Meet my family in El Salvador. My
parents here are Alberto and Mariella. Alberto is like one really big
kid. I call him “trickster� because he is always playing pranks
on us. He’s a lot of fun and has a huge heart for serving us and for
missions. Mariella is our mom. She is such a sweetheart. When we went
to the beach to surf, I returned with 158 mosquito bites mostly on my
legs and feet. It looked like I had the chicken pox all over again.
On the race, we learn about not having “borrowed offenses�.
Meaning if someone did something to someone else- I really don’t have
a right to be mad at said person or to judge said person because of
that thing he/she did not do to me. Well, I made an exception for
Mariella. She definitely had a borrowed offense for me. She was not
happy with the beach and the mosquito’s that they did that to me.
Haha. She cooked me up a concoction with lime and spread it all over
my dirty legs and feet. Then she gave me the rinse cycle. Then she
creamed me. She takes care of all of us as if we were her own kids.
All 12 of us, which brings her total to 16 kids. I have 3 brothers
and 1 sister here. They are quite the rambunctious group, there
pretty awesome. We also have a dog, A-taco.
We have stayed really busy here. We
have many different types of ministry throughout the days serving
with a few different churches and Pastors and schools. I was also put
on a new team this month so on my free time I have been having lots
of conversations to try to get to know my teammates on a deeper
level. They have all been together for 4 months now, so needless to
say I had some catching up to do. With that, came a big challenge for
me this month. I got burnt out. I tend to go go go until I can’t go
anymore. I finally reached a point where I couldn’t go anymore, and
it was for the benefit of EVERYONE if I took time to refuel with the
Lord. I was burnt out, but in such a beautiful way. It brought me to
a place where THE ONLY thing I wanted/needed to do was spend a good
chunk of time with my Papa. I needed to be filled back up so I could
pour back out. As hard as it is to run on empty- it brings you to
such a beautiful place with the Lord. My challenge is to figure out a
way to be alone with God when there is no way for me to be alone. It
has been a challenge all year, but this month was noise central.
There are 18 of us living in a 3 ½ bedroom house. They built a wall
in the garage and put air mattresses down for us and have turned
other places in the house into bedrooms for us. With kids running
around, the 12 of us running around, a dog, two tv’s always on and a
stereo blasting Spanish goodness all the time- its hard to find peace
and not want to pull your hair out sometimes. Once again though, I’ve
been refilled by Him and He has shown me yet another little tiny
piece of great and how beautiful His love is.
