driving in mexico

The group of us that drove the cars joined the group that flew in Mexico City last night. It was a long three days of driving with all three of us. Sounded like the group that flew had a really hard time. Over half of them were sick and their flight was delayed due to mechanical difficulties.

I found the drive through the Mexican countryside lovely, however the part I really liked was the city. I ended up getting one of my turns behind the wheel for the last stretch of our trip. The part where we drive through the city. It was so much fun! I had to use all my driving skills, be constantly alert, and pull some moves just to keep up with the lead car. I have a special place in my heart for challenges that are intense enough to get my adrenaline going. There were a few times I felt like James Bond. Shawn was praying and honestly thought he was about to die. It was awesome! I am gonna like it here.

For the sake of my team you should probably all pray that I get smoother at this city driving. It would be sad if they all went home with gray hair at their age.

sent out

The last week has been busy. I'm trying to see most of my friends before I leave. This is pretty hard, I'm forgetting people.

There have been a lot of prayer for the team going to Mexico this week. A meeting where we prayed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The housechurch we're all a part of prayed for us on Saturday night. Sunday the church all got around us and prayed for us.

Being sent out like this is not at all what I imagined it would be. It's all so new and different for all of us. I'm not really sure what it was I was expecting. Somehow this is entirely different. Sweeter, more solemn and happier. This last week has felt a little dream-like at moments. Maybe it's the mixture of being super excited at having a dream come true and also being super nervous and feeling all wrong for the honor of being sent.

I really thought I was not going to be a part of our first church plant. Two years ago I felt God very clearly ask me to surrender my desire to be a missionary outside of the U.S. I felt like God asked me to trust Him with the humiliation of not going when everyone knew it was what I had planned on since I was seven. So I surrenderd and began planning on not going anywhere anytime soon. Everyone else was planning the same I think. When I signed on with this school I didn't realize that we would be the first church planting team. I somehow thought we were doing something else. I would've been way more hesitant to come had I known. Crazy how God turns things upside down on you sometimes.

I'm driving to Mexico tomorrow or the day after so my next post will be from the city...

six days

The MDS is leaving for Mexico in six days. I am:

• scared
• not ready
• ready as i'm gonna get
• hoping to become more mexican
• needing to learn to give God more of me
• ready to have tamales for breakfast
• desperate to come back different
• challenging myself to pack light
• studying spanish
• excited

yea and the count down is well underway. I've written and rewritten my packing list, it's still in the works. ;)

goodbye 2007

Yeesh, this is not a year I'm going to miss. Due to something silly I did last January I seem to have spent a large chunk of it messing up relationships. So much drama, it was truly amazing.

I almost had my first boyfriend this year. (We practically were, I was just to freaked-out to call it that.) I took him five days to find a new girl after I decided it wasn't going to work and now they're pregnant. My roommate eloped and i helped her. I lived in three different places and one of my friends has been homeless most weeks since august when my sort-of-former-boyfriend got them evicted from their house. Drama.

However, the drama swings both ways. There was the bad but there was also a lot of really good things that happened this year. I think I learned grace, both for myself and for those around me. God did a lot in me this year that freed me in new ways from depression and some of it's effects. I had a huge jump in confidence with people because I worked as a waitress. (I now think that everyone should be a server for at least a few months because of all that you learn about people and yourself and generosity.) I did manage to reconcile every one of my relationships and learned the lessons on forgiveness, grace and humility that come with doing that. I also am part of the MDS which has been amazing and way better than I hoped.

I think I've grown much closer to God. He's reminded me we're still friends often through all the ups and downs. He also spoke clearly to me that He felt cheated because I was (early in the year) only attempting a relationship with Him because everyone expected it and I needed to be close to Him if I was going to pursue the things I felt He called me to. So God wants my friendship more than my usefulness. Like any other friendship it needs to be about love, not about getting something done.

Oh, and my friends threw me a surprise birthday party which I've always wanted! Such a good way to become twenty-four.

Well that was 2007, I grew a lot. I'm hoping this next year will see as much growth without all the crazy drama.

(I'm moving to Mexico in less than four weeks. Yay!)

blessed are.....

So we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount in the MDS. Very good study which I am much liking. (Are you allowed to say that in English? Oh, well.) After five weeks we have finally come to Matthew 5:6 which says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

I have read and even memorized this passage in the past but I'm seeing it in a new light this time. One thing is that the Greek word for righteousness can be translated either justice or righteousness. It's the same word in Greek. This is also true in Spanish and French. The word carries both the meanings. So the verse could read, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness for they shall be satisfied."

Okay I know I'm more interested in linguistics than most people, but this is actually important because it gives the verse a deeper meaning than the English language allows. I usually take it as I need to be hungry to be righteous in my own heart and life. It also means I need to be hungry to see justice in the world around me, to see the oppressed freed and the hungry fed. Deeper no?

Now usually I just think about the first part of the verse and forget the second part. The second part is a promise. Those who hunger and thirst for justice/righteousness will be satisfied. They will be satisfied. Sometimes it's really easy for me to look at my heart and at the world around me and feel like I'll never see justice/righteousness. It's easy for me to feel like it's a lost cause today. Not only in my own heart but in the hearts of everyone in my generation. But here's a promise that those who really want it are going to be satisfied. That's big.

wearing thin

We live in the most opulent, glamorous society that has ever existed. Everything is easy, everything is instant, and everything is available. Why aren't we happy?

I think possibly we are one of the most unhappy societies that has ever paraded the earth. People are depressed in huge numbers. I have so many friends who've been suicidal or even attempted it. I've known a lot of people with eating disorders and a handful of people who've cut themselves. Too many. Why is it that my generation which has everything and more of it than any group of people ever before is the most depressed, most self-destructive, most suicidal ever?

I came up with this theory recently. It may be too simple but I'll give it a shot. What if humanity is nearing the top? Like we are all on this quest together and the things we're looking for are happiness, love, comfort, fulfilment, security, whatever. Maybe we're all looking for these things together. Maybe there's this internal list in all of us. Kinda like Maslow's hierarchy of needs we all learn about in Psychology class. Maybe humanity has advanced so much that we've scratched off most or nearly all of the needs on that internal list. We are coming to the end of the list and there's still this glaring... something. There's something beyond the list we all need.

But we've tried nearly every humanly possible option haven't we? We have security, everything we could ever need to want. We have connectivity and community. We are the most connected people ever. I have a blog, a facebook, a myspace, a cellphone, unlimited texts, email, snailmail, and too many friends to pay attention to. I can hardly get through a class without getting a text. What else are we desperate for?

If this little theory is true and we all as individuals and as a species have this internal list of needs, if we are nearing the end of that list, then maybe the state we are in today could be the results of an underling panic. We've tried just about everything and we are still incomplete somehow. What's going to happen to us if we can't find that thing we need? What happens if we remain needy and incomplete? What if when Jesus said that He is the way the truth and the life He really knew what He was talking about?

a mystery

So there's this mystery I've been trying to figure out this last week. It's really been driving me nuts. Why is it that we have the technology to map the human genome and walk on the moon but we can't figure out how to make NyQuil taste any better than awful?