lots and lots

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Ecuador Journal Entry #16

I think that after our Bible study yesterday, I have done a lot of thinking.  The seven of us met yesterday to just share what we were learning and what God was teaching us, but after it was all said and done, though I definitely learned a lot and was challenged by the testimonials that people shared, I have to admit I felt a disconnect from the group.  I think that I am used to being needed or being a support to people around me, and to be honest, here I don’t really feel needed.  In fact, I would say that much of the time I feel like the other students here look down on me.  I am naturally a very emotional person and that just really isn’t the typical personality of a biology major.  I’m a person who deals a lot with the feelings and thoughts of others around me and I like to feel like I have something to contribute to the lives of my friends.  Whether that be a listening ear or a laugh or a hug or whatever, I just like to feel like I can do something to help the people around me.  I guess I just really feel more and more disconnected from these students.  Though we are all living in one country away from our families and Taylor University, we are all living different lives from one another, and that doesn’t help with the disconnect. 

Last night, though, was good.  We have been very busy the last few weeks just getting into the swing of everything, and I haven’t had a lot of time at home.  Last night, after we went and bought a cake for my nephew, Nico’s, birthday, Carla and I sat in her room and I was just able to listen to her talk about some of the things that have been going on in her life.  There were just some things that she couldn’t share with her mom or Alex, her sister, that she needed to get off her chest.  I felt bad for being so busy with school stuff and group activities, that I didn’t really know how she had been.  She and I have become very close just living together and being sisters.  This family, here, that I am living with has to be one of the biggest blessings I could have ever asked for.  The love that they shower on me and allow me to shower on them has just been more than I could have ever hoped for. 

update

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Ecuador Journal Entry #15

Well, I must say that this past week has been interesting to say the least.  I feel like I have been living in two different countries.  Did I mention that before?  I don’t really know.  But I should confirm that I have been offered and will accept the position as PA on 3^rd North English for next year.  This is something really scary and definitely not planned.  It is interesting how you plan your life a certain way and it never quite turns out like that.  I have no idea what to expect for next year. 

Hannah said some things this morning that really meant a lot.  Just about how we are all doing stuff really stupid, and how the rest of the world, even mature Christians might look at us and question what we are doing.  But that it really doesn’t matter as long as we are following where God is leading.  And Becky mentioned that the only thing that really is detrimental to the Kingdom of Satan is, when we have stopped hearing, feeling, experiencing God, we continue to obey.

I guess for me that I just have all these doubts flooding in.  It is so hard to deal with all of this while I am in another country.  Today was the first day that I really just wanted to be back home.  That would be easy, though.  And not to say that everything in life that God has planned is difficult, but I do think that a lot of the time, we are meant to swim against the current.

On the family front, I am doing quite well.  I just wish that I had more time to spend with them.  Apparently, last night at the parent’s meeting, my mom just kept raving about me.  I think that is so funny.  And the fact that I got called a princess three times by three different people yesterday.  Ephraim, my mom and dad, and Eric.  It is kind of amusing because my mom changed my sheets yesterday and I am now sleeping on a Disney princess comforter. 

There are some days here where I feel like I have stopped learning as much.  I know this is not the case, but I think I just hit these blocks where it is not as easy.

Yesterday, Becky and I went to a little bread shop and I bought her some bread for her birthday (a bit belated).  I think that my favourite times are when I can just sit and talk with people.  My dad (back home) wants this time for me to be a time where I can really confirm where God wants me to go in my life.  I have to say that I still  don’t know if medicine is where I need to be, but I learn everyday just how much I love and need people.  I just can’t express how my heart breaks for their heart-breaks, and how useless I feel if I can’t help them.  Right now I am having this problem with Karen.  I just really want to help her but I don’t know how. 

Anyway, that is just a bunch of random thoughts.  Hope that helps.

i'm okay

I feel kind of bad because it seems that the times I send you journal entries I am extremely emotional and I just have to get some of it out.  I was able to talk with Becky though and she convinced me that this was something that I really needed to talk to my mom about (here).  I did end up talking to her and just asking her if she thought that I didn't like it with them.  She said that she worried because I was having so many problems eating last week and apparently, all of the parents here have been told that we have a lot of money.  Since my family is living well, but not as well as the other families, she thought that I was used to a higher standard of living.  I had to tell her that it was not the house or car or food that was important to me, just the love that they were showing me and the fact that they were Christians.  It was really good.  We both ended up crying tears of joy at the kitchen table.  She just said she worries about me like her own daughter.  She said she feels like she has known me for two years, and that after I leave, if I ever want to come back, their home will be open to me.

Riobamba Weekend

Monday, February 26, 2007

Ecuador Journal #13

This past weekend was really fun.  The group of us went to Riobamba to see an orphanage and some of the indigenous natives at a church near Chimborazo.  It had to be the longest bus ride I have ever been on to get there.  Six hours of bumps, fast hairpin turns, and an already upset stomach didn’t really help anything.  Not to mention that every time we stopped some corn cobs rolled around on the floor and the smell of greasy empanadas never really left the stale bus air. 

However, the time that we were there was very eye opening.  We went to this orphanage where a Canadian family of ten had opened up their house to 41 kids and 12 infants.  They had been there ten years and some of the kids had mental and physical handicaps.  There was this one boy there who just broke my heart.  He was one of the younger ones.  They had just found him and his deaf and mute mother wandering the streets begging for money on Friday.  He had a skin infection on his face and he didn’t really like to smile all that much.  At first I just played a little with him on his toy car.  He would look at me when I would tell him to look out to not go over the edge of the side-walk.  When we left, I told him that I would come back later that night and we would play.  When we returned, he really didn’t seem like he wanted to play, but he started crying a few minutes later and I asked him if he wanted me to hold him.  So for about two hours he just sat so peacefully in my arms as we walked around the orphanage and watched the kids dance for us.  I later got to feed him his dinner during a short concert in the dining room.  His mom was there and she used so many arm movements to try to communicate with us, but she really didn’t know how to take care of her baby.  Linda Allan, the mom of the family, told me that they were going to put the mother of the boy up in a hotel room because she was getting in the way of caring for him, and they were then going to take him in.  No one even knew the boy’s name or if this was his real mother.  If it was I would almost guess that she had been raped. 

It is experiences like this that I just want to just quit school and open an orphanage like these people.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to.  My heart is just broken for this little boy. 

Today has been a day that has been a bit harder too.  My family here keeps saying that they think I don’t like them.  It somewhat offends me and really breaks my heart because I don’t know what I could have done to let them think that.  I really like them and I love that I am getting to spend this semester with them.  I just don’t understand how they could think this way.  It kind of makes me feel like I am failing. 

I have cried for about an hour or so this morning.  I think it is starting to die down now.  This whole cultural thing is difficult.  How am I conveying that I don’t like them?  And if they don’t think that I like them, how can they know that I love them?  How can I minister to them?  At the same time I somewhat feel like I am failing to minister to my friends and family at home because it is so hard to communicate.  Am I just a mooch living off of other people?  How am I supposed to be used by God in a state like this?  I feel so inept.

I keep coming back to the verse that I chose for myself.  That through my weaknesses, Christ is glorified.  Well, I definitely feel weak right now.

just so you all know.  it really was a fun weekend.  i think some pics are going up on facebook.  i am putting mine up later.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Ecuador Journal Entry #11

So today was a definite cultural experience.  I think I can call it my first real Carnaval experience.  We were invited to the house of a family that used to be really close to my mom and none of my family had ever been there before.  So, on the way there, we got lost about 3 times until we finally found the house.  Then, when we walked in and after we had kissed about 30 people, I find out that my family knows about 3 other people there and no one else.  And the Carnaval celebrations started right away.  First, it was just water guns and pails and the foam cans.  Then the women in the kitchen brought out the eggs and were cracking them over each other.  Then came the flour with people throwing it all over everyone else’s faces and putting it in their hair.  The worst, though, was when they started throwing the pig’s blood at each other and chasing the little kids around the house with the pig’s foot.

It was a definite cultural experience.

After we got home, I was able to just sit around with my family after merienda and just talk.  We just discussed the cultural differences between the culture in Ecuador and in America.  I expressed to them how important family was in my life and that I really appreciated that about the culture here…that family is such an important part of life.  It was probably one of the nicest evenings because my sister, Alex, just really told me how they didn’t want me to be sad, but that they could see how important my family was to me.  That I wasn’t sad here, but that I made a point to talk to family and friends back home.  She also was really encouraging and just told me that I had a sweet spirit that the family really appreciated.  I think at times, here, I have felt like a burden on the family, they just have given so much love to me and I don’t really know how I can minister to them or repay them for all of their kindness. 

I think it is going to be hard at the end of all of this.  I miss my friends at home and I was able to talk with some of them, but I am going to be so sad to leave my family here.  To live in close proximity with people for even just three weeks really allows you to see them.  There are flaws about my family here that I observe, but I also appreciate them in their PJ’s and being silly and dancing around the kitchen.  I hope that I can learn to appreciate the people around me at home through this experience.  I miss grocery runs with mom, sitting up late and talking with Papa, helping Mimi in the kitchen when the whole family is over, snuggling with the girls on the floor and going to Starbuck’s with them to celebrate nothing in particular.  I miss sitting around the table at home with Reid, both of us just rolling our eyes at the silly things Mommy and Papa say and do.  I miss walks back to English with Eric and just talking with him about all the pain in my heart, stresses, praises, prayers, everything.  I miss classes at home too, talking with Dr. Regier or Dr. Moore or Dr. Reber about how amazing Creation is, evolutionary debates, Taylor community.  I miss chapels, praising GOD with my sisters and brothers.  I miss morning walks to class or the DC where the sun is just rising and for a minute at least, I realize who the day was made for….who I was made for.

But I am getting so many blessings here too.  I love sitting on the buses here and just observing people.  Watching the kids throw water balloons at passing buses.  Talks after dinner with my family.  Walks along the rivers.

Why am I so blessed?