Goodbye, Cold!

I finally think it's safe to say that the worst of winter is over!!! Phew, what a huge relief. At the beginning of the month I wore five layers of clothes to bed with four blankets and a heater trained right on me. Nowadays it's one layer, one blanket and no heater. Gosh it makes me so grateful. I won't take warm weather for granted again!

Plant sales at the park to celebrate la candelaria. Spring is coming!

Warm weather means the mosquitoes are back, but no matter. The key is to cover all your extremities (pants and long sleeves all the way)...then you only get bites on your hands. Yah, I'm basically becoming a survival expert when it comes to slight life inconveniences.

It's been actually really helpful to try and cultivate my friendships outside of the volunteers. I've been spending more time with people from church and trying to attend more evening meetings on weeknights, and reaching out to friends and family back home in the United States and making a plans with Becca, who is wrapping up her time as Volunteer Coordinator with the girls' orphanage. A month or two may seem like a long time for volunteers to be here, but really, it goes by really quickly and then they're gone! So I feel much more stable choosing to spend more time with people that aren't going to up and leave before I know it. ;-)

It's also been interesting to witness the comings and goings of the kids at the daycare. The program is quite structured here, in that the mom's need to complete their hour of service to the daycare, pick-up and drop-off their children on time, label their kids' clothes with their names, make sure their nails are cut, etc. So in the time we've been here we've lost a couple of handfuls of children because their mothers couldn't/didn't want to keep up with all of the rules. Or others have been suspended for a month because they still haven't become potty training despite months of trying to teach them. Of course, it's sad when your favorites suddenly disappear, but that's life, I guess! I hope Aldo comes back soon... I miss him.

Anyway, I'm just so relieved that the cold snap is over. It's kind of a metaphorical reminder that whatever difficult times may come, they won't last forever. It's a season, and spring will come soon enough.

In terms of prayer requests, I've been struggling with a knee injury since November that keeps hanging on. I went to see the doctor yesterday and am using a knee brace and limiting my walking as much as possible. Please pray for full healing! It's kind of necessary to walk everywhere in this town and it would be super inconvenient to have chronic knee pain here of all places.

Solitude

I've been reflecting on the need for 'alone-time' and the virtues of choosing to enjoy solitude rather than avoid it. Early on in my job, I noticed that I was spending way more social time with the volunteers than I'm used to, going to the gym, eating meals together, spending evenings hanging out in the living room. I wondered to myself for how long I could keep this up, since I thought I was a pretty hardcore introvert, so at a certain point I expected to 'over-extrovert' myself and need to withdraw.

My first four months on the job were very special because there were volunteers around that were nice and low-energy (just like me), thoughtful, intelligent... just super compatible, so it was very easy to get along with them. This month there hasn't been an instant best friend just yet, so I've had the opportunity to get back to enjoying solitary pursuits (reading, journaling, dabbling in creative writing, doing sudoku, reading some more).

And solitude is a peculiar thing, because there are times when I start writing and I look up an hour and a half later wondering where the time went. Then other times it's like I'm just trying to figure out a creative way to fill the hours until going to work the next day. That's when loneliness crops up.

This month I've chosen to be more guarded and made much less of an effort to get to know the volunteers in the interest in self-protection, since it's harder to say goodbye to volunteers if they've basically become the brother/sister I've never had, than if I maintain a respectable emotional distance. But the consequence of that is not always having someone in the house to just hang out with whenever I'm craving the ease of companionship.

So loneliness, that ugly thing. Ugh. It makes me think upon Henri Nouwen, and his writings about confronting his own emotional neediness. I know it's natural to have moments of feeling lonely and isolated, but it makes me wonder about how best to address them when they occur, rather than deny or ignore. It is not as if my goal would ever be to 'never need anyone.' That's ridiculous and also impossible. But I'm toying with the idea that in lonely moments, it might behoove me to use them as opportunities to spend some extra time in God's company in prayer and devotion, rather than trying to distract myself from the negative feelings by covering them over with the happy endings of books, movies and television shows.

One of the moms at the daycare chatted with me this morning while making copies in the office for one of the teachers, and I mentioned that I was going back to Seattle in May to be in a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding. She smiled and asked, "And you, are you married?" To which I immediately replied, "No!! I'm single. I'm single," laughing. "That's best. That's best," she replied, also laughing. As she walked out of the office I added, "[I'll get married] When God wants, but for now, I'm very satisfied to be single." :)

I think the gift of this season of my life is that I just have so much free time to pursue learning and self-discovery. Although I'm not enrolled in a formal educational system anymore, I just crave knowledge. "I love learning things!" I exclaimed to Adi one day and he just chuckled. You know, being on my own is kind of great, and though I may have periods of acute loneliness, the loneliness always seem to dissipate, giving way to another new and exciting experience meeting new people, going to new places, learning new things.

So I'm going to do my best to enjoy the time, to enjoy this time specifically in my life, with its solitude, and all the blessings that come with it.

Needing Prayers

You know the saying, 'Time flies when you're having fun?' Well, time is slow as molasses when you're not. Gosh, I've only been back in Mexico for two weeks but it feels like an eternity. I'm learning so much about prayer, and the importance of continuing to pray for what I want even if I don't see God's response immediately.

My heart is definitely still in Seattle, though I'm figuring out how to cope better with being so far away as my family continues to deal with the many crises. It is agony to sit by and watch the people I love suffer, so I all I can do is pray, send notes of encouragement, and pray some more. When it seems like everything is falling apart, I feel as if it's God and God alone who knows how it will ever be knit back together again.

I am so thankful for the support of friends and family during this time. I have called upon members of my American and Mexican church to be interceding on my grandparents' behalf, and they have been faithful to respond. On Friday I went to the church prayer meeting and ten women lifted my family up in prayer...it meant so much to me; I had tears in my eyes. I've been Skyping with people back in the States, too, to talk and pray, and that has also helped immensely.

It's so uncomfortable to be inept and helpless while members of my family are in acute pain, drained, stressed, at the end of their rope. I can't fix the situation or heal the illnesses. I'm not necessarily angry at God that this is happening... but it's so tragic to feel like someone dear to you is slipping away from you, and you can't do anything. And so I surrender to God's will and his plan.

Those of you not privy to what's actually going on may find these ramblings to be far too abstract and non-specific, but I don't want to be publicly sharing a family matter for all of the world to see. But if you believe in God, please send a prayer up to him on my family's behalf if you can. We need your prayers.