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this blog is officially done with.

Thank you for reading along with me…

Blessings to all!

the Last Stand

so today we headed to the airport and i said my final goodbye to all the interns. Susannah the Australian and Gretchen the Puertoriqueña (yeah… despite the name… she is not German… lol) headed home, Chad and Rachel embarked on their journey up Central America and James is off to Malpais and Montezuma to live out his dream of living the surfer life for a week.

Blessings to all of you my dear friends and partners in the Kingdom. I will miss y’all much but as the Psalms say… “Friends are friends for ever if the Lord is the Lord of them” lol…. jk jk jk… funny 90′s song… lol

As for me… i am meeting up with strangers later this week and I will help go build a house for strangers. The Bible does say that if you are going to throw a party get as many strangers involved… especially the kind who won’t repay you for your hospitality and grace.

BLESSINGS!

a long time

it’s been a while since i’ve been here. Part of the reason is because home away from Home (houston) feels so close and so I’ve really been internalizing and evaluating a lot and just a lot of my writing here in CR has been in my journals. I never thought myself to be a writer but dang… looking back, it’s amazing… i’ve been able to go through 3 journals while down here (on top of my blog writing). That has been cool for me and I am really looking forward to getting home and taking some time off to reflect and read through some of what I have experienced. I really enjoy looking back and seeing where I have come from and what I have gone through.

I encourage you who are reading this take time on a regular basis and write. It is a good way to look back and really see where your life is going. In our walk with Christ, many times just don’t see progress or movement because our life really is like hair growing. It is so slow and so natural that you don’t notice it but when you write and then you take a week off to go be alone at the woods and read back on where you’ve been you realize… “hey, some things have been happening, God is active and He is making me more and more like him”. You don’t realize sometimes that your hair is down to your shoulders and you need some styling…

Blessings to all!!!

goodbye to sarah :(

Goodbye Sarah and blessings to you and Justin in the years to come!

leaving sarah at the airport

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field trip

One of the surprises of this trip was the quantity and quality of interaction and relationships with kids. My first night here in Atenas (an unbelievable 6 months ago!!!) I met Tim and Cindy Clem along with their two kids, Laura and Tanner. They where great and over time, their family has become more and more special to me. Laura, their daughter is specially friendly. Her parents gave me the opportunity the other day to go with her as her chaperone to one of her school field trips.The weird part of the whole issue was that I was hanging out with a bunch of moms… it’s weirder here than in the US because men don’t do much childrearing things such as going on field trips. Besides that, it was fun and challanging and I got to really play a big brother role when Laura pushed a kid into an empty pool and hurt him. To her defense, they where calling her names! After the whole ordeal she was crying too because one of the mom was trying to bring everyone to reconcilitation and she was just frustrated and upset and all that. I finally went to her and she just cried in my lap for a while and let it all out and I hope that helped her. After she had no more tears to shed we talked a bit and she told me how she hated all the boys and how she wanted to go home and just sleep and how she hated her school (it was the best school ever that same morning, her words). Some girls invited her to play and she refused but at the second invite she went with them and she had a blast and I was so happy that things turned out great. It was so much fun for me and I was so happy to have had the opportunity to go with her and participate in her life.

That was not the end of the adventures but more on that later….

vulnerability

when in another culture that you do not understand, vulnerability is important in order to gain access to the national. You can’t assume business as usual, do things your way or run to the familiar. You are in a place and you trust the way of the locals and the locals themselves.

It is very tempting to create an American home while not in the US. You surround yourself by what is familiar, you eat only what is familiar and you stay in what is familiar and never make yourself vulnerable by stepping out of what is familiar and making yourself “weak” in a sense by stepping into what is unfamiliar, doing things differently than you normally would, eating what you are not used to and running to those whom are familiar when trouble comes.

Vulnerability is a vital tool to connecting to people who are different than you and are trying to serve and show Christ. You show you are not above others, all knowing or trusting on the things of earth, but rather, you are willing to step outside yourself and reach out!

Reach out well…

The time is near

The time draws near for my return home. There was a point in time where I was so so looking forward to going home but now… it’s not that i don’t want to go home… but it’s that I really feel like I am home in a sense. I will miss my family here in Atenas deeply. I now know that and even as I write this I am filled with sadness and a lump in my throat (i don’t know… that may just be my Adam’s apple). There is something nice and great about this town. The weather is always great. I have a small group of people that I just love and care for, the town is tiny enough to walk to most places… i mean… Houston does not have that.

This, to me, I think is kind fo the attitude we sometimes take towards this world. It becomes so great to us in our hearts and minds that we forget that we do not belong to it and it is neither permanent nor ours.

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Houston is hot as hell, everything is far away and there is just such a chasm between people. I don’t like that but now, at last, the Lord calls me home. I do not retrun with living in the past but with a clear vision. My time here is has shaped me and given me a ton of time to consider what I live for and why. I have time to ponder on what I think to be important and how I live this truly reflects this or not. I have dreamed much while I’ve been here and I have been steered away from somethings and steered towards other things and yet, many things are still in the air and I do not know the final verdict. I have a picture of what my Lord calls me too and I am happy because, as far as I can see, the picture is in Houston… but touches the nations… where my family and closest comrades are stationed. I see a picture that includes great surrender but it is no longer a burden. I feel like Jonah in a sense. There where gods i held on to and was not willing to let go but now the gods are no longer mine and the call is no longer a burden beyond me but a burden that is happily and hopefully carried for the Glory of the King!

May we walk together to the house of God!

For King and Country!

Jaime gana

My dog Bonito

interns at the office

Frisbee with the kids

stuff the piñata

EMI at Tom’s house