Tuesday was one of those "price of being a mom" nights.
2 1/2 year old M. is sick.
When I to sleep I made her a pallet on the floor next to my bed because in the other room she was already waking up crying and coughing. Between 10:00 and 3:30, I think we woke up at least every half-hour.
She's feeling a lot better now, although not 100%, and I'm almost all recovered from the loss of sleep.

vacation!

One weekend in February Bibi, Liz, Ingie, and I went away! (Liz and Ingie are two friends who worked with Formando Vidas during my first year here, and have since been in Wales and Canada, respectively. They were here for a visit.) We piled into Ruby "the Beast" and headed out mid-morning on Friday.
"What about the children?" you ask?
Well, Evi and Steve (my directors and neighbors) offered to take care of them for the weekend, with Tony and Laura helping out.
So, being the young, adventurous, single women that we are, we headed across Bogota and grabbed the highway toward Medellin. No, we didn't go THAT far... that's about a ten-hour drive! We just went a couple of hours, to Villeta, where the climate is so different that I was drenched with sweat!
We walked around to find a hotel for maybe a half-hour, then got changed and went to the pool! aaaaaahhh!
Day two, we went white water rafting! The Rio Negro (Black River) really is Negro, because of the rock that the mountains there are made of. The four of us, plus the guide, plus a co-guide, went in a raft together. We jumped out and practiced "rescuing" each other on the calm bits of the river, which turned out to be a good thing because at one big rock, the whole raft flipped over!
After quickly getting out from underneath it, I stuck my feet out in front of me, grabbed my oar, and floated along the fast river. It was great! Definitely worth 45,000 pesos! (about $25?) As we approached some small rapids, I started to get a bit nervous, thinking, "I have to go through that outside of the boat?!" But then I was close to the other raft and they dragged me in, where Liz already was seated. Soon my raft pulled up, and I scrambled across!
Later we got to jump out and swim around a bit, and shortly after that the tour was done! All told, I suppose it lasted only an hour or so. The place we disembarked was in the little town that Mom, Dad, J. and I stayed at when they visited me a eyar and a half ago! We got out of the rafts at the same bridge where my parents and I picked up rocks to take as keepsakes. The guide said that further down the river there are class 5 rapids (where two rivers join, I think), and that crazy american kayak-ers travel there to attempt dangerous maneuvers.
The next day we got up and walked through town to the train tracks. Our mission: to get to the "balneario", the locals' swimming hole. At the tracks we waited for a little cart to arrive that would take us there. It was a platform with three rustic benches and the driver's seat at the back, propelled by a motorcycle motor. We paid 5,000 pesos (less than $3) round-trip and sped through the lush green thickets, stopping a couple of times for carts that were coming toward town to move off the tracks so we could continue on. We stopped by some little houses and a bit of a clearing, arranged for the driver to pick us up in an hour, and walked down the bank to the river.
We were the first ones to arrive that Sunday morning, at quarter-past-nine. Only a few people who live there and sell snacks to the bathers were setting up their chairs and starting fires to cook corn on the cob. Wading up to our ankles, knees, through the strongest part of the current where Ingie fell down and we all died laughing... we went right up to the "falls" and one by one, stuck our heads under the water, feeling the cold weight of it pounding down on us.
Soon it was time to head back to town on the little motorcart, get our things ready, and drive back to Bogota.

Sunday at church, we take up a whole row of seats, practically. During the music time, in a song that sounds very moving and while all of the people in the congregation raising their hands and closing their eyes, I sit with three small children (trying to keep some kind of order and not be a distraction to everyone around us). I look over at Li'l J and what is he doing?
His eyes closed and head slightly inclined, with a little smile on his mouth, he's swaying back and forth and doing an over-exaggerated slow clap!
My first thought is to make him stop, because he'll bother the others. But almost immediately I realize how ridiculously over-spiritual the whole situation is, and burst out laughing with J., who actually feels the freedom to mock our evangelical culture. Of course, trying to get over the giggles is difficult for both of us, and the lady in the next row shoots us a dirty look, but it's worth it.
(I'm not saying that the song is bad or anything, just that we take ourselves too seriously. God laughs, people!)


After church we go to the parent visit. It is pretty good, actually, but so emotionally and spiritually charged that when we leave I feel like I need to cry.
If the visit affects ME that much, how must the kids feel??

arm hairs and rain

Today we had a cook-out, up at the fire ring at the cutest little cabin ever, where Tony and Laura live.
My arm hairs got half-singed off when I stretched out to put an arepa on the grill. That was a new experience!

About a week ago I asked Evi when it would start raining again... we'd been in "summer" -- the dry season, when it's hot and sunny in the day and so cloudless and clear and cold at night that I sometimes lost sleep just to look out my window at the stars. She said that it's normally around March, but since it rained all through December, maybe the dry spell will last longer this year.
Guess she was mistaken!

I'm getting used to driving "the beast"! Yesterday I drove in the city for the first time... I was nervous about switching lanes and there were a couple of crazy motorcyclists, including a wheelchair-laden 3-wheeled moto.... that was weird!
I honked the horn like any respectable bogotano when driving, and Tony only did the "invisible brakes" once! All told, we're doing pretty well!

the purpose of ministry

That last post was Saturday, the start of a new "spiritual crisis."
I read my friend's comments to a post and started thinking about what I have been idolizing; what do I have in the number one place in my heart.

Just like Abraham, who skewed his love from the promise-giver (God) to the fulfillment of the promise (Isaac), I realize that I have been holding onto my vision/dream/plans/passion/hope for the future more than I should.
Well, in talking to Evi, my director (the conversation was going to be about something else, but it ended up all coming out), she said that God planted a seed when I was a child... He put this dream in me when I was innocent and sensitive, and he began to water it at the right times, and to wait like a farmer (Isaiah 55:10-11, James 5:7) for its growth and the eventual crop. But then, she said, as it starts to grow we begin to prune it and form it into our desires, our design... like a brutal bonsai artist, or a child with scissors cutting her own hair.

On Saturday I realized how much I have been hanging my IDENTITY on what I DO. Who I am is not based on what I do. My value is not founded on my ministry, my job, others' opinions, my own opinion of myself and my estimation of how well I do what I do.
I was brought to the point of asking, "Why do I do what I do?"
If my being here is not, as I thought, a step in the ladder toward my ultimate goal or life-plan, then why on earth am I here? If I'm never going to reach the image I have in mind, then what's the point? Why am I doing this? But what else could I possibly do?? I was trapped, visionless, drifting: miserable and confused.

Sunday night Martin Smith, former Delirious? frontman, was at a small local church to sing a few songs and share a bit. There were fewer than 100 people. It was a super-intimate time... I felt like I was at an open-mic night with the man behind the voice that I sing along with on CDs.
He shared about his past year, since the band disbanded. How, at the age of 40, he found himself at home a lot more, with no job, no ministry, no... purpose, identity... Asking the hard questions of where his value comes from and what the point of his existence is. What defines me?

Martin's main point:
I will find out WHO I AM only by coming close to Jesus... in his light.
and the key word? SURRENDER

How does the Holy Spirit do it?! Set things up for me to meet God and receive the words of Truth in the timeliest moment!?
That night when I got home I couldn't go to sleep (which is really rare for me). I stayed up writing and praying for a while. I remembered that a few weeks back I met an "agnostic physicist"-turned-"Christian missionary to Colombia for 18 years." This charismatic man said to me, THREE TIMES,
"God showed me that the main purpose of ministry is to change the minister."
Sure, at the time, I knew it was true, or at least a part of the purpose. But these past few days are proving his statement to be more true.

I need to know who I am. Maybe God isn't asking me to KILL my passion and vision, but rather MY CONCEPT of how it should be done. God doesn't need my help. He wants me to know him.