Amor

I wish that I could fully express just how much I love my life here in Nepo.  I love that when I enter the director’s house in the morning to pick up the little boys, three three-year olds attack me with hugs and kisses.  I love that at lunch when I serve the boys their food and greet them with a smile, I now receive great big smiles in return in place of the leery looks I used to get in the beginning.  I love helping Marcela in the afternoons and watching her interactions with the boys and seeing her passion for this ministry.  I love helping the boys with their homework at night, learning along with them, and attempting to help to the best of my ability, and while sometimes I don’t always understand what they need to do or how to explain it to them, I love being able to offer a smile and encouraging word which at times makes all the difference.   I love watching movies with them on Friday nights and having special lunches for them on Saturdays.  I love that today after our special “American” lunch of cheeseburgers and potato chips; I finally had the opportunity to give out the gifts that I brought for the boys and the workers.  I love watching 14 and 15 year olds play with the tops, mini Frisbees, and bouncy balls that they received as though they are the greatest things in the world.  I love going to youth group on Saturday nights with the older boys and to church on Sunday with all 40 of us packed into the minibus.  I love watching the boys interact with each other, especially how the older boys who seem so “tough” and “hard” on the outside are always the first to kiss the baby and help the little ones.  I just simply love every little thing about my new life here….yes, even the hard and challenging moments because they make me appreciate the good ones all the more and they make me realize just how much I need to rely on the One who has brought me to this place and filled me with His love to pour out on those who so desperately need it here. 

And while I do truly love my life here, it is not always easy and it is not always fine and dandy.  I think the best way to describe what I mean is by borrowing the following description from the book I am currently reading (it’s called Kisses from Katie and it has been beyond encouraging to me ….to briefly summarize, it’s a true story about a girl named Katie who went to Uganda on a short term missions trip and now lives there, has adopted 13 children, and started an organization that helps thousands of people there).  Anyway, as I read this book, I find myself being able to relate on so many levels and with some exceptions (like the boyfriend part  J ) I feel as if I could have written the following….it is definitely a pretty accurate description of my time so far in Brasil:

“If I had to summarize in one word my first weeks and months in Uganda, it would be contradiction….  My life- especially my emotions- hung in the balance between absolutely loving my new life in Uganda and battling severe loneliness….  Most of the people around me didn’t speak my language, nor did I speak theirs.  This communication vacuum left me feeling isolated and forced to work much harder to build meaningful relationships….During my early days here, I was learning so much- everything from how to eat foods I’d never seen before to how to communicate through hand signals and facial expressions with people whose language I did not know.  My horizons were being expanded in the most amazing ways; my perspectives were changing every day; and my faith was being challenged and stretched.  All of this was so exciting to me.  I didn’t want to admit that, in the midst of such a wonderful and invigorating experience, I sometimes felt tangible pangs of loneliness when I thought about how many miles away I was from the people I loved.  I spent many hours curled up in a ball on my lumpy twin bed, sweltering, often in the dark, and crying- partly because I was overwhelmed and feeling inadequate and partly because I missed my family or boyfriend.  Sometimes, I cried because I was simply exhausted….The contradiction comes when I realize that all these experiences and emotions were real.  The happiness that gave me chill bumps was as deep as my loneliness.  My sense of certainty about being exactly where God wanted me was solid, but just as firm was the fact that I wondered at times what on earth I was doing here.  The frustration that threatened to overtake me on some occasions was just as deep and true as the unbounded joy I felt at other times.  I loved my new life; I truly loved it.  But compared to the life I had been living, it was hard.”

Every day I thank the Lord for bringing me to Nepo….I praise Him for the good days and the bad days, the challenges and the triumphs, and for pouring out His love on me and granting me the privilege of sharing that love here.

“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  -Romans 5:3-5