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.