Retreat

I just got back from the youth retreat, and I'm really glad I went. It was fun to get to know the youth group, most of whom I didn't even know their names prior to the trip. I enjoyed the chance to hang out with not only the Hoopers but also the Meltons - Steve and Jewel just moved here after being in Lubbock for several years of assisting with AIM. They're going to head up West Coast Missions here in the near future. It was great to reconnect with them. Over the last few years I feel like I've totally completed my transition from "youth" to "adult," which is still interesting for me to recognize in myself. I want to still connect with middle- and high schoolers even though I am pretty far removed from that stage of life by now. And the nice thing is, seems like they want to be my friends still too. :)

Honestly though, the best part for me was our time we spent in the Word. We read the whole Gospel of John in pairs together, out in the woods (it got really cold!). Reading the whole thing in context was so powerful for me; I feel closer to Jesus now, like we caught up after being apart for awhile. The thing that hit me the most was how incredibly honest Jesus always was to everyone. I've been praised for my honesty, and I do think that I'm a pretty honest person, but I was so challenged by his blunt truth and love in every situation that I feel like... well, I have an eternity to go before I could begin to call myself Christ-like even in that one aspect.

Singing was also really good. I've only sang devotional songs like that a handful of times since being in Mexico, and it really made me miss my teammates, my coordinators, and my Mexican church family. But the cool part was that I was really aware of the open communication that happens in worship between us and God and was reminded of his omnipresence. Sometimes all I feel like I have to offer God is a "Please, help." And it's nice to know that he hears and responds.

I got really sad on my way home because Daniel is gone now. I'm excited for his new phase of life, but I'm going to miss him a LOT. Not that missing people is new for me, but I do get really tired of it sometimes...

I work tomorrow, then Tuesday and Wednesday I'm off. Besides errands I need to run, I'm planning on spending some good alone time. For now, I'm here with Felicia, and her friendship is wonderful. Tonight I'm hoping to celebrate Halloween with some friends - we'll see if anything happens.

Until next time!

List

Reasons why I'm excited about life right now:

-I had my first guitar lesson today with my friend Jeffrey, and next week I'll start giving him Spanish lessons in return. He's a great teacher, hopefully I can be too.
-Leland is coming home tonight!
-I'm going to read a couple of poems for an event at the bistro on the evening of November 12th, which just happens to be my half birthday. :)
-We got the heat turned on at our house.
-I'm going on the youth retreat this weekend, looking forward to getting to know them better, hanging out with the Hoopers, and brainstorming for ministry ideas.
-I've had a great time hanging out with Daniel Lee, even though I'm NOT excited for him to go back to Tulsa, I'm excited to hang out for these last few moments, this time around.
-Halloween is coming...
-...as is el Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), and I'm hoping to meet some people and get invovled in the Hispanic community here.

And so on and so forth. God is good! Love you guys!

To Suffer With

I'm the new editor of the AIM Alumni Blog, www.aimalumniassociation.blogspot.com, and so I decided to share the article I wrote for this week:

One of the things I learned while I was on the field is how to suffer.

I know, I know, that’s so dramatic. But it’s true. There are so many different kinds of trials that it’s hard to talk about them in generalities, so right now I’m going to focus on compassion, otherwise known as suffering with others.

When I was in Mexico, I learned something about three different friends in the youth group there: one who was 15 and pregnant, one struggling with homosexual feelings, and one who was abusing drugs. I was totally overwhelmed by each of these situations, knowing full well that I had never dealt with any of those specific things, and I had no idea how to help. These were obviously not the only overwhelming or painful situations I encountered in my ministry, but these were the ones that hurt me most. I remember one night in particular, going into the bathroom in our apartment and just sobbing as silently as I could. I didn’t even know what to pray to God, much less what to say to them. I felt helpless as a missionary, and even more importantly, as a friend.

But the story isn't over. A favorite verse of mine is Psalm 56:8 – “Record my lament; list my tears on your scroll – are they not in your record?” I love the thought that God knows our every tear. One of the shortest verses in the Bible, “Jesus wept,” demonstrates one of Jesus’ defining attributes: his compassion on humanity, manifested by his coming to our world and suffering with us to show us that he cares and to save us from the worst of fates. Paul says to the Colossians that he rejoices in his sufferings for them, that he is “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, the church”.

These words convince me that there is something inherently and yet intangibly valuable in our sufferings here on earth. I wish I could calculate it right away, but I guess that’s where trust comes in; it’s not an exact equation. In these situations with my friends that I described, I cried for them and let my tears be a prayer for healing and redemption. My suffering isn’t like Jesus’ in the sense that his washed away our sins, but my suffering can, like Paul’s, make a difference in my own soul as well as others, by the grace of God. Sometimes there are happy endings, and other times we just have to wait and watch, remembering that God really does care. I’ll end with this poem I wrote after that night of crying in the bathroom:

c

o

u

n

t

my

tears;

save them

in a cup, just

like you promised.

If you can walk on water,

you can build my tears into

something beautiful. I trust

you, more than ever tonight.

This pain must be used for

something valuable,

healing, like yours.

Please.

One day at a time

So, not much has changed over the past few weeks. In fact, I'm even sick again, except this time with bronchitis. Yuck.

Until Sunday, I was working a whole lot as usual and on top of that spending as much time as possible with my friends, two of whom are only hear temporarily, which always motivates me to sacrifice as much time as possible. We've had a lot of fun, singing, dancing, watching movies, late-night conversations, and so on. I realized I was off of work from Sunday through Tuesday, three days in a row, and decided even though it would be cool to take a trip somewhere, I should do a personal retreat to finally get back on track - reading, writing, praying, sleeping, things like that.

Sunday was wonderful. I've loved hearing what Eli has to say these days about helping others. The hymns we sang were particularly touching to me as well, especially "What a friend we have in Jesus." After church, Tyler and I joined the Hughes family over at the Sikorski's for lunch. We had a delicious meal thanks to Pam and great conversation. We also had some exquisite coffee. :) They were all really curious about Tyler's and my AIM experiences, so we got to share some too. It was rainy out, which always makes me nostalgic, but it was a good nostalgia, something to be shared and celebrated with good friends. I really felt like I was at home with family that day.

Then I started to feel sick. I had many aspirations for these couple of days, but mostly all I could do was sleep. I think I'm being really slow in learning this, but my being sick this time may have drilled it in for good - I need to take things a day at a time, and I must slow down. There are certain things I should cut out entirely, but mostly I just need balance. I can't spend every waking moment with friends, but I can do fun things and even connect deeply with people once in awhile. I'm not going to read the whole Bible in a day, but I want to take time to read a little. It's a lot easier to wash dishes when there aren't already a hundred dirty ones overflowing the sink. I just need to take it easy and be content to live life fully in every moment, whether I'm out or in, alone or surrounded by a crowd, doing chores or hanging out, eating a cookie or exercising, and so on.

Tyler was kind to take my shift today so I could have one more day to try to get well. I'm still coughing a lot, which isn't so compatible with a food job, but since I'm feeling well, hopefully with some medicine I can make it by tomorrow.

So, here's to balance. Mmhmm.

Extremely imperfect

So the reason I think I haven't written lately is that I've been pretty down on myself these days. I've felt uninspired to write anything. It kind of seems like a lot of people around me have been down on themselves too, so maybe it's contagious or something. I don't know. I just know that it's been a bit harder than usual to live with myself lately. Sometimes I start feeling like I'm the very same person making the very same mistakes as I was, well, really since forever. It can be hard to see growth or progress or anything encouraging about myself sometimes. My friend Leland is good for that though - he occasionally asks people, what's one characteristic about yourself that you like? Just so we're not always so negative. (Maybe it's because he's not around right now that it's been harder, hadn't thought of that.)

I also sometimes can second-guess things or doubt things or wish things were different or think of what ifs, but I know that none of that is healthy for me. I have a million things to be grateful for, so I need to learn to stop spending so much time on the relatively very few things that are wrong. My friend Sarah posted this passage on her facebook this morning and it really encouraged me:

"Not that I have already obtained all of this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14

Also, my sister Lindsay has recently been coming out of a hard time and said one thing that helped her immensely was just taking care of herself - sleeping enough, taking vitamins, things like that. I started exercising which is good, but I'm definitely lacking sleep and not really eating well. On top of that, I had a sinus infection last week. So that's one thing I could do better is just get some rest and take care of my body.

Anyway, thanks for reading and for those of you who are praying for me. I know I'll have more to write soon - I just need to get out of this funk first. Love you everyone!

Recent happenings

I've been working a lot lately and just generally busy with people, and I had this vague feeling of having nothing much to share. Then last night I realized how wrong that was because a lot has happened over the last week-and-a-half.

Like I said, I've been working a lot lately. It's been cool getting to know my coworkers and even some regulars already. Everyone's really nice and patient as I learn my way around. It's been great to have so many hours already too - thank you God. :) I love the free healthy food and free yummy chais too. I feel a little silly, but I pray a lot about my job, that I will be a good worker, that I won't be too tired if I've been up late the night before, that I'll be a good friend to people. I don't think I ever thought to pray about working at Panera, but after being in AIM and praying about my work then every day, it kind of just carried over. It even made sense maybe to pray for my job teaching preschool or my job translating in a hospital, but I'm learning that yeah, it really makes sense even to pray for a job at a café. I mean really, why not? :)

Last week (September 15th) was Mexican independence. I really missed Mexico a lot leading up to it and remembering the great times on past Quinces in Mexico City, so it would've been easy for it to be a sad day for me. But Eli and Kelcey were really nice to open up their home to me and some of our friends to celebrate together. With a lot of help from everyone, I made tinga de pollo, my favorite Mexican meal. We listened to some of my Mexican music and even had the chance to talk to Jeni, an AIMer from the church here in Grass Valley who is currently in Leon, Mexico. I wore my special apron that Sara from Mexico City made each of us AIM girls to wear on that day to work - I got some funny looks, but I think mostly because red, white, and green also happens to make people think of Christmas. :) That night I watched a live stream from downtown Mexico City for the huge celebration. It was so beautiful! I felt so proud of Mexico and very hopeful for them to overcome all of the hard times they're in right now. After that, Tara invited me over to have a michelada and hang out. I really saw how much everyone here cares about me and wants to share the things that are important to me. I feel very loved.

Friday was Leland's benefit dinner for his upcoming trip to Iraq with the Christian Peacemaker Team. We had pumpkin curry (soooo good!!) and listened to some good music, stories, and poetry by Leland and other friends of his. I'm excited for when we get to come together again and hear all about what he saw and did there. He'll be there for two weeks, but gone for a month altogether because he's spending time with his family in Houston first. Tyler is getting back from his trip home tomorrow, and Jo is leaving for two months in just a couple of weeks. Lots of people traveling these days, and I miss them when they're gone!

I guess that's more than enough for now. I'll try not to wait so long for next time and build up too many things to say all at once, haha.

Ladies Retreat

This weekend was the ladies retreat for the women of the church. I'm terrible with numbers so I can't really tell you how many were there, maybe 40? Maybe less.... However many there were, I definitely had ample opportunity to meet people and make new friends. I met Katie - she and her husband lead a worship service at the nursing home here. I met Laura - she reminds me a lot of my mentor from Gospel for Asia, Debi, though I can't pinpoint why. I met Kathy - we got to discuss the public school system among other things. I also got to know some ladies I already knew even better, most especially Erin and Stephanie - I had the chance to hear their life stories, of how they came to the church.

As for details of the trip, we drove about an hour north to Truckee and stayed in two separate cabins on the mountain. I'm used to youth retreats where the food is kind of junky most of the time, but these ladies made great salads, quiche, chicken and rice, I mean, it was wonderful. :) Friday night we sang and listened to Laura talk about the importance of real friendship with one another. Saturday we had two classes in the morning, one with a different Kathy about meditating on God's word instead of negative things, and the other with Alice Ruth about living a servant lifestyle. We had a lot of free time, so I went with a group to downtown Truckee to look at the quirky little shops. Some of them went out to eat, but us cheap girls cooked spaghetti at the house. We had a lot more singing and chatting until bedtime. This morning we had a service with Kelcey about Hebrews 12:1-3, took communion, sang, and prayed. Then it was time to pack and clean and go home!

I wish it could've lasted longer, honestly, but I know I have plenty of time to get to know the women here. I need to seek to spend good time with the friends I have already, and also with the women I have yet to get to know and learn from.

The main thing God spoke to me during this time was to really spend my time loving him with my thoughts. I've been dwelling too much on things that have hurt me in the recent past, and I need to choose every day to forgive others, accept God's grace on myself, and love him and praise him instead of worrying or moping. Jesus did say, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted," but I think I've been focused on the first half and not letting myself receive his comfort. I've been scared to let go of my pain because in an odd way it makes me who I am. But now I really want to define myself with good things, godly things, instead.

This is totally cheesy, I'm warning you, but I also wanted to add that I was listening to Beyoncé's "Smash Into You," one of my favorite songs of hers, and suddenly had the thought of singing it to God instead of whoever else. It was really powerful for me to be reminded that my longing for love can be fulfilled in God, truly. Here's some lyrics: "I'm soaked in your love, and love is right in my path, in my grasp, and me and you belong. I wanna run, smash into you." (It's better when she's singing it, I promise. haha)

Thanks for reading, really. I love you guys.