A pearl of great price

My friend Paola works at the YWAM base in San Jose, Costa Rica. She is beginning a ministry to women and children who have been trafficked and those who work in prostitution. Recently, she shared the stories of 3 women she has gotten to know.

Let me share the excerpt of one with you:

One day after I finished working I was going home and a group of guys took me and raped me. I was only 14. After that not knowing what to do, I told my dad and he never believed me. He even told me it was my own fault. When Ana was born I decided to give her to a family because I knew that I was too young to take care of a child. . . I started working on the streets as a prostitute out of desperation, I needed money and also I felt dirty after what happened to me. . . . A couple months ago I accepted Jesus into my heart and life, and I have already seen a lot of changes. I still work in the streets but I am tired of it and ready to stop this life style. Please pray for my kids and for strength on me, and wisdom for how to make the changes I need, and for a way out of this life…

So much pain, so much despair, yet in the midst of it, hope. I'm thankful for women like Paola and the others on her team who are reaching out to people who most of the world rejects. I don't know what to do in the face of so much brokenness, but I know the One who does. So, I pray. I pray for those who already work with hurting women. I pray for myself, that God would show me what he wants me to do beyond praying. I pray for the women around the world, trapped in a world of pain and degradation. And I pray for the women who work the streets just a few blocks east of where I'll be living. I pray that if it's God's will for us to start reaching out to them, he'll show us what to do and how to do it.

Please take a few minutes to read the rest of Paola's post and pray for these women.

It gets worse before it gets better

We were hoping to paint today. That didn't happen. Instead, we sanded, and took peeling paint off the walls, and ran errands, and cleaned. . . Here's a look at our house in progress, and the way things are done just a bit differently here, as evidenced by our buying paint.

There are bars in the entryway and a narrow staircase leads upstairs. The downstairs room is full of bags of powder, a giant mixer, some unidentifiable machinery and 5 gallon buckets of paint.

Sara and I go the first time. An older man leads us up the staircase, seats us in front of his desk, and shows us all the color swatches. After deliberating forever, we finally try to figure out how much we need of each color. "How about you just come back tomorrow?" he asks. "I'll send Alejo with you and he can tell you how much you need and give you some tips"

Gonzalo and I stop by the paint shop the next day after Luz y Vida. Alejandro is no where to be found. Pablo, the man we talked to the day before is at the doctors. We decide to come back later.

Tony, Gonzalo and I all head back to the paint shop in an hour or so. Alejandro has just left. We debate what to do, wait around for a bit, and then he shows up. We walk the 3 blocks back to the house with him, and he spends the next hour and a half there, helping us decide how much paint we need, and asking us things we'd never thought of- are you painting the ceiling in the kitchen too? What about this door? What color are your base boards upstairs going to be? Gonzalo mentions we are missionaries and it turns out that when Alejandro isn't working in the paint shop, he co-pastors a church.

We finally have our list of prices and sizes. "Stop by tomorrow morning" he says, then you can show me exactly what colors you want and leave a downpayment" He's in a bit of a rush he tells us, because he's preaching at the church service tonight.

Doris and I stop by in the morning. After carefully noting down all the colors and prices, eating the mandarin oranges that Pablo offers us, we make a down payment on the paints. We watch as Alejandro hand mixes the almond we chose for the baseboard in the guest room. He starts with white, dips the paint stirrer in some yellow and some black. "Let me know how dark you want it" he says to me. He slowly adds a bit more color each time until I'm satisfied. "I'll drop by the ceiling paint and the trim this morning" he says. I think I can have most of the others done by this afternoon. Is it ok if some of the colors aren't done until Monday?" We assure him that it is, and head on to the glass shop to see if they can someone out to measure our broken windows and cut glass to size.

Alejandro delivers the first batch of paints while we're out running another errand. Apparently when he arrived they were having trouble with the water tank on the roof and asked for advice, because while we were eating lunch he showed up again with the pieces we needed to fix it and an explanation.

Wrapping up towards the end of the day Alejandro showed up one last time. "Here are the paints for the bedrooms. We're just missing the green for downstairs and the purple bedroom paint. I should have them ready for you by Monday. I'll drop them by." He shows us how we should put the stucco on the walls where the paint and plaster were peeling off and there's nothing but cement block underneath. He leaves behind 2 small plastic spatulas for us to use. "I'll be by on Monday" he says, "but if you need anything, just give me a call"

Slower than a trip to Home Depot and their automatic color mixing machine? Definitely. But way more personalized. And now there's a familiar face in the neighborhood. Sometimes in the past few days as I've seen myself run what seems to be fruitless errand after fruitless errand I've found myself longing for the convenience of home. But, mostly, I love walking out of my house, walking for a few blocks. having a conversation with someone, and then finding out from them where I need to go and what I need to do to complete my next errand.

My love, my life

Praying out loud has never been something I'm very comfortable with. I'm even less comfortable with it in Spanish than I am in English. Listen to a prayer sometime. We speak differently when we're praying than when we're speaking, and I still don't feel "fluent" praying in Spanish.

One difference is that when we're praying, we use God's name every other phrase. When I first really noticed that, it struck me as odd. After all, if I'm talking to my sister, I don't say, "Rebecca, I ask you my sister, to please, help me this Saturday Becca with all the painting I have to do." But just change Rebecca, my sister, and Becca to a name for God and the petition to one for healing or provision and you have a perfectly "acceptable" prayer.

When I first really noticed this, I tried to stop using a name for God in every sentence when I was praying out loud. It seemed like it was just a strange habit we've somehow communally developed.

The other night riding on the bus I overheard a conversation and I wondered if I was wrong. The man next to me was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone. The conversation went something like this. . . "Hello my love. And how was your day sweetheart? . . . Oh, I'm happy to hear that love. Yes my dear. . . But you'll be careful, right love? And call me when you get there, ok sweetheart? And so dear, are we still going tomorrow love? Can you pick me up at 9 then? All right beautiful precious one, I'll see you tomorrow. Good bye my love."

Maybe, just maybe using some form of God's name over and over stemmed from the same reason this man kept calling his girlfriend mi amor, mi vida, mi corazon, preciosa hermosa; he was delighting in her, in their relationship to each other, he was affirming her and telling her he valued her.

And I want to do that with God. I want to cut out all the "filler" phrases I use when praying out loud. I want to think, not just with my head, but with my heart. And when my heart is filled with love, praise, admiration, and joy to be in relationship, then I want to say to Him wonderful, counselor, almighty God, everlasting Father, prince of peace, my love, my life, my treasure.

A work in progress

Welcome to my house, Torre Fuerte!

This is the living room. It's a bit too reminiscent of a daycare right now. We chose a green paint today which hopefully we still like when it's on the walls.

Here's our dining room with 2 of my house mates, Sara and Steven.
The kitchen! Abby (a friend) came over today and scrubbed the whole kitchen and put contact paper on all the shelves.
This is our garage area.
And here's our laundry room.

Now, on to the second floor. I love this staircase.

Here's the view from the top of the staircase.

This is the master bedroom and the bathroom.

Still the master bedroom, different angle.

This is Doris' room

And, here's our guest room. It's a bit scary at the moment.

See what was growing on the ceiling?

No worries, I took care of it. Fortunately, that part of the house is constructed from cement block, so there's no structural damage. We cleaned the gutters and will fix the leak. With a bit of new plaster and a new coat of paint it will be good as new.

The bathroom

And, here's my bedroom! Isn't the ceiling fun? And it has a lot of light from the windows.

Help spread the word

My Mom let me know that "The Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation is donating a total of $1 million to these four charities — National Parks, Keep America Beautiful, American Forests and Water.Org. $100,000 will go to each just for participating, and the remaining $600,000 will be distributed based on your votes."

She encouraged me, and now I'm encouraging you- go online and vote for water.org

From their website:

Water.org is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization committed to providing safe drinking water and sanitation to people in developing countries

I love our national parks and forests. I want America to stay beautiful. But those aren't life and death situations. They have a lot of public funding. And, a million dollars would be swallowed up easily.

Water, on the other hand. That's a life and death issue. Thousands of people (roughly 40,000 if I did my math right) would have their lives changed if $1,000,000 was invested in water projects. With clean water health improves. Did you know 3.5 million people die each year from water-related diseases? That diarrhea is the second most common cause of death in children under 5? It doesn't need to be that way.

Did you know that for millions of women and children, collecting water can take several hours daily? When there are clean, safe, local water supplies, women can contribute in other ways economically and children (particularly girls who otherwise are likely to have the task of going for water) are more likely to attend school. A clean water source has spiraling effects.

Check out their website, and then go vote. (You can vote once a day until Jan. 21) And then, help spread the word. Blog about it. Tell your friends. Stick it on your face book page. We can help make a difference.

(And, if you're interested in the topic, this site also has some great facts about access to water)

"And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward." Matthew 10:42

Moving take 2

Remember this post? The one where I was so excited to be moving and finally having a place of my own?

Well, it turned out a few days or weeks later that it didn't work out. And I spent the rest of the year living with a Dutch family, who are moving to Peru later this month. And when I went home for Christmas, I had no idea where I would be living long term when I got back.

I do now. And my heart is singing again. Because I'm moving into Torre Fuerte, the same place I was going to be living before. And this time, there's a couple committed to living there, which takes care of the problem I had before of no longer having house-mates.

Better yet, they have the same dream as me. They want to make the house into a home, a place of beauty, a place of refuge. They don't want to just live in the same house together, they want to pursue community, praying together, sharing meals together. They want to get know our neighbors, reach out into the community, little by little see how God can use us to be salt and light where we are.

I'm very excited.

Stay tuned for some before and after photos as we clean and paint and decorate in the next few weeks.

Welcome to your second home

As I left home at 2:30 in the morning yesterday, I felt sad. Saying good bye yet again was hard. But, by the time I was on my flight to Bogotá, I had a sense of anticipation. I was going home. Our plane landed and I looked out at the Andes mountains, marveling at their beauty. A month away had made me forget just how breathtaking they are, or perhaps just taken away their familiarity. The sky was blue, the sun shining. As I struggled to wheel my 2 giant suitcases through customs, I squinted through the glass to the waiting area, trying to spot my friends. My face broke into a smile as I saw Bibiana and Doris waiting for me. Bibiana gave me a hug and handed me the flowers she had for me. "Bienvenida a tu segundo hogar", welcome to your second home, she said. And it was so true. I had left home. But I had come home. Not really to my house (I hope to be out of where I'm living in February, it's just a temporary solution) But, as my aunt reminded me last time I was musing about the meaning of home, "home is where the heart is." And, my heart is here, with my students, with my friends and coworkers, with the unexpected adventure that life can be here. My heart is also in the States, with my parents, my siblings, my grandparents, and all the other family members and friends who make me miss "home".

I woke this morning with a sense of peace. All my big questions for this year still remained unanswered- where I'll live, what I'll be teaching, who my co-workers will be, if and when my friends are leaving. . . But I wasn't stressed, at least not then. I was content. Content to be where I believe God wants me for the moment. Content knowing that soon I'll know the answers to my questions, and living them out over the course of the year will be exciting. Content to be back, in the land of limes and traffic jams, arepas and vallenato, laughter and waiting. Content to be in my second home.