Standing in Awe

There is a unique type of anxiety that accompanies buying a plane ticket five days before the flight. Every time I go to El Salvador it is always a build up to actually make that final click that purchases my flight. There's something so final about it. I am not a person for schedules and long term plans and always struggle with thoughts like, "...but what if I change my mind or want to do something different?"  However, when the final document I've been waiting for came I knew it was time. I made the final click, and Monday is the day that I will be leaving this life for a year (unless God changes his mind). It's funny because for the first few weeks I was back I longed to be back in El Salvador, but now that I've been here for a while I'm not as eager to leave. I am writing this post from an adorable little coffee shop just down from the yoga studio my sister and I like to go to in Erie, Pennsylvania. I have spent at least two weeks of my time back ...

If you search Pinterest or even google travel sayings you will find a myriad of one liners trying to explain what a person experiences when one travels. I would simply like to say that traveling changes you. In being back in the U.S. And in mostly familiar places (Eight Point Lake, Mt. Pleasant, Ann Arbor) it's funny how almost nothing has changed, but everything is different. Or more accurately, I am different. I can't explain it, and I frankly don't want to try, but I do want to share what has been on my heart and how God is changing me in it. In the last year I have talked a lot about love. How incredibly huge God's love is for each of us. With that, however, we must also experience loss and pain deeper than we can imagine. This week I am reconnecting with the staff team of New Life Church and we went to see the new movie "Inside Out." I was brought to tears watching the interplay between sadness and joy and how essential each is for the other to f...

This post is nothing profound, I simply felt that a one line prayer request could not sufficiently explain what is in my head and on my heart. My kids - as my departure is rapidly approaching I don't want them to feel surprised or abandoned.  I have begun to warn them that I will be leaving, but it is almost impossible to endure their looks of sadness.  I love them so much, and as much as I don't want them to be attached to me, I am so attached to them.  I tear up every time I think about the fact that my impending reality is life without them.  I can't even. Going back to the US - Undoubtedly I have been thinking a lot about how soon I am leaving.  As I have expressed to a lot of my family, life in the US now seems like a distant dream to me.  I fear that I will not know what to do with myself.  At the same time, I miss my family like crazy and can't wait to see them.  I just want to hangout with my mom, and go for runs with my sister, and m...

It is amazing how God can and does use everything and anything to teach us.  Some of the deepest lies I wrestle with have to do with my self worth and if God chooses to love me or just does it because His word says that he does.  As you know I spend most of my days with about 35 kids.  Like any kid each of them has their good days and their bad days, but I love each of them so dearly even on the worst days.  It recently occurred to me that I think I always believed that there is a limit to a person's capacity to love.  Like there is only so much love that can flow out of a person and eventually it becomes diluted as they try and love more people.  It's like saying that my parents only love me one fourth as much as they loved my brother when he was born because I am the fourth born and so their love has become divided amongst the four of us.  I couldn't be more wrong.  As I get to know each of my kids here more and more, spend more time with the...

Get ready for a multimedia post!  I have so many wonderful things to share with you.  This first: It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of libe...

So I can't remember if I mentioned this, but I went to Honduras last week!  If you are familiar with the Ignite conference, we went for something very similar.  It was a conference for all of the Great Commission Latin America (GCLA) churches in San Pedro Sula, Honduras.  The 30 or so of us, including families as well as youth from the church, started the trip off at 5:30am by loading up into a small bus and headed for the boarder.  There are some things about the US I miss and other things here that make me realize how ridiculous our culture is sometimes.  Example: In Honduras they use different currency and you get about 21 to the dollar.  Now you're probably thinking that we would have to go to a currency exchange and get a receipt and all the formalities, but no, conveniently there are men hanging out outside the immigration office with HUGE wads of cash offering currency exchange.  It seems sketchy, and yet I appreciated it.  Simple, strait ...

I heard from my mom today that people have been requesting more photos so here I am basically just going to put photos of a lot of the things I talked about in yesterday's post.  Enjoy! Sunrise Cooking With my kids. The pier and fishing market.

So I promise I will get back to my studies of the promises of God, but today was so uneventfully wonderful that I feel the need to tell you about it. Just like any other normal day I woke up to the birds chirping, the dogs barking, the neighbor girl crying, and cool air biting my toes.  One of my favorite parts of the day is heading downstairs bright and early to make my cup of coffee and return to the fresh air in my room to read and watch the sunrise all while savoring the first cup of coffee of the day.  As the rest of the inhabitants of the house begin to stir we quickly have breakfast and head down the mountain to start another day.  We first go into town to drop off Marielos at the market and the sound of buses and bells signaling fresh baked bread always brings a smile to my face.  Downtown is crawling with people coming into town with goods to sell and heading out of town to work as well as many locals stopping to have a cup of coffee with a friend.  ...

Yes, this is me.  On top of a volcano! You may remember me mentioning that I was taking a class called "New Testament."  One day my professor talked about the major promises of the bible and I took note intending to dig more deeply into these promises and what they mean for me.  I am just now getting around to it, but it has been so good I thought I would share what God has been teaching me with all of you.  The first promise I want to share with you is sustaining grace.   My professor sited this passage from 2 Corinthians 12:9 as primary evidence of this promise: But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. When I dive into these promises I like to break it down and search microscopically for significance in each word.  So, I first searched "sustaining."  I found Psalm 55:22 which s...

One of my favorite things in life is being spontaneous.  Yesterday I got invited to go to a place called "Puerta del Diablo" which translates to "The Devil's Door."  After a long car ride, which for no real reason I found extremely fun, we arrived and it was beautiful.  There were street vendors all around selling "elote loco," or crazy corn, hand made crafts, and there were even carnival rides.  We climbed up on one side of the cliffs to take in our surroundings.  At the top I was talking with one of my friends Mari who has moved here from Ohio.  We were reminded of how huge God is and also had a moment of "wow, we live in Central America!" On the way down Kayla, Josue, and I decided to go on a zip line adventure!  It was a lot of fun and so spontaneous.  Below is a video of me flying away!     I think most of us would like to be more spontaneous.  There is something in us that makes us feel more alive when we are a...

So I talk about the sunrise a lot. Sorry I'm not sorry...I think it is one of the most amazing things we have the opportunity to see daily. However I hope this time around I can shed light (pun intended) on the subject of hope. On Friday some good friends of mine invited me over to stay the night. They also love the beach and so Friday we swam and then watched the sunset. On Saturday we got up at 5:30am to watch the sunrise and as I sat on a piece of drift wood I couldn't help but be in awe. Before the sun had even broken the horizon colors danced across the sky painting the clouds beautiful shades of soft purple and pink. At the first peak over the ocean the sun was a brilliant burning orange that caused the sky around it to glow a delicate pink.  Now normally I would talk about all the possibility in a sunrise but this time all I could think of was heaven.  I was almost in tears at the beauty that was before me and this is nothing compared to heaven.  I was...

A few weeks before Christmas I was shopping at a fair trade store in downtown Ann Arbor with a good friend.  We were looking for Christmas presents for friends and family and as we were headed to the check out there was a box of rings.  I was instantly drawn to one that was a simple twisted piece of metal and says "live simple."  This past year I felt as though God was teaching me to trust him not only for my needs, but also to allow him to delight in me.  I have often denied myself wants or things I know I don't need, and even denied others the opportunity to serve me.  I realized that by doing so it actually doesn't allow others to live as God has called them because we are all called to serve others.  So back to the ring.  I felt God delighting in me in that moment and bought it as a Christmas present from Jesus to me.  It is a great reminder of how God calls me to live, and the life that is truly filling. It is funny how God prepares things...

Are you a person that likes to make new year resolutions?  We are surrounded by advertisements and social media telling us to improve ourselves. "New year new you!"  This might be one of my least favorite phrases.  Maybe you've resolved to workout more, eat less sweets, read more books, quit smoking, make more money, the list goes on and on.   I just finished reading a book called The Circle Maker , by Mark Batterson and I was really inspired by this passage: "Make a resolution not to defile yourself.  Then circle it [in prayer] again tomorrow.  And the next day.  And the day after that.  Some of us don't start fighting the battle because we're not sure we can win the war, but the war has already been won nearly two thousand years ago at Calvary.  All you have to worry about is winning the battle today.  God can take care of tomorrow.  Can you keep the resolution for a day? Sure you can.  That defining decision will le...