being where i am.

What do I want to write about?


Photo by Daniela Helfer.

It seems to me that even if I have left Guatemala, Guatemala has not left me.

Over Spring Break, I spent 3 days near Guatemala City, and four days in San Pedro and San Juan. It was such a short time, and I would have stayed willingly, but I cannot imagine the spiritual and emotional impact of even just spending a month in that world. After a week, I came home and had a crisis moment in the kitchen with my parents, wondering what on earth my life is meant for, and what will I be, and should I even go to college? I still feel the frustration of how much we crave and consume, while other cultures have so little and are happier, nonetheless. But overall, I think I have escaped the brunt of "Mission Trip Syndrome"; I'm not breaking up with my boyfriend to pursue visions of missionary work in the deep heart of Alaska anytime soon. I feel fortunate to have such a firm ground beneath me, and such steady hands around me, to keep me from the dangerous extremes my heart sometimes bends towards.

But, in light of all of these thoughts, there are still the tremors of an uprising in my heart, percolating in the wake of the things I saw that I hope I will never forget.

There was a village we visited, I don't recall the name, where a mudslide had entirely buried a large part of their town. You could literally walk across this plain, look down into a hole in the ground, and be looking into a home that had been completely covered in mud. Our guide told us the story of how hundreds of people had not been able to escape from their houses in time, and how there were still bodies unrecovered, somewhere in all that dirt. The whole place was tragic in an overwhelming kind of way, but what captured my heart was the children.
It seemed that everywhere we went in Guatemala, there was a welcoming committee of 10 to 20 children waiting to see us, play with us, ask us for candy. We loved it, and they could not have asked us for anything we would not want to give them. When we got to the ruins, though, it was different. I was not prepared for the poverty in their faces. It wasn't the starving, insect-ridden poster child you've seen on infomercials, but it felt similar in my heart. As soon as they saw us, they asked us for money, and went through my pockets to get to my chapstick. They were so different from anything you would ever see on the streets of suburban America. Some of them had shoes, but many were barefoot and all were dirty. I wanted so badly to hug them until they didn't need anything anymore at all. Something about them just was different. It was hard to leave.

Edit:


This was when I surrendered my chapstick.


I could write so many blogs with all the stories I have to tell...all of this from only a week. A friend of mine has been in Africa for three months and is coming home on Monday. I cannot even imagine.

But we didn't only spend time with poverty-stricken children in Guatemala. We did some of this, too:



That's after having spontaneously determined to go swimming in the beautiful, bacteria-ridden freshwater of Lake Atitlan. As you can see from the looks on all of our faces, we really didn't enjoy it at all. We just had a terrible, terrible time.

I caught an enormously large one of these...


And we all got really impressive t-shirt and long-shorts tans.


Hopefully, if I begin to write more frequently again, there will be more Guatemala stories to come.

For now, here are a few life updates on my part:

1. I have conquered the Mile. For the longest time, I have felt completely incapable and incompetent in the arena of running. I tried, when I was younger, to improve, but I just never enjoyed it, and never really got past running one very winded and unhappy mile. About five weeks ago, my best friend suggested to me that we run the Peachtree Road Race, which is a 55,000 runner, 10k (six miles, for the conversionally challenged) race through urban Atlanta. Please take this time to remind yourself that I had never, ever run more than a mile in my entire life. Still, with this very thing in mind, I said yes, sent in a check, and started running. Since then, although the Road Race still hasn't cashed my check and I have no idea if I'll actually get a number, my life has changed. I can run a mile in eight minutes, eleven seconds, and I can even run two miles in less than twenty minutes! Obviously, I have a while to go before six miles, but I no longer feel incapable. The blister on my right foot tells me that I am working hard to change what once felt unchangeable, and I actually look forward to doing the very thing that used to conquer me. I know that this is something God has done with me, and in me. It feels like a gift when I come panting through the kitchen door, red-faced and sweating, but happy. I am sure there will be more updates on this as time goes on.


2. Little Yellow Bible. Here is another victory. My counselor, Ellen, is always quoting Scripture to me, or repeating some wonderful thing that God spoke to her through a verse at any given crucial moment in her life. My heart would listen in bitterness and dismay, feeling so distant from the voice that everyone claimed could be heard so clearly in the binding of a book. Eventually, one day, I broke down and explained all of this bitterness, questioning her as to how I could find life in the pages she loves so much. She simplified it, as she always does, and said that I just have to find the right Bible, and that God would certainly talk to me, of course. She read me a verse from the Psalms in the Message version of the Bible, and my heart leapt.
You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance; You ripped off my black mourning band and decked me with wildflowers. I'm about to burst with song; I can't keep quiet about you. God, my God, I can't thank you enough.
Psalm 30:11

Tears actually came into my eyes; I knew that I had heard His voice. And so, after too much time spent trying to work with what I had, I eventually decided to look for something new. I found an old New Testament Bible on our shelf in the Message version and began to read. Immediately, and I hardly know how to describe it, God was talking to me through those pages. I was excited about the things I was reading because it was as though I had never seen them before. The only real problem was that my New Testament was enormous, and it was only half the Bible.

Now, here is what I am really excited about. Even in that small gap, where I could have just gone out to buy my own new Bible, God met me with a gift. Miles, the college pastor at 12Stone, caught me with my outrageously large half-Bible one night and remembered that he had a little yellow Message Bible just sitting in a drawer in his house. He promised it to me on the spot. A couple of weeks and a heart-full of gratitude later, I have it here at my finger-tips, and I just want to show everyone and say "Look! Look what God did for me: he wants me to hear his voice, and he gives me such good gifts."

So. I could put a picture up. But, I'd rather show to you so you can see for yourself how sweet it looks. So if you see me around, ask.

3. Two New Pens. There has been a serious pen famine in our home as of late, and I have been scrambling to find satisfactorily functional writing utensils for all of my journaling-type endeavours. When I came home tonight, I found three fresh packs of pens sitting on the counter as if they were only for me. Of course, they weren't, but I did manage to wrangle two of them for my very own. I am overjoyed.

4. Indescribable Joy. I prayed with someone to received salvation a couple of weeks ago. I have never done that before. If you want to know about it, you will have to ask. Just know that it is a really incredible story, and I was truly overwhelmed. "How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is!"


Okay, there is probably more, but it is so late, and I really have to stop myself before daybreak.

Thank you if you read any of this. More soon.