Saturday, March 03, 2007

Nicaragua 15: hard and good

There´s this book called Eva, I think, and it´s a young adult science fiction book where a girl´s brain is put into the body of a chimpanzee. She has to take drugs so her mind won´t go into shock and reject its new body. But in some ways she loves being a chimp.

That´s how I feel. I´m in a new world that I on the whole I really enjoy and feel called to, but it´s just so dramatically different from what I´ve known that every now and then I supress panic. As David just ariculated on the phone, in some ways my experience here is very abundant and in other ways there´s just enough. Just enough help, hope, stamina, Spanish, friendship, resources, contact with home, adjustment to a new culture. On the other hand, gorgeous scenery, delicious fruit, inspiring stories, a loving host family, and the over-abundant hope, joy, trust, power, peace, strenth, faith, love, and community that come from God.

I just re-read part of the discernment book (Enter By the Gate by Flora Slossen Wuellner) that helped me decide to come here, and all 7 of the discernment criteria in the book point to God´s call for me to be here right now. I´ve noticed that consistently over my weeks here, when I feel that I am slipping to the end of my rope, help always comes. I can almost set my clock to it. I woke up on Thursday missing home, missing English, counting down the days til December, and fantasizing about leaving early. During the day, a small delegation from the U.S. spoke to me in English; Gabriel showed up after 2 weeks of absence and gave me a nice little unsolicited pep talk about homesickness being super normal and how I´m doing fine; my kids cheered me up; I got an unexpected ride home; Isaac told me to sit down and let him dish up my dinner; and choir rehearsal that night went really well.

I get the urge to go home just for a weekend or something, just for a little relief from everything being strange all the time. Sometimes the best things are the hardest things.

3 comments:

David Reese said...

I really feel that's the way so many calls are; in many ways overflowingly abundant, and in many ways just barely enough.

But enough.

Megan Highfill said...

I love you.

Anonymous said...

Rachael, Am thinking of you and praying for you. Your writing is wonderful and very expressive. Hang in there with the rough days and know you have a lot of folks behind you.

This is the first time I've been on the blog because the other times I couldn't get on. Maybe it's because it's daytime, I'm home on a sick day, and not many people are online......who knows.

Anyway, take good care of yourself and keep that smile that you have which is so beautiful and know that others care.

Lots of love,
Diane