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.