Twenty-three Places

As I transition from school teacher and worship team singer to dish washer and camp counselor, I am feeling pulled in a million directions.  No part of me wants to be vulnerable with all the new people who are going to be coming into my life in the next four months.  Massive transition


June: Discipleship camp
July: Work team/travel with friends
August: Home with family in WI
September: New life in MN


To use Matt Wertz's album title, I feel pulled in twenty-three places.  His song "Falling Off the Face of the Earth" fits my mood today.


Stay away from me
Cause I'll be gone soon
It's just so hard to let go once we've grabbed hold
It's nothing that you've done
You're not the only one
I'm just learning to be in twenty-three places

And I'm falling off the face of the earth
Crashing into bridges I burn
And I'm falling off the face of the earth
But I'll be home soon

Is this how the story goes
When rubber meets the road
Waving goodbye is so hard without hello

And I'm falling off the face of the earth
Crashing into bridges I burn
And I'm falling off the face of the earth
But I'll be home soon

I keep forgetting to
Keep you an arms length aways

Because I'm falling off the face of the earth
Crashing into bridges I burn
And I'm falling off the face of the earth
But I'll be home soon


I'm homesick for heaven

Just when I think I'm really doing well here.  I have intentional friendships with Bolivians and missionaries.  Teaching has been much more than bearable the last few weeks.  I have been so immersed in life here in Bolivia. 


And yet I spent another evening soaking my pillow with tears.  Homesickness:  A package that can't come.  The realization that I didn't get to see my nieces and nephew over the computer while my sister was home.  Worry that my friendships which were so strong when I left in July will be forgotten when I go back.  Frustration at my own selfishness.


A year must be the hardest amount of time to serve cross-culturally.  I'm barely halfway through, I've just been able to really make myself be here, and I already need to start applying for jobs back home.  Lifetime missionaries are hesitant (with reason) to rely on you because you'll be leaving long before they will.  I hate the self-pity that is rising in me right now, but I don't know how to beat it back down.


Tonight I finished reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper.  If God has called me to teach 5th grade in Dusty, Hot City, Bolivia, then anything else would be wasting my life.  However, to live without roots for this long doesn't always feel great.  Not wasting life can hurt.


So, this post is extremely "angsty" as my cousin once called my homesick ponderings.  However, it's reality.  May someone read this, think twice before they obey God's call, and then obey it anyway.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice

The title of this post is definitely what kept me from posting earlier this week.  Monday through Wednesday was a hard stretch for me.  Heather left on Monday to go back to our home in Wisconsin for six weeks.  Now, six weeks does not sound that long to me.  But six months does.  And I miss my family A LOT.  That's how long I have to wait to see them.  Knowing that my sister got to see my little sister in her new apartment couldn't mean anything other than lots of tears.


So I was not ready to write anything nice.  I was just pretty weepy.  And pitying myself.  Who has to go an entire year without seeing their incredibly sweet and adorable six year-old twin nieces?  Why would God do that to a person?


God would do that to a person He wants to show His glory and joy to.  Teaching fifth grade here has probably been the hardest six months of my life.  Learning curve.  New culture.  Mix of cultures in my classroom.  Searching for acceptance and finding that it doesn't satisfy.  Leaving the closest friendships I have known in my life.


But I have learned more in the last six months than I can yet put into words.  I can't even put it all into thoughts yet.  I mostly learned things that I knew in my head but clearly hadn't learned in my heart.


I still have to learn to live where I am.  My heart still aches for the places that I call home, the family I love in Wisconsin and the life that I was so looking forward to in Minneapolis.  But God is teaching me moment by moment how to find joy in Him.  Even when I stand in front of twenty eleven year-olds feeling like a failure He is my portion.


And so I no longer have nothing nice to say.  I can say that I am grateful for all that I'm learning.  I am grateful to be able to attempt to glorify God in front of young students.  I am grateful to get to preach the Gospel to them.  


And while I'm very excited about the future, I'm going to try my very best to live in the present.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.  And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.

- Hebrews 10:23-24

Reminiscing

It's early December and staring at the white that covers our big front yard makes me squint as we drive home from church.  The snow is still a novelty and is beautiful.  We woke up early yesterday because shoveling isn't a chore yet, just fun.  There are neat piles down the sidewalk, a straight line runs from our driveway to the end of the block separating snow from concrete.

There is a mad rush to get lunch when we get home.  Frozen pizza is thrown into the oven, leftovers are pulled out and microwaved.  My dad brings up a beer from the basement and puts it in the freezer, setting the timer so he won't forget.  Lindsey disappears into her bedroom with her computer; for her it is just another Sunday.  

First quarter.  Me and Dad.  Packers.  Pepperoni frozen pizza.  Snow outside.  He in the lazyboy; me on the couch.  I drove home from college for many reasons, but mostly for this.  I get into the game and make lots of comments about everything, and he goodnaturedly lets me talk, his eyes fixed on the screen.  Mom's cheerful humming is heard from her sewing room.  She's flipping between the game and a cooking show.

Second quarter.  This begins my favorite part.  The house is cold, so I pull my Dora blanket tight around me.  My eyelids get droopy, and I stretch out on the couch.  The game is less exciting, and I am asleep.

Half time.

Third quarter.  Dad shouts at one of the players, and I am startled awake.  Stretching, I get my head back in game mode.  He explains things I don't know, and I try to make smart-sounding comments.  I think my dad is so cool.

Fourth quarter.  We watch to the end whether it's a nail biter, a clear loss, or a definite win.  When the time runs out, we feel like true fans.  The house is cold (I keep saying this because I forget what that actually feels like).  The evening has begun and life is still lazy.  There is no worrying about tomorrow when the Packers play.

For my dad, because I won't get to watch the Superbowl with him.

Jesus Was a Missionary

Merry Christmas from Bolivia, where it is 73 degrees and rainy-- high of only 89 today!

This entire Christmas season John 1 has been on my mind a lot.  Six months after my graduation from Bible college, I can confidently say that I will probably never understand the incarnation.  God taking on flesh blows my mind.

John 1:14- "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

He dwelt among us.  Jesus left perfect contentment with Father and Spirit to come to earth where He put on skin and told people the Good News that they need a Savior.  He showed that He is the Savior that they'd been waiting for by dying for their sins.  He is the Good News that He brought.

The Good News has remained the same, and so has the way that God chooses to share it.  He calls His followers to leave the place of comfort they have known and dwell with people who need the Gospel-- the news that Jesus has already died to be their Savior.  Today we call this missions.

During a time of year when it's hard for me to be without my family and the land that I love (snow in MN and WI yesterday!), it's good for me to remember that Jesus has experienced what I'm going through.  May I remember to dwell with people here, to live life with them, just as Jesus did.

 Urbana 09, a missions conference I attended last year, was the first time I saw John 1 through a missions lens.