KC in Guatemala

I Don't Know Anything

2012-02-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

If you know me at all, you know this: I hate not knowing.

Don’t get me wrong: I love learning new facts and new ideas. That’s not the kind of knowing I mean. I mean socially and emotionally knowing. For example, knowing what year the French Revolution started doesn't matter to me, but walking into the wrong classroom on the first day of school would cause me to pass out from anxiety. Not knowing how many pages should be in an essay is totally fine, but If I’m unsure whether it's appropriate to knock on a professor’s office door for help I won’t dare try it.

When I first decided I wanted to go to seminary, I didn’t know if some of the degrees were only for men. I was mortified at the thought of applying for a degree only to be told, “Um, you know this is only for men, right?” And I was too embarrassed to ask anyone because I felt like it was something I should have already known.

I would rather search through Google for hours or send an email from an anonymous account than be caught not knowing.

I hate feeling stupid, and in my brain the list of situations where you are supposed to know what you’re doing is sky high.

It’s easy to say my aversion to not knowing something comes from pride. I am certain that is true, but it is not the entire truth. The deeper truth is more insidious and evil.

It is fear.

I grew up insecure about a lot of things. Am I lovely? Pretty? Liked? Funny? Worthwhile? Good enough? I was never sure. I felt extremely inferior. But there was always one area where I excelled: intelligence. I knew things. And I knew them intuitively. Things like public speaking, making friends, making people laugh, making people like me, reading body language, manipulating my way out of trouble--all things I just knew how to do.

Being intelligent was a piece of driftwood in a sea of insecurity, one I clung to desperately to keep from drowning.

I also grew up believing I had to take care of myself. The belief that protection comes from knowing is a lie that still dogs my steps in adulthood.

So now I am an adult, and the idea of not knowing can strike terror into my spirit. It assaults my identity and leaves me feeling awkward, naked, afraid, and stupid.

So guess what? I moved to a different country, and now I don’t know anything

“Like what??” you query? Glad you asked:

A short sample of the things I currently don’t know:

How to work the third gear in my car

How to turn around on most streets

How to act when I don’t understand someone’s Spanish

How to get almost anywhere

Which parts of town are safe

How long to take for lunch

Whether people like me

Why I feel the way I feel here

How to say most of the things I want to say

How to get my jeans hemmed

Where to buy bobby pins

How to change the burnt out lightbulb in my room (the fixture is weird)

When we are doing a kissing greeting or when it’s a kissing and hugging greeting

How to introduce myself

How to act when I feel awkward

How to act when I awkwardly don’t understand the conversation people around me are having

How to act when I awkwardly don’t get the joke because it's in Spanish

Whether my English idioms go over the heads of people or if I offend them by explaining them

How to call someone and ask to hang out

Where to buy scissors

How to pay my phone bill

How to navigate the grocery store

People usually describe me as extroverted, confident, even intimidating.

You know what I feel like here? I feel shy, unsure, intimidated. Vulnerable and naïve. I’m not sure where I fit in this new world.

Not knowing is normal right now; I understand that. Since I have been at language school for three weeks, I have only actually been in Guatemala City for ten days.

Ten days.

I should probably cut myself some slack, yes? Who on earth would know anything after ten days? It's just transition and it will not always feel so hectic and confusing. I am fully aware that in a few months I will have a rhythm of life and find my place here. I will learn all of the things I need to learn. I should not compare myself to my roommate who has been here over a year, nor should I feel discouraged that I don’t have everything figured out after ten days.

So that is what I have been telling myself, and it helps to calm the anxiety. But I have made a huge mistake with this self-affirming mantra. Anxious to acclimate to all the new things here, I haven’t stopped to appreciate where God has me.

I have seen this uncomfortable limbo of not knowing anything as a time to hunker down and bear through it when I should be seizing it as an opportunity to throw my arms wide and fall into His sufficiency.

After a good cry at work today and an amazing talk with my roommate Susan, I realized the Lord wants me in this emotional place. It is a unique situation to be in a different country during this initial transition where I am stripped, for all intents and purposes, of my competence. This time won’t last forever, and with my hyper resilient personality, it's possible it won’t even last long. So I thank God He has opened my eyes to the truth that this uncomfortable period is not here to be my master, but is here so I can begin to learn what sweet freedom it is to not know and to be fully protected and secure because of Him who has all knowledge and grace.

He is not just going to change me; He is going to uproot me.

He is good.

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light with you.

Psalm 139:11-12

This is my life?

2012-01-14T15:47:00.000-08:00

As I shut the door to my house to leave for the airport, I stood in the doorway, soaking in the reality of the moment. A season has ended and a new season awaits me. It's not very often you get to stand in the threshold of change, and as I stood in the doorway I had the blessing of doing exactly that. Bittersweet is the perfect word. This last season of my life changed me. The person I am today would be a stranger to the person I was 17 months ago.

It's like I grew wings.

In a short 3 hour flight my entire life changed: new house, new car, new phone, new job, new church, new friends, new language, new country. I keep wandering around the house aimlessly and looking outside at my car thinking, "This is my life???"

I have a desk for goodness' sake! At an office! Because I am a staff member at a church!

This is my life. It doesn't quite feel like mine yet, but I know one day I am going to wake up, get in my car to go to work, say goodbye to the gaurds, stop for a cup of coffee, and sit down at my desk-- and it will hit me. This is my life. It feels like mine.

I can't wait

"Who is your hero in handling loss?"

2011-11-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

It’s a question our instructor asked us during our session on grief and loss. Most of us didn’t have an answer.

“As a missionary your life will be a revolving door of relationships. Will you love well? Or will you insulate yourself from the pain… and the joy?”

CS Lewis, who lost his mother when he was a young boy, and his wife when he was an old man, said, “When I was a boy I chose safety, as a man I chose suffering.”

Sometimes I don’t think we grieve well as an American society.

Have you ever reflected on the customs of grief in other cultures?

In Jewish culture, the tradition of shivah is observed for the death of immediate family members. For seven days, those in mourning stay in their house and receive visitors, and unless a visitor is spoken to first, they will just sit there and be with you while you mourn.

Have you ever wished someone would just be with you during a loss? Or struggled with wanting to comfort a loved one but not knowing what to say?

It used to be a custom wear black for a year after someone died. A year to grieve.

Have you ever felt like the world went back to normal too quickly?

Some cultures hire people to weep when there has been a loss.

Has someone else’s expression of emotion ever freed you to feel?

It has been my experience as an American that when someone dies, we bury them, have a service, and host reception all in one day. The whole event takes maybe 4 hours. You’ll probably be back at work on Monday.

We may cry publicly: we dab the tears off of our cheeks quickly, we wipe the smeared makeup hurriedly.

But what we really want to do is sob until we are heaving. We want to let the tears stream down our cheeks while we wail. We want to do the ‘ugly cry-face.’

We save the real break down for later, behind closed doors.

And it's not just death we don’t do well. Our culture is ripe with idioms about how to deal with the grieving of a relationship. Concepts like “rebound” and “getting back out there.”

Heck, we don’t even say goodbye all that well. Have you ever noticed how most of us say goodbye at the threshold of our house?

In South Africa they walk you to your car, walk down the driveway, and wave at you until they cannot see you anymore. Big, whole arm waves.

They made us say goodbye like this after training. Every person. Every car.

It took two hours. When goodbye is an event you have the time to actually feel and process the sadness.

When our training instructor left Africa, an African man he became close with came to see him before he left. He asked our instructor to stand on his blanket. As he began to reach to take his shoes off the man said, “No. I want the dust from your feet on my blanket.” So he stood on the blanket and they said their goodbyes.

Later, another African man explained to our instructor the meaning of the blanket.

“He will not sleep with that blanket tonight. He will leave it curled up in the corner of the room because the dust from your feet is on it. He will sleep without a blanket every night because of the pain he feels for losing you. He will not sleep with it again until that pain is gone.

But there will come a night, a night when he will come home and pick that blanket off the floor, and he will sleep with it. When he comes to peace with you being gone, he will sleep with that blanket again.”

So who is your hero in handling loss?

Mine is that African man.

Sharks can follow, too

2011-10-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

Last Friday’s lesson was over conflict resolution. We spent the day talking about the 5 different conflict styles:

www.brentobannon.com/turtle-teddy-bear-shark-fox-or-owl/

I’ll give you one guess which one I am. Yup, I’m a shark. Or as one friend puts it, “more like a great white shark.” While the above website is pretty generous, our notes are a bit more descriptive:

“These people's goals are highly important to them but their relationships tend to be of minor importance. They place prime importance of achieving their agenda or on their interpretation of what is best for all concerned. If necessary, they will sacrifice relationship in order to accomplish this. In these instances, they do not care if other people like or accept them and are not concerned with the needs of other people… conflicts are settled by one person winning and one person losing. While winning gives them a sense of pride and achievement, losing gives them a sense of weakness, inadequacy, and failure. People in this category therefore try to overpower opponents by forcing them to accept their solution to the conflict.”

Ouch. Who wants to be like that? In fact, who would want anyone like that?

The seconds it took you to read those two questions is all the time needed for old familiar lies to creep into my heart. “You’re too much, too loud, too bold, too opinionated… too domineering, too controlling. You’re not a feminine, quiet, gentle, meek Christian girl like you should be.”

It’s a struggle that is all too familiar to me: how does an extroverted, passionate, strong-willed, intelligent woman have a quiet, submissive, and gentle spirit?

Let’s start with the first two questions:

Who wants to be like that?
Apparently sometimes Jesus does. We can look to Jesus and see him employing every conflict style perfectly and without sin. Jesus taught about avoiding retaliation (Matt 5:38), compromising your own rights (Matt 5:40-42), and collaborating for peace with fellow believers (Matt 5: 23).

But when you enter into a temple and start throwing tables around and screaming, there’s little room to debate which style he’s working from.
There are no avoiding sensitive issues,
no compromising with the Pharisees,
no collaborating with Rome.

Even Paul, who constantly exhorts us to be unified, confronts Peter publically (Gal 2:11), instructs Timothy to command people not to teach false doctrine (1 Tim 1:3), and tells the Judaizers to emasculate themselves! (Gal 5:12)

Why? Because sometimes truth is more important than peace.

We are all sinful, and every personality type is going to produce sin. The books of Proverbs and James constantly convict me in my bent for particular shark-like sin, but for years I made the mistake of allowing the shame of my sin to taint my view of the beautiful way our sovereign God wired me to be.

Next question:
Who would want anyone like that?

“For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made!
My frame was not hidden from you,
When I was being made in secret,
Intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
In your book were written, every one of them
The days that were formed for me.” -Psalm 139

Jesus does.

The last question: How does an extroverted, passionate, strong-willed, intelligent woman have a quiet, submissive, and gentle spirit?

I got my answer in an unsuspecting place:

I spent Saturday night salsa dancing. It was a wonderful place that gave lessons before you danced. As I listened to the instructor it hit me: Salsa dancing is a lot like life. The man leads and the woman follows. True to form I have historically had trouble trying to lead when dancing, which always seemed irritatingly indicative of my life.
The instructor taught the men to be good leaders by telling them they can't just use their feet, or hands, but must use their whole selves. Then she moved to the women.
“What do you think is the key to being a good follower?”
True to form, I shouted,
“A good leader!”
This apparently was not the answer she was looking for, although I still think it fits.
“The key to being a good follower is to wait.” You will sometimes wait and wait. But you must learn to respond.
As we began dancing I had the pleasure of dancing with several men who were not only very good, but very eager to help me learn. With my ‘salsa is like life’ thoughts on the brain, I couldn’t help but hear my Father whisper in my ears as well.
“Relax!” one partner told me, “salsa is about having fun, you have to feel the beat and go with it. Let me lead.”

So I did. I learned what it was like to not be so stiff, to not think so hard about doing it right and be in tune to another person’s leading.

I learned that following is an extremely active job. It takes just as much boldness and intelligence to follow as it does to lead; just as much passion to respond confidently as it does to decide boldly; and that when I do that it's a lot more enjoyable, and a lot more beautiful of a dance.

That night many of my dancing partners told me I was a good dancer, and at least 4 of them said the words, “You are a good follower.”

Every time they said it I almost teared up, because I could hear my Father whispering it to me, too. I am making you a good follower.

So never forget this lesson: sharks can follow, too.

"We're going to be shot!" - A lesson on cultural assumptions

2011-10-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

Colorado is beautiful, this training is eight kinds of wonderful, and the Lord is doing so much in my heart. While I would love to tell you every detail, I will suffice to tell you the coolest thing that happened today.

Most of our training so far has been lectures, group work, discussions and activities. We have done a lot of work talking about our cultural assumptions, our reactions to stress, and how we judge and interpret the behaviors of others based on our own frame of reference.

Today, we had a simulation.
Here’s how it went:

As we waited outside our conference room after lunch, our instructor informed us that we were a mission team returning from the field in an airplane, but that due to a horrible storm we were forced to land on a small island. Playing the role of a man from that country, he took us off the “plane” and said in curt, broken English, “Women there. Look exit. Silence. Men there. Look exit. Silence.” He lined us up facing away from the conference room and each line of the opposite gender.

It was at this point I remarked, “I feel like we’re going to be shot.”

Our instructor disappeared for a few moments, leaving us all standing there confused, until he returned and barked, “Come. Go now. Come.” He marched us into our conference room, but it didn’t look like it did before lunch. It was dark: tables and chairs were turned over and thrown around, trash littered the ground. It made me nervous, and I was suspicious that this was a simulation about being taken by hostile nationals. I stood in the back silently, which was convenient, since then I noticed the words scrawled onto the board

“BE SILENT”
“WOMEN TO THE BACK”

The instructor left the room. I noticed the crumpled up papers on the ground had Arabic writing on them. Yup, definitely going to be shot.

A teammate started handing out some papers she had found. Across the top it said, THE FORM, only it was backwards. The whole form was written backwards and asked for name, age, gender, and education level. It was very hard to understand and although I didn’t want to fill it out at first (it made me nervous) I began to try to answer the questions. Then I noticed the smaller letters on the board; they were instructions on how to fill out the form:

1. Write clear, sloppy writing will be thrown out.
2. Use Islamic calendar to write dates
3. Do not answer number 7
4. Do not ask questions

So I have already filled it out incorrectly, which makes me super anxious. I tried to get closer to the board to read the instructions when my professor stepped in front of me (when did he even come back in the room?) and says “women in back.”

I know this is a simulation, but at this point my heart is literally racing. “I’m going to be in trouble for filling it out wrong! I want to do it right but I can’t get close enough to see the directions! We’re all going to get shot!”

I was certain execution was in our simulated future.

Before we were done, our instructor said, “Go now. Plane leave.” We filed out of the room, and I nervously handed him my incorrect and incomplete form. We were made to line up the same way before, facing the opposite directions. Then our instructor informed us the simulation was over.

How would you have felt or reacted in that situation?
I felt unsafe, threatened, and nervous. My interpretation of the events was that I was in a hostile environment, which caused me to shut down into a hyper vigilant survival mode.

After discussing our feelings and reactions we were asked to make a list of why we felt and reacted the way we did, using this phrase, “In America, we ________ but THEY ________.”

So, In America, we explain to people why we need them to do something, but THEY just barked orders at us.
-They must be hostile-
In America, we treat men and women as equals, but THEY made the women go to the back.
-They must be extremist/sexist/primitive-
In America, we keep official/legitimate places clean and organized, but THEY put us in a dark room that was torn apart.
-It must be unsafe here-

It was then our instructor shared with us what we had gone through:

“We are a small island community that many decades ago was under Islamic rule. Although we now govern our own affairs we still use the Islamic calendar. This storm has caused numerous flights to need to make an emergency landing so I must get teams in and out as fast as possible. The team before you was particularly large and came through like a tornado and I am the only worker here so I haven’t been able to clean up after everyone. Our major business on this island is tourism, so we take a survey of everyone who comes through our customs, which was the form you filled out. English is my second language, which was why I spoke the way I did and why the forms were not clear. In our island we are hold our women in extremely high esteem, culturally we feel it is our duty as men to protect them, so our women are always with a husband or male family member. Amidst the deplaning, I could not tell which woman was with which men, so we keep them separate out of protection and respect for the women. We have many Americans come to our hotels and we know the disrespect men many times show to women. I would have happily put you together with your wives or families had you indicated to me that they were yours but none of you did.”

He then asked us why none of us asked him anything during the simulation. During the exercise, although he was clearly running the show, and we were clearly confused and lost, none of us asked him anything. He has done this simulation 9 times a year for the past 7 years, a total of 63 times.

Only twice has anyone ever asked him a question during the simulation.

How’s that for the danger of judging events and behaviors based on our own frame of reference?

Our God gives more than 100%

2011-09-29T16:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard anyone say, “God always gives us exactly what we need”? They are wrong. Our God gives abundantly--more than you or I could ever dream or think to ask for

I am cared for, provided for, loved and known. I know this because Scripture says so, but I also know it because I have experienced it. God has shown me in many ways that these things are true, and one of those ways is through His body, the Church. In the last 24 hours, our Lord has used the church to show me just how true those things are.

I am known.

Yesterday I was meeting with someone at the Flower Mound campus about support,
and, as I was leaving, a dear friend bounded out of an office and embraced me in a hug. Before leaving the building I was greeted by two more friendly faces I have known for some time. Today I walked into the Dallas campus, and who would be answering phones but a person from my home group.

But if I was alone on a deserted island I would still be fully known by God, and that would be enough yet there is nothing that makes me reflect more on the unconditional acceptance and love of my God than the unconditional acceptance and love of his church.

I am cared for.

My meeting today at the church consisted of some departure details: having a homegroup ‘adopt’ me, being prayed over at Elder Led prayer, filling out information to be put on the new website. My beautiful church is the way that God is providing for me.

If I were never shown a kind word or deed by anyone, God’s care would be enough. Yet he gives more than enough.

I am provided for.

As I have been nearing the end of support-raising, I have been counting down the dollars needed until I hit 100%.

My last gift that came in today was unexpected and almost 4 times the amount needed to reach 100%. That doesn’t include the funds I will raise from my garage sale.

I am over 100% fully funded. Over. More than needed. More than deserved. More than enough.

I have been weeping for about an hour. When He is enough you get more than you ever need. I am convinced that we get more than we need so we can give. We get to be the body and the vehicle for showing others how great the love and care of God is for them.

I am loved by God. I can feel it in my lungs when I breathe. I can feel it in my bones and in the wind and every song and silent moment. He has given everything to a woman who is not worth it so that he might make her worth it by loving her.

And that kind of loves changes you.

September update!

2011-09-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the newly designed blog! I hope you enjoy the new features. Be sure to check out the links of interest to the right.

Now for the update!

Last Sunday, I got to spend a wonderful evening with the Guatemala IV team from the Village helping them pack for their upcoming trip. They will be in Guatemala for 9 days to setup a clinic for the orphanage and the community. The team is taking over $50,000 worth of donated medicine and medical supplies!

Along with their huge bags of medicine, they are also taking some luggage for me so I can begin to move my things into my house. Please pray for them, that their trip will be successful, and that the orphanage and the community are blessed by their new clinic.

Currently, support is at 85%! Because of the fantastic progress in funds, I have decided to push up my training dates. I will still be leaving for Guatemala in January, but I will now be going to Colorado for training from Oct 17- Nov 18. (This is opposed to the original dates of Nov 7-Dec 7).

Would you join me in prayer for the remaining 15% of the funds?

This week, I registered for language school. The first three weeks in Guatemala will be spent in Antigua living with a host family and going to language school 5 hours a day. Studying abroad is a familiar experience to me since I went in 2008 to study Spanish in Cuernavaca, Mexico. I loved it then and I anticipate enjoying it again this time.

Here is a sketch of the next five months:

Oct 17-Nov 18- Colorado for training

December- In Texas packing and preparing to leave

January - Language school in Antigua

February- Guatemala City

The near future holds a lot of travel, a lot of living out of suitcases, and a lot of new experiences.

Will you pray against feelings of isolation and loneliness?

For safe travel and good health?

It’s a blessing to know you are all in this with me.

Know that I love you,

A word of thanks to my supporters

2011-06-30T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have been raising supporters for a month now, and, going into the process, I honestly didn’t know what to expect.

In training, they taught us to think of ways we can minister to our support team. However, I never expected that the person who would be ministered to in those meetings would be me.

There are times when I had to take deep breaths just to pick up the phone to call someone, and despite entering many meetings feeling nervous at best and terrified at worst, I have been so blessed by each one of you.

You have encouraged and inspired me.

So many times in a meeting or on the phone, you have renewed me with life-giving encouragement. Other times, your heart for the Lord and the testimonies of his grace in your life have brought me to tears.

Because of you, I am still standing strong in this process and moving forward.

I feel honored to to go on mission with and for you.

"Fundraising is not for the Fainthearted, my Dear"

2011-06-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

These were the words my mother said to me as we were driving down our alley three days ago. I had been telling her my fears and concerns about asking people for support, and although I had begun the conversation upright, by the time of her comment I am certain I had sunken far enough in my seat to be invisible to anyone outside the car. A puddle of discouragement. And I hadn’t even asked anyone for money yet.

Support raising is indeed not for the fainthearted.

The official name for the support-raising phase before being released to assignment is MTD- Ministry Team Development. And the crazy/exciting/daunting thing about MTD is how much it reveals about your heart.

Of all the things we were trained in when I was in Orlando, boldness was the hardest for me. To call someone and ask, not "can they" or even "will they" sit down with me, but instead ask "when this week can you sit down with me?" To ask directly and confidently for people's time, people's prayer, and people's money is daunting and frightening to me.

why?

Well honestly, I realized that there is the fear in my heart that if I am too much work, people will just leave. Sure I'm fun to be around, but if I get to be too much relational work, if I actually need or ask for anything, well.. people will just think I'm not worth that much work, and they will leave.

Its kind of embarrassing to admit actually. Whats even more revealing is that I think there are some ways in which I still feel this way about the Lord. I think many of our interpersonal fears and problems are indications of our fears and lies we believe about the Lord's attitude to us.

A surprising study in counter-intuitive discoveries....

For how extroverted I am, it genuinely surprised me that I would have a "keep your head down and don't rock the boat" mentality about my worth.

I saw a pretty powerful quote by Martin Luther the other day that basically said that every believer struggles with accepting God’s grace; that anyone who says grace is easy has never truly tried to accept it.

My sanctification has been a story of God revealing the parts of my heart that still doesn’t accept his grace and love. It has been my experience that often God reveals it when he intends to heal it. I sure hope so.

And so, this MTD process is one of faith building; and not simply the “I have faith he will raise this money” kind of faith. There are so many lies we all operate in and we don’t even know it. He has been systematically breaking those lies in my soul since I became a believer. It is a blessing of God when he reveals them so we can heal. It has also been my experience that sanctification happens on turbo when we allow ourselves to be in uncomfortable and unfamiliar circumstances. We talk a lot of placing ourselves in the waterfall of his grace, but the waterfall metaphor gives the impression that the whole journey will be a refreshing and calming experience. And yes, his grace is refreshing and calming. But sometimes placing ourselves under the waterfall of his grace has little to do with getting comfort or refreshment from my circumstances. Often it is the opposite. It is when I step out of my comfort zone and do hard things that I am able to receive the refreshing waterfall of his grace and mercy and love and faithfulness.

In conclusion, do hard things. Live radically and dangerously for his kingdom.

Oh how I love my God.

To the cross I cling

2011-05-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last 9 days in Orlando, FL at new staff training for Great Commission Ministries. My days have started at 8:30am and ended at 9pm, and my brain is filled with a thousand new pieces of information. I have really enjoyed the training and feel equipped for the next phase of the journey.

But this week has also been a very spiritual week. I am sitting next to a fellow missionary in our little apartment listening to the song "to the cross I cling"

All things in me call for my rejection
All things in you plead my acceptance
I am guilty but pardoned
by grace I've been set free
I am ransomed through the blood you shed for me
I was dead in my transgressions but life you brought to me
I am reconciled through mercy
To the cross I cling

And I feel the weight of having only the cross to cling to, especially as I get ready to leave everything I know and move to a different country. Maybe its not a huge deal to some, but I have never lived anywhere except Dallas. And more than that, I spent the last year wading through a myriad of heart issues related to this trip. After seeking the Lord heavily last fall there were many of my fears that caused me to want to stay home and forget Guatemala all together. I have a pretty set timeline for how I would like the desires of my heart to play out in my life, and it became evident that this big ole fat year in Guatemala would definitely derail many of those hopes and plans. After that was revealed to me I knew I had two choices: Stay home, be safe, chase my dreams, OR depart into the unknown, flinging my desires, plans, and hopes aside to chase ferociously after Christ. I feel this beckoning from the Lord. It reminds me of a CS Lewis quote from Narnia, where the beaver is describing Aslan:

'Safe?' said Mr. Beaver...'Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. but he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'"

I feel the Lord beckoning me out into this unknown phase of my life, I am nervous, and yet excited. So as I sit in this little apartment in Orlando, I am feeling the weight of the uncertainty and excitement that's all rolled into one. All I have to cling to is the cross and the King, and that's enough.