I was tired of being hurt.

I was tired of being let down over and over again.

So I decided to walk away from everyone who I felt didn't care. After all, they didn't care about me anyway, right?

I spent the past week doing everything I could to not be around people. 

And I was successful. And people didn't chase after me.

And I was happy.

It didn't take long though for me to realize how very selfish that was. I'm called to love. I'm called to love when I don't want to. I'm called to love those who may not always love me or make me feel loved. I'm called to love when it isn't easy.

And I cannot do that in solitude. 

It took honest conversation and soul searching to realize that my expectations for people are entirely too high. I want them to show me love the way that I show people love and the way I think they ought to. But I never tell them that so who am I to say they don't care? I can't.

I realized that the problem lies with me and that walking away from people all together could never fix me and my heart.

And maybe all of this was God sending me a wake up call. Maybe he was telling me that I wasn't loving people because I REALLY loved them....but because I wanted to feel loved in return. As much as I hate to admit it, that's probably the case. And I needed to learn that. It needed fixed.

Needless to say, this wasn't an easy lesson to learn. It was painful. It was confusing. And, quite frankly, it sucked. But it needed to happen and maybe if it hadn't hurt, I wouldn't have listened.

Looking back on my life so far, I can see other times like this in my past. Painful moments that have become some of the most beautiful and cherished memories because they mark a turning point. They are lessons that I took to heart and let change me for the better.

They are times that God woke me up to something I wasn't seeing.

And I am forever grateful for them. 

Despite the tears.

Despite the frustration.

Despite the anger.

Despite the confusion.

God is still teaching me. And sometimes I don't like those lessons in the moment, but I'm thankful God loves me so much that He is willing to teach me. 

He teaches me when I'm reluctant to learn. 

He teaches me when I'm hostile to the lesson.

He patiently teaches me even when I think I have it all figured out.

Keep learning, dear friends. Sit at the feet of the Father and soak up all He wants to teach you.

A call to action...

You may or may not know that I sponsor youth group activities at my church. I love those kids! Nearly every Sunday night, I am afforded the opportunity of hanging out with the junior high girls small group. And while it sometimes feels like herding cats, I love it. Those girls are so great! My time with them has led me to have some interesting conversations lately...one being focused on prayer.
I noticed that when the time rolled around each week for prayer requests I would inevitably hear things like, "I really wanna make the cheer squad" or, "Well I have a really low grade in this class...." and I started to get frustrated after hearing this over and over. On some level, I realize that these are just 6-8th grade kids, but still...anyway, I was discussing this recently with one of our campus ministers. She said something along the lines of, "Yeah, but don't you see the same thing around here? In your small groups and whatnot?"
It's so true. So many times, our prayers requests are things like the stress level of school, or how many tests we have, or money or what have you. This frustrates me to no end. I'm not perfect, I'm sure I've made my share of silly prayer requests...but there's a point.
There's a point where you've got to get up off your praying knees and get to work. Harsh? Oh well.
If you're stressed about school maybe you need to study more and work harder...sure, tell God about it, he wants to hear about everything in our lives. But don't expect test answers to magically fall from Heaven or your stress level to lessen if you aren't going to make some changes.
If money is your problem, maybe you need to manage yours better or work more. You can't just sit there and pray for financial blessing and think you're good. God's not going to make it rain hundreds just because you whine about your student loan debt.
I wholeheartedly believe that we are God's hands in this world, and if the hands don't get to work nothing will ever get accomplished.
My small group is currently walking through the book of Ruth and in doing my Bible study today, I found something that related perfectly...basically the author of our study was pointing out that Ruth went to work in the fields and just so happened to end up in Boaz's field. Moral of that story? If Ruth hadn't been willing to go to work and get things done, her story wouldn't have been the same.
I think I can somewhat relate to this in my own life at the moment...at the end of this summer I decided that my next summer will be doing something big, something that matters. I'm still not sure what that'll be though, there is so much I want to do/ could possibly do. I've prayed about it, I've told God that I'm open to wherever He calls me. Have I had a divine revelation about where I'm supposed to go? Nope. But you know I did last week? I applied to work at camp next summer.
Would I love to be there? Absolutely!
Do I think God is calling me there? Eh...I dunno.
I am, however, certain that if that's not where I'm meant to be, that door will be closed. Sometimes, when we're not sure which way God wants us to go, we have to do our best to follow His will as we know it, then take action. If we're in the wrong place, I'm quite certain God will make it known to us in big ways and we can go from there. I think that if we're truly focused on doing God's will and making things happen for the Kingdom, God will direct our steps and use us in big ways, even if they aren't what we expected.

So basically, I hope that all of us will remember 2 things:

• God is not our cosmic genie, there to grant our wishes.
• Sometimes, we have to be people of action, willing to take that first step out in faith to make things happen.

So hit your knees and talk to God. But then get up and get to work for the Kingdom.

To Write Love On My Arms

A week ago, I let people who mean a whole lot to me, literally write love on my arm, for forever. And I told you I based the idea off of To Write Love On Her Arms...but maybe you don't know much about this organization. And I'm quite certain you don't know why I'm passionate about it.

I've struggled with depression since I was 15 years old. At first, it manifested itself physically in terrible terrible headaches that couldn't be explained with any amount of testing, insomnia, and a total lack of motivation to do anything besides lay in bed.
Then they sent me to a counselor...I told her she was wrong.
Then they sent me to another doctor, who I also told he was wrong.

I fought them because I didn't want to be that person. I didn't want that stigma attached to me.
I didn't want people to treat me differently. 

Eventually, I realized they were right and I was tired of feeling the way I did so I started looking for ways to deal with depression without medicine. I am still rather opposed to ever being medicated, the short while that I was was awful and I was a total zombie. Anyway, I eventually came out of it and thought I was good forever...until it came back. It came back without warning and stole my light. It stole everything beautiful and wonderful in the world until all I felt was hurt.

I tried to hide from it, to mask the pain, to not feel anything at all. And I usually succeeded in the not feeling anything department. But that only lasts for so long. The hangover shows up and the warm fuzzies wear off. So I'd do it all over again. Over and over and over always trying to squash the pain in my heart. 

Then one day, it all changed.

One day I took a leap of faith.

I asked for help.

I let someone in.

I let someone love me even though I didn't feel like I deserved it.

That's when I got my life back.

That's when I realized that hope is real and rescue is real.

Unfortunately, I've since learned that this struggle isn't one that plans to leave me alone. It still pops in from time to time and hits me like a semi truck. It happens for no reason at all and I have no power to stop it even though I wish I did. Those times are hard. They present me with a daily, hourly, by the minute battle. But I will always fight because I've learned that things can be beautiful and full of light again.

I've learned not to be silent about it. I've learned to let people in. I've learned to let people love me. I've learned how much God loves me. 

Many times I need to be reminded of that and need to be told that I matter.

But it gets better.

I know when it's happening now.

I know better how to deal with it.

I know how not to "deal" with it.

I know that even when I'm at the lowest of lows, I'll eventually pull back out of it.

I know that people care.

I know that love is real and it is powerful

So, now I have love written on my arm. And some day, maybe not far down the road or maybe years from now, I'll need it. I'll need to look at it and remember the good times and good people. I'll need to remember the ones who cared when no one else did, the ones who listened, the ones who were there.

But most of all, I need to remember that there might be people in my life who are hurting, who may be afraid to speak up, and who need me to write love on their arms. To let them know they matter and that someone cares.

In case you're wondering why I decided to share this...well I don't know really. I guess I kind of had 2 goals in mind...1 being that I wanted to put a face and a story to this thing that so many people deal with but no one really understands. I want people to know that someone they love might be fighting and might need love. And that if you happen to be reading this and you relate, I want you to know you aren't alone.
My other goal is a bit more selfish in that I wanted to take away the power that depression held over me for so long. Trying to fight it alone and hide it and be "normal" consumed my thinking. Always wondering if someone might have figured me out and if they thought I was crazy. Putting it out there on my own is my little way of letting you in, of realizing I have nothing to hide.
Love is real. Hope is real. Rescue is real.