9/17/2010
Dear family, friends, and fellow WR blog stalkers,
Greetings from Casa Shalom. If you want to know how lovely
it is to be here, ponder this: I am sitting on a balcony, enjoying the pretty
sky whilst typing this blog, charging my labtop and downloading some podcasts.
Yes, Casa Shalom is pretty much a World Racer’s paradise.
Exempting friends and family, it has pretty much all the comforts of home.
Things I used to take for granted, but now see as a huge blessing…things like
beds, hot showers, food with flavor, WIFI, etc. We also have a trampoline, a small exercise room, and puppies to play with.
We can easily take a bus into downtown Bucharest and see a
movie, or get some McDonald’s. We can go shopping and look at things we don’t
have the money for, and then buy a Starbucks to feel better. We can easily slip
back into our typical American consumer role-that we are here to enjoy and
giving back is just a small part of that.
It’s a slippery slope, this being blessed thing. While it is
a welcome change from Africa, it is also easy to slip back into relying on
myself and my own strength instead of on God’s. It’s a little preview of what
life will be like in approximately 65 days. (That number is in itself blowing
my mind. I remember when we had only been on the race for 100 days, and now we
have less than 70 left).
I am not really sure what to do with it all. I know I need
the Lord, and I know I enjoy having wifi and a hot shower, so where is the
balance? The balance between understanding how the vast majority of the world
lives and enjoying the blessings God has seen fit to give me, for whatever
reason. The balance between living in the moment and dreaming of a better world
in the future.
I have seen so much this year, been blessed in so many ways,
seen how the other 9/10 of the world lives. I’m still wrestling with what to do
with it all. What to do with all I’ve seen, experienced, felt, heard, hurt for…
Blessings & love,
Glenalyn
