Gentle Whisper

BibleGateway.com - Passage Lookup: 1 kings 19;: "11 The LORD said, 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.'
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, 'What are you doing here, Elijah?'"
I think more often than not God speaks in a gentle whisper. I'm sure sometimes He uses a booming voice, and sometimes I've felt like he had to hit me in the head to get my attention. (Or maybe he was showing his love for me, the same way my friend, Andrew, did.) But mostly He doesn't seem to talk very loudly, to me at least. It's more like if you ask your dad if you should be doing something, and he says "it's your decision, you know what's right."

The truth is that today I'm going to Zapotitlan, and I really don't want to. I don't have a good reason to not go, it's just not a convenient time for me. I need to do laundry, we were supposed to go to a movie tonight, my Mexican family is coming home in 3 days, and I don't feel like dealing with mosquitoes and heat. I know it would be ok for me to not go. But I don't think not going is best. In my heart of hearts, I think God wants me to go. When I ask him He says, "it's your decision, you know what's right." Sometimes I'd rather if He said, "get your butt of the sofa and go!!" He doesn't; He just whispers.

There's not really much to say from the last few days. More cooking, more prayer, more Bible study, more Spanish, more tacos. I do have a nice story to share. We were at a small Bible study at someone's house the other night. After the study was over we were eating sandwiches. I was offered some soda, which I turned down, and they started a conversation about drinks. They were telling me about some different Mexican drinks, and talking about who likes what. The one guy asked me my favorite drink, and I told him "Coca light" which is Diet Coke. He disappeared for a few minutes, but some of the guys were hanging out outside so it didn't seem strange. He came back from the store with a can of Diet Coke for me. Aw, isn't that nice.

Well, I need to get myself ready to head to Zapo! Woohoo! It's gonna be so good....mosquitoes and all. You probably won't hear from me for a week or so. Or a month, who knows how long I'll be up there. Not to worry! No news is good news!

Meat Juice

You know, each day is just a new adventure in Mexico. I helped cook again for some guys at the church. I made Mexican rice, and something called bisteak. It's small pieces of thin steak, that's cooked with tomatoes, onions and chili peppers. My teacher, Rodrigo, cooks the meat separately from the veggies and adds it all together to finish cooking. While it was cooking I walked away, and when I came back he tried to hand me a glass of brownish-greyish liquid. We went back and forth a bit until he finally said it was "jugo de carne" or meat juice. I still refused it, and he asked me "no te gusto" don't you like it? I told him I don't, so he squeezed some lime into it and gulped it down. Ok, really....that's just gross. The arroz y bisteak Mexicana turned out well and got rave reviews. I think Rodrigo is a great teacher, but it would help if I spoke Spanish of he spoke English.

I was thinking about something else I wanted to blog about, but now I don't remember. It's my bed time anyhow.

Surviving vs Thriving

Lately God's been speaking to me about surviving versus thriving. He draws my attention towards things like a beautiful rose among several dying bushes, or one lone bright orange flowers in a rooftop cacti garden. Those flowers are doing more than surviving, they're thriving. The other plants are surviving, barely, but that which is thriving bears fruit.
I think most people think if something was different their life would be better. (I doubt my grammar on that sentence, but I hope you understand.) Maybe you wake up at 6 every day to get your kids off to daycare, and yourself to a tedious job knowing you'll be bogged down with people's issues. You know you won't get home until 6, just in time to make dinner, clean up, try to spend a minute with the kids, watch House, and get to bed to do it all over again the next day. All you have to look forward to are those 2 weeks vacation you take every year. Or maybe your situation is completely different, but you can relate to how difficult your life is. I don't have the answers about how to change things, but I know that's not the way it's supposed to be. You are meant to thrive, not just survive in your surroundings. Are you bearing fruit? If not, what do you need to change? Whatever your situation you're being called to thrive in it. If you feel like you're only surviving take it to God and ask Him what you need to change, most likely it's just your outlook.

Gorditas

Today I learned how to make Mexican food, gorditas to be exact. You might be wondering why that's blog worthy. Well it's the first thing I cooked in Mexico, besides eggs the other morning. And see, the thing is, I love to cook. I guess it's one of those things that I know I'm good at and I can use it to bless people. So I'm very excited about cooking Mexican food for Mexicans. The highlight of the experience was when one guy asked me how I learned to make gorditas. When I told him Johanna just showed me today he didn't believe me because they were "too good". Yea, that made my day.
I really enjoy living with Johanna because I love her, but also because I get to spend time with people at church all day...and I love people.

Good Day

Just want to blog quick before bed. If it seems early to be going to bed, that's because the time on my blog is off. Maybe on day I'll fix it.
Most of my day was spent hanging at church with some guys--Noe and Juan Manuel mostly. Noe is very entertaining, and Juan is very nice and he speaks English. At least he did until Pastor Gerardo said no one's allowed to speak to me in English anymore. They made me a great breakfast consisting of eggs with tomatoes and onions, and tortillas. As they were cooking, all I could think about was how dirty their hands were. Oh well! I ate it anyhow.
This evening I attended a school of ministry class that seemed really good. It was about healing, and either I understood a good bit of it or it wasn't on healing and I understood nothing at all.
Some of my highlights from the day are: having a chance to talk to Pastor Gerardo about what I want to do, asking someone's name and getting the answer "he's married", having every person sitting around the table ask me in Spanish and English if I want some chicken, getting told I have beautiful eyes, and watching some men play football in the church. All in all it was a good, but long day. And I'm going to bed.

Understanding from God

I've been wanting to upload some pics and haven't been able to, so here's one of the group in Zapotitlan. I'll upload a ton to Facebook at some point.
Last night I was thinking about how it seems like I always understand what I need to. I might not understand what someone is asking me about my life, or when Johanna tells me where her husband is, but I totally understood when Johanna told me that we are going to Zapotitlan next Thursday for 10 days. I've decided that understanding is from God. He knows what I need to know and what is just conversation. And He makes me understand what I need to know. You might ask why He doesn't let me understand everything. Well, I wouldn't work so hard on learning Spanish if He did. He knows that too.
So it looks like I'm heading to Zapo next week with Johanna & her kids and another family??? I understand the big picture, but sometimes miss the details. :) I'm glad to be going there, but I know it's going to be hard. I'm afraid the language barrier will be particularly evident, and the living conditions are rougher than the city. But I'm excited to be going because I know God is moving, I'll have work to do and I'll be appreciated.

Cebu!

You know those songs that get stuck in your head? One of mine is the cebu song from Veggietales. The word for onion in Spanish is cebolla and is pronounced something like say-boy-yah. When I learned it I must have associated it with cebu because I've never forgotten it, and whenever I see an onion the cebu song pops into my head. I know it's weird, just sharing whatever comes to mind.
This morning Clair and Ben left me. Ben's still here in Mexico City, we just won't be living together. Um...wait...not quite how that sounds. Not that we were living together just ... staying with the same family. There it is! Good explanation, right? Ben thinks we're not going to be friends now, but he's wrong cause I'm a pretty good stalker. Well, that and I live with a family who cooks well and he lives with another guy. They won't be able to pass up dinner invites.
Right now I'm hanging at the church with some Christian brothers. I'm here waiting. Go ahead ask me what I'm waiting for. I have no stinkin idea! The pastor maybe??? I'm just going to wait until I'm told to go. Then I'll probably go wait somewhere else. Such is life in Mexico. :)

No mas Lomas

I've been in Lomas at my Mexican family's vacation house, along with Clair & Ben, since Tuesday. It's really wonderful here. Nice houses and pools (2 of each), awesome weather, amazing people and delicious Mexican food. What more could you want? Well, I want to get into the swing of things in the city, so I'm heading there tomorrow. I'm going to stay with my friend, Johanna, probably until my family comes back from PA a week from Monday. I'm not sure yet, but that's my best guess. This has been a great vacation but I'm ready to work. Remind me of that later.

They're leaving

Today is the day most of my American friends are leaving. I have so much I want to say, but limited battery time to say it all. The time in Puebla (in the mountains) was amazing. It was hard to be there for just a few days and see that kind of poverty and desperation. But despite the sucky accomodations (no hot water, and sleeping on a concrete floor on blow-up rafts), and enduring such things as hearing a pig being slaughtered, I almost can't wait to go back. The way God is moving there is astounding! We went to 2 towns in Puebla. One is Zapotitlan, and the other I don't remember the name of. In that town as we were having the church service, there was a Catholic priest on an overhead speaker who was telling people not to listen to us and to go in their houses and lock their doors because of us foreigners. And yet people came and listened. Before we were done, they turned off the lights on us in the little outside arena we were speaking in. And yet people stayed. Many people came to receive prayer that night, probably more because it was dark. They didn't care that we prayed for them in Enligsh, because the Spirit of the Lord was moving and it was evident.

Well, because of my limited battery, here's the quick version. After that town, we went to Zapotitlan. We prayer walked there, hung out with the kids, some of the men went back to the first town to install toilets in a home, and we had a service that night. We left Puebla on Friday, ministered at a church service in the city, crashed at host families' houses and went to a Quince Anos on Saturday. Sunday we ministered at Agrupacion Familiar Cristiana (my home church in Mexico), and had a service somewhere on the street somewhere else Sunday night. Yesterday, we performed dramas at a VBS at another church in the city and spent the afternoon and evening sightseeing, shopping, and spending time together as a team.

It has been an amazing time! Today I'm headed to my family's vacation home and will be back .... well, I'm not really sure. They don't tell me anything. I'm sure that will be a good time and I'm sad because my extended Mexican family is leaving today or tomorrow to go back home and I don't know that I'll see them again.

Man! So much more to share....I want to tell you about Joanna & Rodrigo, and the view from my 1st host family's house, and getting to know Ben....plus funny stories like the proposal con pollo. But I will soon!

From July 15

As I sit here outside room #2641 (I'm saying it in Spanish in my head), thoughts are so flooding my brain that I'm unable to sleep. I'm slightly jealous of everyone on my team who are sound asleep, but not jealous of their sleep from last night. The team is the group that just got here from Reading. This is the end of day 5 in Cuidad de Mexico and my first blog entry since coming here. Though, I’m wondering if I’ll actually ever get on the internet to post this. And now I’m wondering why Word considers that a fragment. It seems to like it better since I added the comma. Comma has 2 m’s right? Coma is one… and that’s not the word I want to use. I forgot to pay my car insurance before coming to Mexico, and forgot to cancel Netflix. Ooops! This is why I can’t sleep tonight.
Whoever might actually be reading this probably wants to know more about the things that have been going on and less about my flighty brain. Well, my first few days here have been trying. It’s good, but being tried usually is good. Read it again, I said tried not tired. I think the biggest issue is that I’ve spent a few days being sick. I was sick when I got here, which the swine flu Dr. at the airport didn’t seem to like as he yelled “TOS” at me thinking I would be able to better understand him if he stomped his foot. It also seemed to frustrate him that I shrugged my shoulders when he showed me the thermometer, which showed a reading of 39 degrees centigrade. I suppose he didn’t understand when I told him in fine English that I have no idea if that’s good or bad because I don’t understand Celsius. I later researched centigrade & Celsius and learned it’s the same thing called by a different name, and found out my temp was 102 Fahrenheit. Why when I wrote Celsius Word automatically corrected it with a capital C, but when I wrote Fahrenheit Word simply red underlined it? So, I was kinda sick when I got here then I got much sicker (or is it much more sick?) on Saturday, which I blame on tacos from the market. I got some amoxicillin by injection and various other meds that I have no idea what they actually are, but didn’t really feel better until the family prayed for me. By family I mean host family, extended family, and some other folk. Yup, other folk.
I love the family I live with in Mexico. They’re really great, and they have an awesome house. Unfortunately, the house is under construction right now. That isn’t, by any means, a problem. I mean there’s dust and noise to deal with, and construction workers in and out and you have to remember which ones you’ve greeted that day and which you haven’t. But really, it’s ok. The problem is that right now there’s no door on my bedroom, just a curtain, only 1 functioning shower, one flushing toilet (and one that doesn’t flush), and there were 20 people staying in the house. Yup, 19 Mexicans and 1 gringa. Plus countless others who show up during the day—a couple of maids, some friends helping to cook, some guys building a wall, some aunts, some kids etc. etc. etc. It’s a lot of people, a lot of noise and very little privacy. I don’t mean to sound like I’m complaining, I’m still grateful to be able to live with them and everyone, even the extended family and friends, are really great. (I definitely have a cougar crush on cousin cousin Paco. It’s a cougar crush because my guess is that he’s >20. And he’s a cousin cousin because he’s not a cousin, he’s the cousin of a cousin. So we call him cousin cousin.) But sometimes it’s nice to be alone in a quiet hotel hallway late at night. Though I’m certain after tomorrow’s trip to Zapotitlan I will be more than grateful for my awesome Mexican family, my awesome Mexican home, and the awesome Mexico City weather. Right now in Mexico City the days are usually around 75-85 degrees, mostly sunny with some rain, and the nights can get down to the 50s. There’s hardly any humidity, and I just think it’s about perfect. But we’re about to go to Zapotitlan, as mentioned above, where it will be entirely different.
Before I tell you about Zapo, which I affectionately call it because I have a hard time saying Zapotitlan, let me tell you who we are. The group from my church (all but 2 are from my church) came today. There’s like 14 of them, plus this guy who is joining us because he’s friends with someone in the group and he’s visiting a friend in Mexico right now. I hope that makes sense because I don’t feel like explaining it. So today, after waiting for 19 other people to shower, my family& I went to the airport to meet the group. From the airport we came to our hotel, which we’re only staying in tonight, spent a little time in the pool (life as missionaries is hard!) and headed to downtown Mexico City. We went to this great restaurant, which I’ve been to 3 times now, and went to see the square where the palace is. We walked a lot, and truly experienced the Mexican metro. Just when you thought there was no way one more person could possibly fit, because you’re so smashed up against other people you’re pretty sure you can feel their kidneys functioning, that 10 more got on….and then 5 more. You realize Mexican metro is a matter of survival of the fittest when you find yourself shoving ladies older than your mom, because you know you have about 3 seconds to make sure you and the 17 people with you get off at your stop. Not to mention, do the words hang on for dear life mean anything to you? Hang onto both your purse, and the railing…and the kids who can’t reach the railing. Good times! And I’m sure there are lots more to come! But not until after my adventures in Zapo.
And I think I’m going to leave Zapotitlan for another time because then I can write about what actually happened, rather than what I think will happen.
I have a thought for tonight that I would like you to consider. I wonder, even considering all my words and actions, do the people in my life know how much I appreciate them and wouldn’t be who I am or be able to do what I’m doing without them? I know this might sound like a thank you speech, but it isn’t meant to be. It’s just a thought. I guess I’d like you to consider who in your life might not know that you truly appreciate them? Maybe, even though you remember telling them recently, you need to let them know again.
Mom & dad, I appreciate you more than I show, and I deserve you less than you think. Love & miss you lots! There, that’s my thank you speech.

Small Steps

If there's one thing I've recently learned in life, it's that you always have to take that step.

Joshua 3 speaks about the Israelites crossing the Jordan. It states: And the Lord said to Joshua, "Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: 'When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go stand in the river.'" ...
So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during the harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

Who all is affected when you take a step?