So.
This is strange.
It’s February 9, 2015, and I’m sitting at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Trujillo, Peru. It’s been five weeks exactly since I said my last goodbyes to most of my friends (and since you all blessed me so much with your presence and hugs and notes of encouragement at my farewell dinner!). In those five weeks I have been to seven cities (five in Ecuador alone), spent a night in an airport, ‘enjoyed’ thirty-plus hours in a three-day period on busses, managed to be thoroughly confused by the three different currencies currently in my wallet, drunk more Coca-Cola and eaten more Doritos than I do in a year (100% not kidding), held a monkey, become borderline dependent on 8-for-a-dollar freshly-fried queso and banana empanadas, and jumped off a waterfall.
Had to wear a harness for that last one, but still. 😉
This is my life? And these things are just the parts of these last five weeks that are easily contained in one or two phrases?
I’ve been thinking a lot about home in the last few weeks. Not because I want to be somewhere different–I really don’t 😉 …but because I’ve realized that even if I were back in Michigan, safe and still in my guacamole-green bedroom, I’m not sure I would actually feel “at home.” I think “home” has a lot to do with rest, and refuge, and relationship, and I think most places we experience in life don’t exactly just drop those things into our laps…so I’ve started to question how to fight for those things and find them wherever I am. The other day, after we’d stopped for a twenty-something hour break in Cuenca between bus rides and we’d had to carry our packs several blocks through the streets, I found myself feeling the same weight emotionally that I had physically, wanting to figuratively be home–to just walk through a door and set down my pack of stress and fears and loneliness.
A few weeks ago my team leader was talking about how Christ commands us to abide in His word, and she mentioned that the definition of “to abide” is literally “to stay” or “to remain.” What better definition of “home” is there than the place we stay and remain? And what more constant place to find our home, even in the midst of thirty-hour bus rides and chaotic rooms full of sleeping pads, than Christ himself and in His Word?
So I’m working through that, starting to learn more and more how to find that constant rest and refuge and relationship that I so desperately crave in Him and in Scripture.
I have so much more to say of this month, of what we got to do and what debrief was and the lessons I’ve started to see God reveal from all of it! But time and wifi is limited so I’ll have to wait a little bit longer for the rest. 🙂 We’re in Peru though! And we’re together as a whole squad this month, getting to do VBS programs and help the churches here in their ministry and just encourage each other.
Also! My next financial deadline is April 1, and I’ll need $11,500 to stay on the Race at that point…but I’m already at $10,377!! SO CLOSE! Thank You, Lord!!! And thank you to all of you for your generous and cheerful spirits in supporting this! 🙂 Please keep praying over the financial details, both for me and all my squadmates; please pray for blessing and protection over our relationships with our hosts and ministry partners; please pray against sickness (because this squad has been dealing with a lot of it!); and please continue to pray that our ministry and time here would be blessed and truly honoring to the God that brought us here.
Thank you all!!
Love from this sandy, dry, beautiful corner of Peru,
Alicia
