This Day I Choose.

I've been home now for almost four days. And I really, really, really miss my babies!! I hate that I'm not there with them and taking care of them and helping with homework and play with them.

But sometimes, things have to change. And as soon as one journey ends, a new one is birthed. This journey has ended, but a new one has begun. I don't know what this new adventure entails, all I know is that I want to pursue it with the same passion that I pursued the last one. I know that I have the option to be upset about the end of my last journey, or to throw all that I have into the new one.

Today I choose to throw all I have into the new one.

Today I choose to find adventure, to find beauty, and to find joy in my life.

Today I choose to live for today, refusing to dwell on the past or worry about tomorrow.

Today I choose to love recklessly, wildly, as if no one will hurt me.

Today I choose to be only me, and I choose not to be ashamed of that fact.

Today I choose to live.

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

I Just Love Nice People.

I can be a pessimist sometimes. I tend to try and avoid that facet of myself, but every once in a while I find myself drifting into that mindset. Today, however, is not one of those days. It kind of started that way, but in every possible way it was refuted. My day didn't exactly start well. I had to say goodbye to 10 kids that I fell head over heels in love with, and I couldn't tell them when I was coming back. I was hugging Pedro, and he sat up in my arms and said "You no cry?" (read: kw-eye). I shook my head (it was almost a lie. Almost. But I wasn't crying.. yet.) and he said "Why no? I cry." and then lay back down on my shoulder and hugged me a little tighter. Typing that, I am crying. I fell so madly in love with those kids.

So... that highly emotional experience, coupled with an impending new, stressful experience didn't leave me with a very positive outlook on the rest of my day.

Skip to the airport boarding. I was checking my bag in at SAP (San Pedro Sula airport), and I experienced the first of many friendly people who directed my path today. She checked my bag and gave me my tickets and told me exactly where to go and what gate to go to and what I had to do next. Step by step, with a smile on her face. I am kicking myself now for not figuring out her name. I wish I'd paid more attention to all of their names. (side note: speaking of nice people, my flight attendant is really nice. He just gave me a Dr. Pepper and he was just friendly and smiley. I can't see his nametag from here.)

From there, I thanked her, told her to have a nice day, and paid my tax. Then I said goodbye to Bob (who is another one of those nice people! I love him! Great guy!) and he, too, explained exactly what to do at my next connection and stuff. Keep in mind it was my first time flying alone. I boarded my flight, and, a little nervously, waited for my plane buddies (a.k.a., the people with assigned seats next to me.). The people I got ended up being amazing. A sweet little girl named Melony, who was eight, and her mother, Amalia. Amalia, Melony, and I talked for most of the trip about flying and traveling and D.C. (where she's from) and San Pedro Sula (where she lives) and just stuff in general. Oh, and they were Catholic. They did a prayer thing before we took off, it was neat. I found out that she and her entire family (3 kids plus hubby) fly to D.C. at least once a year. Knowing that I, um, had no idea what I was doing, she offered to guide me through the customs/bag pick up stuff. We had to separate at one point, but she pointed me through to where I was supposed to go and said she'd wait for me in baggage claim.

I misplaced myself and ended up in immigration, where another guy noticed me looking confused and asked to see my passport, then he redirected me. I smiled and thanked him, too. Another great person.

I reached baggage claim, and Amalia was there. She introduced me to her husband and her other two children (17 and 15) and she stood and waited for me to get my bag. After that, she walked me over to where I was supposed to go and pointed me in the right direction.

She was an answered prayer. I was so nervous about navigating MIA (Miami Airport), and she helped me through the first part.Which, in my opinion, was the scariest.

I walked through the doors she directed me to and I handed my passport to a nice man who had to check it for.. something. I'm not sure. He asked me how my flight was and if I'd had any problems, and I told him it was my first time flying alone. We had a nice little chat and then he handed me my passport back and told me to have a nice flight. I told him to have a nice day and walked away, practically skipping. Another nice person. I said a little prayer, having recognized another good person God placed on my path, and thanked God for him too.

This is where I ended up having problems. I got through security with no problem. Talked to my family. And somehow ended up at the wrong gate. (In between security and realizing I was at the wrong gate, there was also the nice starbucks guy who was singing and smiling and all happy-like.) See... I ended up at gate 35E. Which had a flight to Nashville scheduled for 9:35 a.m. I didn't notice the a.m. (Tip: Check your flight by flight number AND city. Not appr. time and city.) This was after I had sat there for an hour. Another nice woman heard me go "Uh oh. That can't be good." and came and helped me figure out my flight information and the correct gate. Right before I left, she put her hand on my shoulder and said "Don't fret. You still have an hour and fifteen minutes til your flight leaves. You'll be fine."

So.. I finally found the CORRECT gate. But was still extraordinarily nervous. Eventually I worked up the courage (I'd spent most of the day in the airport and on planes. I was now tired and stressed and really just wanting to be home.. an emotion that still lingers now. Oh, and all I've eaten has been pop tarts and the starbucks) to ask the lady what flight she was on. She told me that her flight was to Norfolk, not Nashville. I briefly explained my... adventure.. and she said "Well we'll just look it up!" smiled, and started checking her computer. She asked me what the airport name was and finally said "Flight 410, depart 9:45, gate D46. You're in the right spot and the plane hasn't even gotten here yet."

I almost cried I was so relieved. So we talked a little bit and I explained the whole "I'm scared out of my pants because it's my first time flying and I have no idea what to do in el aeropuerto ginormico" thing. (ginormico is not a spanish word. I made it up.) She smiled and told me she has flown many times, but she knows how scary it can be. Feeling much better, I settled into my seat and waited on my flight.

Then I boarded, said goodbye to nice lady who helped me feel not so anxious, and almost cried from relief of ALMOST being done with my big kid adventure.


I am SO done with this whole "adult" thing. I don't feel qualified, and I just want to get off this airplane and hug my mommy.


Addendum: More nice people! A group of about ten people from my church came and picked me up from the airport. I felt so very loved! I made it home safe, and have only had a few hours sleep. By the way, I did hug my mommy, and almost cried.

Not the Post I Intended to Write.

I kind of really don't want to go home. I live in this suspended reality here, kind of. In this suspended reality, there is this far off "Estados Unidos" that people go to and come from that doesn't really affect me. And sometime later I'm supposed to be going there too. In this suspended reality, I'm vaguely aware that my life might be changing and I'm vaguely aware that people that I knew won't be there when I get home and that there will be new people and that my whole life is completely different. But only vaguely. None of it's really real, it's just out there in Estados Unidos.

So I don't want to go home. Because once I get home.. everything is different. Everything. I'm different. The entire course of my life is different. And I'm not totally sure I'm okay with that. I know I don't have a choice in it, so I have to become okay with it. But for right now.. it's a far off distant world. Billy reminded me of that today after church. He told me that I'm going to have to totally rely on Christ during all of this. He told me that things aren't going to feel "okay" for months. He told me not to worry if I feel out of place. He told me that I'm going to feel tons of emotions during this whole thing and that it's okay to feel those.

But most importantly, he told me that I wasn't alone. That he'd been there. That it'd be okay in the end.

Thank you Billy! You and America are awesome! :)



But I still don't want to go home.


Today I got to see four beautiful children confess their faith and get baptized. It was wonderful. Today I was reminded of Christ's sacrifice for me. One of the songs we sang today had the line "The Darling of Heaven, crucified." And I thought about it, and just, wow. The Darling of Heaven. The most beautiful thing that Heaven has to offer... crucified. Shamed. Hurt.

We're not worthy of that. We don't DESERVE that. We don't deserve anything. I don't deserve the ability to breathe each breath I take. We deserve nothing, but He gave us the Darling of Heaven. The most beautiful. The most glorious thing ever. Because He loved us.

Wow.

I have no other words to say. I have no clever metaphors, I tried to come up with SOMETHING to relate that too.. and I just couldn't. There is nothing to compare it too. There's just nothing.

Aldous Huxley and Pikachu

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." - Aldous Huxley

I know, that's not a "normal" christian thing to say. But that quote is how I feel all the time. I find this attitude in people a lot. This kind of push-it-under-the-rug-make-it-all-better attitude. Through this trip, I've seen real pain. I've seen poverty. I've seen disease. And I've noticed that people don't want me to talk about it. People don't want me to tell them that things aren't okay. People don't want to hear about the reality. I understand why, because pain hurts.

I have found such an intense beauty in the pain and poverty and hurting. I see beauty in the tin houses and broken people. Maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic. Maybe I'm naive, but to me, it seems beautiful. There's something so raw and so real about it. Something beautiful about the fact that it's not hidden under some glossy coating. But maybe I'm just crazy.

Guess what. Pain is inevitable. But we go through EVERYTHING acting like we're all ok and everything is fine and dandy. We act like there is nothing wrong and we don't hurt and we don't sin and we all live perfect little lives.

Then everything falls apart.

And everyone acts like they are SO shocked and talk about how something like that would never happen to them. When secretly, I think everyone breathes a big sigh of relief that they're not alone and that things suck sometimes.

I run into this mode of thinking that seems to say "If I just pretend it's not there, it won't be." So we do. We pretend it's not there and we never get out and conquer it. This thinking is then contagious, and we end up with a church full of people playing this big game and no one getting anywhere because of it.

Somehow.. I think there might be something wrong with this idea.

There's one other sort of "head in the sand" thinking that really gets me. It's this phenomenon where people so surround themselves with "church people", people who have it all together, that they get this idea that there is no sin left in the world. That there aren't lost and dying people out there. Of course, if you were to ask them, "Are there any lost people in the world?", they would obviously say yes. But it's like the responsibility we have to share Christ is somehow lifted when they stop interacting with anyone that isn't a member of a particular church group.

But really, they miss out. They're the ones who lose the huge blessing in just loving people. There are lessons to be learned that you just can't get without being out in the "real world." It reminds me of an episode of PokeMon (which I was a huge fan of!) where Ash (main character) battled Lt. Surge, a gym leader who seemed to be just so much better than him. They both had electric type PokeMon. Ash had a PikaChu, and Lt. Surge had a Raichu. For those of you who don't follow pokemon, Raichu is the evolved form of Pikachu. Raichu is considered to be much, much better than Pikachu.

In the first battle, Pikachu was beaten badly. Very, very badly. Raichu had better electric attacks and was far stronger than pikachu. When Ash was in the hospital with pikachu, he remembered something that Lt. Surge had said. Lt. Surge said that he had evolved his pikachu as soon as he got it, turning it into a raichu. Ash realized that there were some attacks that the pokemon could only learn as a pikachu, attacks that allowed pikachu/raichu to be quick on its feet. Ash went back to Lt. Surge, and was right. Raichu had missed out on learning the speed attacks.

We can't afford to miss out!

I've been both of these people. I try to be neither. I'm not as successful as I'd like to be.

I no longer want comfort. I want real. I want truth. I want honesty. I want freedom. I want grace. I want failure. I want messes. I want dirt. I want acceptance. I want beauty. I want people to be real people again.

To the Family with the Hubcaps on top of the Tin Roof

To the family inside the house with hubcaps on top of the tin roof:

You don't know me. You've never seen my face. You've never met me. I've never seen you up close, and I can't be certain of who you really are. I will probably never speak to you. I will probably never get within 100 feet of you. But I still pray for you. Every time we drive by the riverbank where I see your house, I think of you, and try to pray. I pray that God gives you enough. I pray that you stay healthy. I pray that someone - anyone - shows you the love of Christ.

I wonder about you, too. Mostly I wonder how you live. I wonder if the river is your only source of water, I figure it is, but I wonder still. I see the electric lines that go over your house and wonder if you have any electricity. I wonder if you have jobs or where you work. I wonder if your children go to school. I wonder if you've ever lost one of your children to all those diseases that they talk about on TV. I see the chickens that wander around your house and wonder if that's your only source of food. I pray that it's not. I see the horse outside your house and I wonder if it is your only transportation. I wonder your house is made of. I wonder if it's bigger on the inside. I wonder if you have a real BED to sleep on. I wonder how many of you live there. I wonder if your family lives nearby. I wonder if your house gets destroyed when it floods. It's so close to the riverbank, it looks like it would. I hope it doesn't. I wonder where you got all the things you made your house with. I wonder how long it took. I see what you do in the river, how you take the garbage bags and clean them. I wonder what you do with them. Is it money for you? What are they for?

But mostly, I just wish I could love you. Truly love you, not love you from a distance, but know you well enough to love you. Love you in a way that separates the differences between us, the differences between poor and rich, the differences between Latino and American, the differences between English and Spanish. I want to love you like that. A love that does nothing but unite.

Sincerely, with the best wishes in mind,
Emily, one of the many people who drive over the bridge where you live.

Pedro: A Lesson in Patience.

Three nights a week, Pedro has therapy. Pedro either has a mild form of Cerebral Palsy (CP) or he has some brain-muscular disconnect from a beating when he was younger. Either way, the right side of his body doesn't quite work. He speaks in only 2-3 word sentences, and his right arm and leg don't work correctly.

So three nights a week, Wilson, Pedro's speech and physical therapist, works with him to improve his speech and movement. First, he loosens his muscles with a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel. While they're waiting for that, they practice speech with flashcards. He starts with just the verb, making sure he can say that right, and then makes him say a whole sentence with it. Pedro is getting better at this.

After he finishes his speech, which takes an hour or so, Wilson works Pedro's muscles, stretching them and loosening them and stuff. Then Pedro sits in a chair across the room and tries to catch this little plush soccer ball.

I have never seen him catch this ball. 

Really. I haven't. I watch him do it almost every time, and I've never seen him catch it. But Wilson keeps throwing, and Pedro keeps trying. Pedro gets frustrated sometimes, but for the most part, he just keeps trying.

I've only been here for 2 1/2 weeks, so I know he will catch it someday. I know that he's made miles of progress since he started working with Wilson (as in, he can run like a mostly normal kid now), but in that moment, when I'm watching it, it almost seems futile. In my head, I know that it's for his benefit, and even if he's not catching it, just trying helps somehow. But in that moment... it doesn't look like he'll ever "get it."

Moving into the metaphor part of the blog now, I wonder how many times I've tried to catch the same ball. There are things it doesn't look like I'll ever get. But I know trying has to help. Even if it doesn't make sense now. I wonder how many times I've grabbed, just to see the ball laying in front of me on the floor.

But I have to keep trying. I have to keep grabbing. I have to keep working with it, or I know I'll never get it. If I never try, I never will. Maybe someday, I'll get that. Because, remember, there's a difference between knowing something and knowing something.

So for now, I'll keep reaching and trying to catch that ball.

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" -Hebrews 12:1-2

And I thought *I* was supposed to be the teacher.. *sigh*

Angel and Jesus are busy doing their homework (which we just had a big fight over. Angel did NOT want to write.) They have 1st grade lined notebooks, the kind with the top and bottom lines, plus the middle dotted line. Anyway, for their "homework", I write down some words and then they have to copy them on the other lines. (there's only 6 lines..) Every time I do this, I have to be extra careful with how I write. I print much, much better than I would if they weren't going to be copying it.

I know that the quality of my work has a direct effect on the quality of theirs. I know that my work is a model for theirs. They're still learning how to write, and so what they learn now will have an effect on how they write for the rest of their lives.

As I was writing out one of their homeworks, and I was meticulously writing out the letters, I was thinking about how I never pay this much attention to my writing any other time.

How many other people am I really modeling for, without even being aware of it? 

Mike and I were talking about this, about how people were watching me (all the while he was giving me that "I know something you don't and I'm not going to tell you about it.) and always watching us. To be honest, the idea of someone using ME as their  example of how to do ANYTHING scares me. I don't feel qualified to be the "model" for anyone. But we are examples. We are all examples to one another.

Makes me wonder: How much better of a person would I be if really lived like everyone I knew was watching? 

There are all of these people that I'm influencing, whether I want to or not, and sometimes, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.


The next thing I learned from giving homework: It's not always about the answers. Angel finished his writing assignment, and I asked Angel to read the words to me. He looked at it, and said "Egg!"

Egg was the word printed on the page. But I knew that he didn't know it because he read the word. They have this habit of looking at the first sound and guessing from there, just hoping they'll land on the right answer. I made him sound out the word, and tell me what the letters were.

I realized then that sometimes learning how to figure it out is much more important than the answer itself. It's interesting, I was reading a book by Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christian, and he said something similar.

The quote said something like this: "What good is a math book if you just look at the answers in the back? You never really learn how to do math. You don't learn from the answers.. you learn from figuring out the problems. Maybe that's the way the Bible is too. Maybe it's not to give you the answers, but to help you figure out the problems."

(Friends of mine who have this book, Greg Crider, John and Nancy Hill, and NJ, feel free to post the exact quote.)


Jesus especially does this. When he doesn't know something, he'll just keep guessing. Saying number after number or letter after letter or word after word hoping that he lands on the right answer, while I'm trying to show him how to get the right answer. He will guess numbers without even looking at the problem. I have to tell him, "Look at the problem, Jesus. Look at it. Now tell me."

I have to stop him and make him look.

I think I've been guilty of just throwing out guesses to God, instead of looking at what He's asking and letting Him show me, I just throw at guesses trying to get the right answer. The guesses get us nowhere.