I started my trip by going to a place that I knew by heart but hadn't seen in 6 years, hadn't seen since the last night that it belonged to my Papal, the night before he died, and now it belonged to the woman who I had unquestionably loved as a little girl, until I knew that she was kind of a home wrecker to a woman with 8 kids, and hadn't really wanted us in her and Kenneth's world. We picked them up--my almost-grandma and orphan-aunt--up from that little log cabin, and if I thought I remembered the drive there, and the limestone walls, and the gravel-drive-hill, I knew the smell in the house even better, and big leather furniture was the same, and the book case with decoy ducks, and the fishing lures by the window, all exactly as I remembered, even if a third of my lifetime had passed between visits. It felt empty without him.
The day of travel wore on in that bizarre way days do when you don't sleep. I started at home at about 1 am, ate Burger King for lunch in the back of a van in a capitol on mountain tops without sky scrapers at about noon, and had dinner at an Italian restaurant, of all places, in Panajachel, Solela, Guatemala at 8. Our little apartment-hotel was homey and comfortable, with spanish-speaking-artist-covered-walls and beautiful carpentry and three twin beds. The city itself was touristy, with normal international restaurants--mexican, or italian, or oriental, and street vendors who set up their little stalls every morning. There were sleepy stray dogs that hid under overhangs on rainy days, and wandered into restaurants (public places--corner drug stores, and little shops, and restaurants--didn't have doors, just garage doors that were slid shut at night, and the strays just waltzed right in).
vv view from our balcony, I'm not sure how to rotate them
We had wandered down to Mayan Families' offices before dinner. There was a little ranch turned office, desks and more desks crammed into every of 5 small rooms. To the right of the office was a little building, small storage rooms on each side, but open and roofed in the middle with a ton of plastic chairs and fold up tables, where people congregated daily for different odd tasks--volunteers sorting clothing donations, or women wearing traditional traje, their kiddos strapped to their backs, coming by to pick up medicine, or sponsor students writing letters to their sponsors. Even more kiddos, and several adopted dogs, ran around the yard, where there was playground equipment, bicycles, hula-hoops, and a beautiful but diseased old eucalyptus tree. We met Aleeya--the director Sharon's daughter--there that first day, and made fast friends with the lovable little girl with convoluted grammar from speaking two languages.
That afternoon we met many of the people there on a mission trip, and my loneliness sparked a little, because they all knew each other well, and laughed and joked. We ended up going out to lunch with them, and then being invited to their good-bye dinner at Sharon's beautiful cobble-stone house.
Saturday we spent at a nature preserve, were we met the coolest tree in the entire universe, and walked adventurously across rope bridges by huge waterfalls, like Indiana Jones, and finally zip lined.
Me and Rosalyn went out to eat with out Laiken that night and she told me all her fears for Laiken, and about how badly she wanted friends, and how she was just so forceful she scared boys away, and about how thankful she was that I had accepted her daughter, and her constant petting, and snapping of awful pictures, and awkward boy questions (When she asked me who I was texting in Atlanta, I unfortunately told her the truth--Alex--and so I spent the rest of the week hedging questions like "When you get married to your little friend, will I be invited?" and "What kind of present are you going to bring your little friend home?")
The truth of the matter was, I myself wanted to run away from her the first time she pulled my hair down from a pony tail without asking and started braiding it, and very quickly into the trip I just wanted to shut myself up in a room and do no more volunteering, and no more loving Laiken, and just no more selfless in general.
And being away from community was hard. It was hard when I was only gone for a weekend in January, and it was even harder when I wasn't with a single person who has seen the day-to-day me. When people would ask me what I do at home and I would say I volunteered with special needs kids, and I would hear Rosalyn telling other people how great I was, how selfless, and it was so easy to make myself this perfect person, with no one there to call me out for being unreal, to point out my flaws, and no one there to remind me that the only reason I am the way I am, and I do what I do, is because of Christ, and what he has done for me. And it was just so easy to get along with out Christ there, which was surprising to me. It is not possible for me to get through a single club without completely relying on the spirit, but in Pana, I could wake up in the morning, and play with kiddos, and help at the office, all without acknowledging God at all. And without anyone there to call me out, that is what I ended up doing for days on end. But it was so lonely, and so fake, and I hated it, but I was just to lazy or too stubborn, or too something to fix it by just calling on Christ.
I don't know if you even feel like this, but I just feel like God is pressing in. If you've ever read Blue Like Jazz, it's kind of like what happens to Penny. My mind almost sees my brokenness on this whole new level, and I feel kind of lonely and trapped, and just awful, and I know that God would fix it, but I don't know how to make my heart go there. I have felt like this since leader weekend, where God pressed James 4 on my heart, the same scripture that Eric read Friday, even though I was reading through Hebrews at the time
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
4 You adulterous people,[a] don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us[b]? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”[c]
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
And that's the answer: come near to God and he will come near to you... grieve mourn and wail. But I don't know how to do that with a sincere heart. I don't know how. And all these feelings were particularly poignant while I was lonely and without my mommy.
But anyway, there were good parts too. On Monday, my 19th birthday, we set out for our first real day of volunteering. We went to San Jorge, a little town away from the lake, in the back of a pick up. We visited the pre-school there. We read to kiddos, and drew with them, and played a group guessing game where we sang a song like this "Chucco chucco y su hueso, lo robaron y donde robaron, puesto!" which means, basically, puppy dog, puppy dog, and your bone, we stole it, and where did we put it. At the end of the day the teacher had the class give me a birthday hug; thirty little pre-schoolers got in line and game me a hug, about five at a time. one little girl kissed my cheek. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures of the hug, but here are some other ones.
After that we visted the elderly feeding program next door, but we were too many to help, so we ended up playing with some little kids on the street outside. I couldn't resist their giggles, as they ran up this side way and tried to see who could make it. So I joined in, and a ton of kids heard us making a ton of noise and joined in too. Here they are:
I'm ending this post here, in an akward spot, because blogspot is no longer cooperating. However I am by no means done.
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