Acapulco

I give thanks to you ,O Lord my God , With my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever, For great is your steadfast love toward me! Psalm 85

Lord, have your way with my life no matter where you take me. Kill the flesh within me. May I only seek and serve you forever! Praise your name for you are ever faithful to me! I cried out to you when I was alone and afraid and you answered my prayers, when I turn my eyes and speak only of your splendor do I have peace. You protect me and give me discernment even when I am tempted to be fearful, when I am ever turning my head and uneasy. But I have hope and can rest in you Oh Lord!

I have been in Acapulco for only two days and yes, I’ve been a victim of culture shock (yes its “normal” but so difficult!) . I did not expect it, but when Ellen left me at Casa Hogar and there were lots of Spanish speaking children piled in one room (the main area where Loolve and I have our rooms) I was overwhelmed. I was exhausted from the day of traveling and driving around the congested Acapulco with Ellen and Mandy. 

There was a full moon Friday night and I do not think I will ever forget that full moon through the high windows in my room. I have never felt so alone and afraid. But, I listened to praise music and called out to the Lord and He answered meme and gave me peace. I had to explain my swollen eyes in the morning to Ellen.

Honestly, I’ve found that being flexible, having no real schedule (they do not believe in time like Americans do) listening most of the time, living on no sleep,constant noise (this city is huge and compact), and having no cell phone has shown how incredibly weak I am and dependent on God for strength. I thank Him for this! That I must have Him, need Him for all things.

I’m going running with Ellen at 6:30 tomorrow morning (its a holiday so I do not have to teach), today I found out that my new friend/ fellow teacher’s parrot “Sky” has a crush on me (he shows off his colorful feathers to me), and last night I had a sleepover. There were five girls sleeping in one room laughing and joking and I am learning Spanish so very fast! So exciting!! So, amid all of the inward fear and my apparent weakness, there has been laughter.

As I sit here I am thankful for God’s Words to me. For the Spirit, for worship. Worship is soothing and calming to me! Praise God! He is doing so much in my heart! If you are reading this and have been praying for me, God is answering your prayers! He is constantly in my heart and protecting me, challenging me, making me rely on Him and not any feeling, person, wishful dream-only the reality that God is present and leads me. I am confident that He has me here and I am living amid His will!

Also, I already met someone that will help teach me how to cook Mexican! And one of the older gals here at Casa Hogar wants me to work with her on her English on Saturdays. And little Beth (pictures to come in the next month) is so precious to me already! Wait until you see pictures! I am going to wait until after a couple of weeks to put them up, I want to have plenty. Well, Audios!

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I'm trying to concentrate, to find some fragment of the stream of thoughts floating about in my soggy mind. Ah, I've even just finished a cup of coffee and my mind is not very active. I have to write because I need to release some quandaries that invade my mind, cause me to keep questioning.

I suppose what tugs at my mind is the this phase that I've entered into: post-graduate life. It's going to be short lived in that I leave for MX in about a week, but I've probably been given to much time to think about things. To sit in Coffea and overhear some of the intense, but at times useless conversations that sitting a few inches from people affords me to have access to. I escape the world of intelligencia when I graduate, in that I'm not in classes being probed to think much. Alas, I've got the time to read what I want to and walk through my day with more ease and time. However, as I jump back into that world, sitting at this coffee shop I hear philosophies, I see professors discussing the Enlightenment, Kant... the academic talk that I know too well. 

As I type I am sitting next to two Philosophy professors. They continue to discuss, turn over, probe, question....its great, perhaps it opens my mind to the different pockets of people that exists, the different talents that God has given us, but then I search for meaning in it, the good it offers? I'm going to be a high school English teacher, well attempt to receive what the government requires teachers to have...and pay off my school loans. It's going to be what some academics would say "ordinary" and won't involve much reading other than, "How to better manage the classroom" or "How to improve student's scores under the No Child Left Behind Act" Yikes.....it's going to be frustrating.

So, I'll let the pent up feelings overflow.....

Why, within academic circles (mostly universities) is there a constant sense of competitiveness concerning one's knowledge, understanding, books one's read, grades, certain rhetoric, the floating around of ideas, the need to impress, to act fake so that you have status. Perhaps I've just felt this stagnation in these circles because I have been a victim.  I've become  aware that I am a victim and seeing the down sides to it causes me to be bothered by it; I do not want to be in bondage to it. All of this search for identity in the world through academics is so fleeting, vanishing, useful? Yes, perhaps, but easily deceptive as well. It is deceptive because it brings one into a false sense of being, it puffs one up so that there is a complete dependence one's self and mind. It is not authentic, it does not allow one to love and relate to other people outside of your academic realm where only certain individuals can understand your elite streams of thoughts. It's limiting even when you don't think it is because you are so solidly mounted up in all that you have been taught, believe, and have spent hours sorting through with reason, logic.

Hm, these are just thoughts. This is just a blog that only a few find time to read. I'd like to think on it further. It's humbling to think of being entirely declothed of all the earthly knowledge one has obtained..and to remain standing before God, helpless and dependent on Him, merely groaning inside, unspeakable before God. This is the reality of man's situation. This is the truth amid all of the hours we spend studying about this world, human theories, ideas, attempts in history, philosophies of God's existence, metaphysics, sciences..Perhaps I speak from ignorance in all this. I do. And yet I know that it is true that all humans stand as lost individuals in need of God's loving guidance, He is so gracious in that He sees are feeble attempts and still shows patience towards us. 

Don't get me wrong. Learning is not something I am bashing, but is something that should exist to build up human beings as well rounded individuals able to fully develop their potential, the gifts God has bestowed upon them.

Darkness at Noon- Story of Rubashov

Phases of light , dimmed by the overcast glow of evening, sleepy-eyed skies that barely give enough rays to see, pleasant sublimity, I'm resting-mind and soul, aware of only that realm where God is looking upon me. As I rest, I ponder with eyelids nearly shut, the lovingkindess of God towards me repeated in Psalm 136. The piano keys of the amazing Italian musician, Ludivoci Einaudi play and I realize that the beauty of the tones are tunes that hit the very core of my being. I know that I am in God's presence and He formed the hands that play, the technology that allows me to float along with the melody, the abstractness and reality of God's presence, dictatorship over my life is good and pure. 

I've escaped into my head, my heart, and soul, where the truth abides, where God calms me, and the Spirit works in mysterious ways. I think of Rubashov and his story. The Moscow Trials that involved  N.S Rabushov. A story in the context of the government under Stalin's Communist rule, the subtle and yet drastic forces that his ideology had on the people. The story is interesting to me, melancholy but stunning to my situation in life. When reading historical fiction, I'm always blown away by the impact it has on my perception of life, my own personal circumstances. Rubashov has been repeatedly arrested for political divergencies.The story begins when he is arrested and eventually is interviewed by his once friend and now persecutor, Ivanov. Besides the specific insight that this book has into the horrors of Communism, a socialistic government that is not about the people, but falsely hopeful, and destructive beyond comprehension. Prison life is depicted, similar to that of Juan Valjuan in Les Meserables. Rows of cell rooms that contain once political leaders, intellectuals, who have conversations by tapping, coding different letters so that they can communicate the executions of their friends, once fellow citizens. 

Rubashov walks, paces for hours, day dreaming and thinking, trying to sort through his stance politically, as a member of the Party, a secret revolutionary. He writes, paces, smokes cigarettes, writes, daydreams. These prison scenes remind me of John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Paul who all wrote profound words while imprisoned. 

As Ludovico Einaudi tunes my heart to abstract beauty I think of the author of the beauty and how much He loves me. What will be the tunes of heaven, of eternity when this temporary life vanishes and we are in another place? Beyond my means of fathoming. The presence of God will be fully known to us-we won't be weighed down by the oppressions of the world. 

Rubashov's heart was heavy within him, along with thousands of other imprisoned individuals who rot day upon end, packed full throughout myriads of corrupt moments in history. A history that was all about politics and not about the people. Beyond man's futile and failing efforts towards a reformed government, education, and citizen, what other hope is exists? Redeeming salvation must and is so readily found outside of all human existence, outside of our entire galaxy.

Where are you and I amid all of this? Living our lives, walkin' the walk, and knowing that the sweet, precious presence of God and His lovingkindess is hovering over us, this world is not the sublimity of eternity. I've not finished Rubashov's story yet, but I think that after the third hearing he will be executed unjustly, for standing against old friends, a corrupt government that blindly searches for truth.

The story is titled: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

My uncle says its on all the top politically conservative lists of must-read-books.  It's a good read.

Coffee in Carmel

I'm a sittin' at a table in Carmel, IN a sippin' on a bit of Hazelnut brew and a thinkin' about life :)

Lots of fun with my lil' cousins: Yatzee, speed Scrabble,  Nerdz, Clue, making jelly filled cookies, sledding, watching UK basket ball beat FL, listening to my aunt's amazing advice on life and relationships, shopping in Indianapolis, late night, phone convos with Tori: life is such a blessing.

I randomly stopped at a Carmel coffee shop to get some coffee and wireless. I finally, after a year, have a radio/cd player in my gorgeous lil' beat up tin can '95 Honda!  (thanks to my uncle) Next thing on my list before I head back to Lexington: buy a Brooke Fraser cd.

I've been a prayin' and a thinkin' a lot about the time I've been given to spend in MX (and not in college classes! woot!). Praise God that He is using me to love little ones! Ah! 

Amid all that God is bestowing upon me, I cannot forget about those in Haiti. The thousands that don't know Christ, are lying on pavement crying right now, in the depths of despair, hurting, questioning, angry. The deaths, the numbers are so many. My heart aches for them. I pray that thousands of other hearts will ache and will turn to our sovereign God and trust Him amid this calamity, trust Him and obey Him by helping those in Haiti by praying, giving, and going. 

May God's glory still be seen amid all the pain, may there be healing and renewal amid all the pain.

I'm packin' up and headin' back to the home of my favorite colors blue n' white.

Mission to the World: Teaching in Acapulco, MX

I want to use this blog to share with you my trip to Acapulco, MX.  I'll be teaching children English at the New Horizon Christian school once I arrive. I'll be living at the Casa Hogar children's home. 

You can check out the Casa Hogar children's home/ministry at:

http://www.casahogaracapulco.org/site/index.php

I'll be leaving January 29th and will return to Lexington, Ky on June 7th. I'll try to post photos/stories of my time there on this blog. :-)

The Lord will bless his people with peace

"The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace" Psalm 29:11

First blog and I don't know how to begin.

I suppose I won't begin, I'll just start where I am.

There are buckets of snow outside, not just white powdery stuff, but starlets that sparkle and numb the myriads of sounds-kind of like God's peace in our lives. Lives that are complex when we dwell upon what we want, desire, long for-voices calling to us when we are found among friends, society, our culture-and we want to feed off those we are with, their responses, what they think of us, where we stand among them in status.

 

Yes, I'm about to make a huge metaphorical connection between nature and God, first time its ever been done I know. :-)

Experiencing God's peace has never come naturally to me, but has always been after prayer or acts of obedience to the Lord. The moments in my life that I submit myself to God in prayer and not just feel good about myself, but where I am in God's will-this is when I understand the unlimited, settling power of peace. It's when you've waited a long time, when it seems like its been forever (Wait on the Lord. Take heart have courage. Wait on the Lord, Psalm 27) that you receive God's blessing. He'll give you the desires of your heart, that for some reason you find to not to be what you always thought you desired, but know are biblical desires given to you by the Spirit.

The snow on the street is so ugly-trampled, grey, the starlets intricately made and designed by God are crumbled, soaked in oil-gunk. While we sit through our temporary, vanishing lives on earth we find ways to get soiled and trampled by those around us.  It bothers me. It's starkly different than the rest of the untouched starlets, piled high, dynamically shinning. 

After a snow it is calming to walk out the front door and be in awe at it all. To be still, listen, wait, smile. 

 I've been waiting to see where my life goes, where I will go, what I will do, who I will be with, and there is a theme that runs through it all: my desires, what I want to do.

Recently, the power of the Holy Spirit has urged me to seek out what God wants to do with my life, to change the running theme. 

I went for a run in the cold a few weeks ago. It was dark outside and I just wanted to run, cry and talk to God. God pushed me forward as I stumbled through the chilled blankness and God groaned within me the understanding that my life was God's life in me, congruently striving for one goal, one desire, one longing: following Thee, following my Lord, following the one that is currently stripping me of the gunk. I just had the realization the other day that I was incredibly self-righteous within my earthly family, the most critical, legalistic, accusing, prideful, selfish, mean, one of the bunch. I'm sure we've never spoken of this before, you and I.

 And yet I'm thankful to be such, as God chooses those like me who have not just some issues, but deeply rooted issues.

I guess all of the talk about the snow was an attempt at connecting to my point, that following my God has given me peace instead of confusion. I don't even know where I was fully going with the snow metaphor...so I'll just drop it.