Peace

God is so good. Right now I am enjoying the sounds of raindrops and thunder from the comfort of my hammock, while watching the clouds fade from pink to gray as the sun sinks below the mountains. An amazing breeze is blowing, and everything is just so peaceful. There is, of course, the ever present sound of cicadas and barking dogs, but even that is peaceful tonight. It's just one of those moments when you KNOW God is there. I am so blessed.

I must admit, I've been a little discouraged. My time here is running out so quickly, and its so easy to look at all that I've done and feel like the time was too short to do any good, that the only person whose life will be at all changed by my being here is my own. Maybe that's the truth, but now I'm okay with that.

See, I know I'm different now. I can't really explain in what ways I'm different, I just know I am. Don't worry, I'm still annoyingly literal and eternally sarcastic. I still have my dad's habit of turning everything you say into a song. But somehow, in some way, I know I've changed. It's kinda scary, considering I'll be back in Arkansas in almost exactly a month, and I have no idea how this strange new version of myself will handle the good ole u.s.a. Yet still, I'm excited to see how God uses this new me for His glory.

Hearing God's Call

Today in our mentoring meeting we were talking about what it means to be called by God to do something, and what said calling can look like. It got me thinking about it, and I realized that I haven't really shared with many people how it was that I felt God calling me to be where I am right now. So here is my story, at least part of it. If I wrote every detail it would be too long to read :)

So let's go back a few years, about 7 or 8. Cue 16 year old me, working at Chick-Fil-A and just beginning to learn a little Spanish from my coworkers. Then I started high school and spent the next 3 years learning to love the language and the culture even more, thanks to both my coworkers and my amazing Spanish teacher :) (There was more that happened in high school that relates to this story, but I'll get back to that).

Now we move on to my college years...I continued to study Spanish, meeting a lot of great Latino people on the process, but that was just par for the course so I didn't think much of it. I also frequently stopped by the study abroad tables, wanting to go but never having the guts to go through with it. It was also during those years that I "coincidentally" met several people who had spent time overseas in different capacities, but I didn't really think much of it. Then, in late 2012 I realized that I was going to be graduating college a semester early. Cue the future planning.

Now, I'm really not sure where exactly I got the idea of semester missions from, but for some reason I started looking into it as a possible post graduation option. Not long after I started google searching missions projects, the lovely lady Taryn came to church and talked about her time as a Jman in Spain. Coincidence? I think not. So I filled out an application, not really sure what I wanted to do, but thinking I'd just put that option out there. Then summer came.

I headed off for my second summer at the amazing Camp War Eagle, and who should I be put with as co-counselors but missionary kids and girls planning to do missions when they graduated. Seriously? It was becoming ever more apparent that God was trying to get my attention. But I didn't want to leave home and family. I'm the girl who went to a university 20 minutes from home. I couldn't make it 5 months away from my family. And then I read these verses in the Bible: "Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10:37-39

Talk about a clear message. Add to that the way that God provided for this trip financially and its about as close to a neon sign as you can get. So when I got the email saying I had been accepted to do a semester of missions in Mexico, my decision was pretty much made for me. And that is how God called me to Mexico.



Oh yeah, the other high school thing! So, because of the way things worked out for me starting public school when I did, I ended up being in high school for an extra year. That year I was much more involved in school activities and also took SO classes. Thanks to that year, I starts college with 12 hours of credit and $3500 a semester in scholarship money. The 12 hours are what put me graduating a semester early, and the scholarship money allowed me to save some of my work earnings. Those savings, in addition to the donations given by several amazing, wonderful people, are what played for these 5 months here. All of this to say, GOD IS SO GOOD!

Holation Amigosation

Spanglish. I'm sure most of us English speakers are familiar with the idea that if you take a Spanish word and add an o to it, it then becomes "Spanish." Well, as it turns out, Spanish speakers have a similar method of speaking "English". Their method is to add "ation" to the end of their Spanish words. Hello is "holation". Goodbye is "adiosation". You get the idea. And that is reason #1749 that I love Mexico.

I have to say, the closer I get to leaving this place, the more things I realize I will miss. For example, the other day on the bus we were entertained by a flute and guitar playing duo who also sang as they played. It was legit. You don't see that in the states! Also, speaking of buses, I get to ride them all over town. I can get pretty much anywhere I need to go via buses and a few solid blocks of walking. I like it.

Another great thing here is tacos al pastor, or as we now call it, the bacon tornado. It's pretty much just the best meat ever: stacked slices of meat roasted on a spigot and sliced off the outside of the tornado for our eating pleasure :) I really haven't eaten anything here I didn't like actually.

Then of course there is the simple fact that everyone here speaks Spanish, which frequently makes my day more fun, albeit more complicated. The four of us have reached the point where our two languages blur together, and conversation in any language is a bit convoluted. It's fun that way :)

I love getting to know people from another culture than my own, I love translating video game names from English for the young boys, I love showing American teams around this beautiful city, I just love this place. (Just so you know, I don't love EVERYTHING about Mexico, just almost everything).

So basically you should all live in Mexico for a while. It'll be worth it :)

P.s. Just so you know, despite of my love for Mexico, I do miss you all in the states! See you in a couple of months!