8/14/16
This month SheBrews has been working with Camp Hope here in Quito, Ecuador. Camp Hope is a rehabilitation center for kids ages 9-months to roughly 30-years old, with mental and physical disabilities. This month has been a quick month, and our time in Quito is almost up, before we split into those who have parents coming for PVT (parent vision trip), and those of us who don’t. As I sit here and reflect on the past two weeks in Quito, I can’t help but smile. It’s been absoutly an amazazing experince. Not only our ministry, but in what God has been teaching me as well.
At Camp Hope we get to do a little bit of everything, cleaning, kitchen prep, side projects like putting a thousand photos into photo albums (yup, I worked on that project for about a week), and most importanty getting to hang out with the kids. I think my favorite group of kids (although I LOVE them all) to work with are the “babies” (they range in age 1 year to about 10). Alec* has the biggest smile, and Gabriel*, is the love-bug, and baby Teegan*, well he’s the easiest diaper change I’ve ever done in my life. We feed them lunch, help give them massages, do texture therapy, and so much more, but our most important job is to just love on them. So we do, we love them hard. And because of that, its heartbreaking to most of us that we only get to spend 17days with them this month instead of a full 3.5 weeks.
Over the last two weeks I’ve gotten to spend time not only with the little ones, but the big kids too. On like our third day of ministry, I was spending time with a twelve year old girl, Lori*, after lunch for a while. I helped her brush her teeth, and then took her to the park (the playground on site) to play for a while. Watching Lori was absolutely amazing, and made me think about a lot of things. Lori, likes to run, and run fast, and I speak very little spanish so communicating with her…well is like next to impossible; so it’s not like I could tell her to stop or slow down really. As I watched her run….run up in down the park, in circles, and across the entire Camp Hope grounds, I couldn’t help think I wish I had her energy. I wish I could run like that.
The more I’ve thought about that phase over the last few days that went through my head that day I wish I could run like that; my thoughts have turned into the different types of running there are. There is the physical act of running, something that you probably will never catch me doing unless someone is chasing me; then there is the emotional act of running…choosing to run from what your feeling, the things going on in your life; sometimes this is a physical run, of leaving a location or place, but sometimes its just emotionally checking out. Something dawned on me, I’ve perfected the art of of running (emotional running…avoiding conflict, etc…).
I think that there a large portion of people in this world that have perfected the art of running. We don’t want to face the things that hurt us, we don’t want to acknowledge the pain from our past, we don’t want to have to learn how to face things. Something this year has taught me is that facing things is healthy; that learning to deal with our problems, to face them head on instead of running is something God wants us to do. He dosen’t want us to shut down, he dosen’t want us to run andhide, he wants us to avoide. The more I grow in Him the more I understand this.
Journal Entry: 8/9/16
“I had a one-on-one with Tammy last night. It went really well actually…but something we talked about that I hadn’t thought about in a while, or ever really, is how this is the first time in a long time I’ve chosen not to run from anything.
Yes, its true that we move month-to-month and I’m not “dealing” with stuff at home; but for the first time in my life, I’m faing my past, my issues, my problelms head on. [I’ve chosen to quit running].
Something I’m realizing [this year] is that I don’t want to be a “runner” for the rest of my life. I’ve been running for so long, I don’t want to run anymore…I don’t want to be known as a runner. I want to fight instead of flight. I honestly don’t know what this looks like as far as the rest of my life goes, but I do know that means choosing courage over comfort for the rest of my life, and I know it means facing things head on and with God in the center of it all.”
I realized while writing this entry, that I perfected the art of running, and that I’ve virtually been running since I was 11 years old. The reason’s why I’ve been running for so long aren’t all that important at the moment, but the truth is I have been and it hasn’t been a healthy way to live. I look back at the last 10 years or so, and there have been so many people who have tried to convince me to stop running, and yet I didn’t listen…I wasn’t ready to listen, to let people in, to choose to stop running.
But here I am, month 8 of my race, and I’m finally ready to stop running. For those of you who are runners, who haven’t stopped, or are learning to stop, or maybe you have stopped running and are facing things; here are two questions for you: What does it mean to stop Running? What does it look like to stop running? These are both question’s I’m still learning to answer, and I don’t have full answers for. But this I do know, you can’t stop running without help. And you most definitly can’t stop running without God.
This year has been a year of learning for me. A year of learning to trust, to let people in, to open up, to belive in myelf, to learn to be vulnerable, to face my past, and ultimatly to learn to stop running. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (ESV) it says, “ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.” There is a season for everything, and that includes running. There may be a time for running, but there is also a time for staying an facing. If you are a theoretical emotional runner, what is stopping you from stayin? What is stopping you for choosing to stay and face your problems? Why do you continue to run? I’ve finally come to the concusion, that for me, part of it was fear. So choose today to stay and fight, to face, to let people in, to no longer run. I Am No Longer A Runner. It may not always be the easy choice, but I know it is what God wants for my life, and I know that if I keep him in the center of my life, and and the center of how I choose to react to things, then it makes facing things that much easier.
I AM NO LONGER A RUNNER!!!
*Names have been changed for the protection of the kids.
