Sorry this blog is so overdue but I have been practicing the very thing this blog is about…being present.
The last two months of my race were difficult times for me. For the first time in my life I experienced homesickness in a way I never even thought possible. I didn’t understand before when people would talk about being homesick…yeah I had missed home before but not in the physical, gut-wrenching, cry your eyes out, want to go home NOW kind of way I did during my last two months. From 2004-2009 I lived in 5 different cities on 3 different continents and home was just place I visited twice a year; sure I missed people but I never felt homesick. I expected the race to be much the same, I expected to come to the end of my 11 months and while I figured I would look forward to going home and seeing people that I would also wish I could keep on traveling. By the end of the race if I had been asked to do even 2 more months in ANY country of my choosing I would have said NO WAY!
I now realize that I was caught in the perfect storm of homesickness:
- I was sick most of month 10 with E. coli and when we are sick we all want to be home with our moms to look after us.
- South America being the continent we ended on for our last 4 months didn’t offer up a lot of ‘newness’. It was the same language with very similar tasting foods with very similar culture. Don’t get me wrong, I loved South America and their generous hospitality but aside from a few changes of scenery the new things to experience each month were minimal in comparison to Africa or Eastern Europe.
- Things from home needed to be on my radar, I had job assignments to apply for and an apartment to find.
- I seemed to be in a time of loss. During the span of 3 months (April 19 – June 24) there were 5 people I knew who passed away and I was left to grieve on my own unable to attend any funerals.
- I was emotionally drained from the race. Every month has its own ministry assignment but when it gets down to it the basis of ministry is relationships. Every month we would make these amazing relationships and then have to say goodbye knowing you will probably never seen these people again or hear how their stories continue. It isn’t easy and by the end of Colombia and its very difficult goodbye I was done, I didn’t want to keep sharing myself with others only to have bits of me left in countries around the world.
So amidst the storm I stumbled and at times lost sight of where I was and what I was supposed to be doing there….loving people just as Jesus did. Thankfully I didn’t spent the last two months with my head completely at home but it was a daily fight and choice I had to make to be present and every day present looked a little bit different. Some days it was reaching out and connecting with my team, some days it was investing in the people connected to our ministry, and sometimes it was just spending time with God.
In Peru our ministry consisted of four main things: painting, kids, English classes, and evangelism. In the mornings half of us painted while the other half helped out at the preschool we lived above, in the afternoons we did evangelism, and in the evenings we alternated between church services and English classes. I was delighted and got to paint all month (even painting my first mural) so with no children to contend with I figured I could make it through 3 hours of English classes a week without getting too involved with people….after all, I had made it through a month in Ecuador without getting too involved with the people. Then during our first English class in walk these two old men who stole my heart and forced me to be present. Ernesto was the first one I met. He is a 72 year old Casanova who loved the fact that there were three young woman whose sole focus was on him for the hour long class. He had an advanced level of English and really was just looking for people to practice his conversational skills on. He loved having intellectual conversations, made worksheets for himself, and recorded every class so he could go home and re-listen to it. Too cute! In the second class I met Philippe, a 69 year old man who stole my heart. His English was also pretty good but not at the same level as Ernesto. But he too was eager to learn and came to class with a list of words and saying he wanted to understand and learn to use. It was with Philippe that I got to work with for the rest of the month and by the end of it I was holding back my tears as I said goodbye and he asked to take a picture with me. Philippe was special to me, he wasn’t attending church or English classes when we arrived and it was through our evangelism and English class invitations that he first started coming to English class and then later started coming to church, always in his suit and tie. He surprised me with is love of Jet-Skis wanting to know the best places in Canada and the United States to go so he could Jet-Ski, he melted my heart when he made me a list of restaurants to try compete with addresses and food items to order because he wanted me to experience the best his city had to offer, and he made me laugh as he learnt and practiced how to use the phrase ‘so what’. Philippe was the highlight of my month and I couldn’t wait until I got to see him each day.
One other story out of Peru that reminded me that if you’re too busy with your head some else you miss the little things. One night in church there was the little old man probably in his 80’s, he only came the once and I never got the chance to learn his name. The reason he is special to me because he was a gift, a gift to reward my presence. Unlike Ernesto and Philippe who required me to be present (and I am so thankful they did) this old man would have gone by completely unnoticed by me if it hadn’t been for the fact that I already was present and as a result I got to experience true and raw joy in that moment with him. It was during worship and they were singing the song “I Am Free”. I’ve always liked this song and after Colombia it held a special place in my heart and I along with everyone else on my team can’t help but dance along with the songs chorus that says “I am free to run, I am free to dance, I am free to live for you”. The song repeats the chorus probably a good time 10x and wouldn’t you know it, by the end of the song this 80+ old man was dancing a long with us doing the actions.
Bolivia. Like I said, I was dying of homesickness but learning that our ministry location would put us near the Amazon Jungle and require us to ride the Death Road I was finally excited to head to Bolivia the day before we started our long 60 hours of travel by bus. That excitement carried me through until our second day in the little town of Rurrenabaque. Not that Rurrenabaque was a bad place it was just I had arrived and no longer knew what to be excited for. That month we tented between the church and the home of the pastor on a little piece of grass that just managed to fit our 7 tents. We lived with and ate with the pastor and his wife and did 6am devotionals with them. Our ministry was visiting the homes of church members, doing door-to-door evangelism, and running a weekly kids program. Again I went into this month not wanting to build relationships that I would have to say goodbye to but over time my resolve was worn down and relationships formed, after all how do you live so closely with people not get attached, and again I left in tears at the end of the month wanting to go home but not wanting to leave. Not only was I rewarded with relationships with the pastor and his wife but also with a weekend trip to the pampas, and ecological area of Bolivia, where I was rewarded with seeing Caiman, Capybaras, Anacondas, and River Dolphins. River Dolphins are rare so I was thankful for the opportunity to see them.
As I said in the beginning of this blog, being present isn’t always easy but when you choose to overcome distractions and truly be where your feet are (one of Lizete’s favourite sayings) you will be rewarded with amazing gifts that I call the presents of being present.
