Walk Out On the Water

This week has truly been a struggle for me.  The emotional stress from my job and the underlying pressure of culture stress just really erupted this week.  Culture stress comes after one goes through culture shock.  Sometimes I think its worse than culture shock because its stress that lies below the surface and you don't even know its there until one day it just blows up in your face.  I know for a fact that I could not make it through this without my wonderful husband.  As I am going through a lot of changes, a lot of growing in just a short period of time, its so encouraging to have someone by my side who loves me unconditionally and has just incredible patience with me.  Someone waiting with me as I'm working everything out and its truly a picture of God's great love and patience. 

Hebert always encourages me during those difficult moments using a passage from Matthew 14: 22-34.  In this passage Jesus walks out on the water to his disciples who are sailing during a storm.  They see a man walking on the water and are scared at first because they think its a ghost.  Jesus replies,

"Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."  Matthew 14: 27-33

When I was younger and much more naive I used to read the gospels and think to myself "Can you believe this Peter guy he has Jesus right there in front of him doing all of these miracles and yet he still has all these doubts."  The hard truth is that I and I'm sure many of us identify more with Peter than we like to admit.  For me this passage talks to me a lot about faith and trust in God.  Peter is commanded to walk out on the water to Jesus, but as soon as he saw the wind, he is filled with fear and doubt and begins to sink.  In a sense, Peter loses confidence in himself, but even more than that Peter loses confidence in his new identity as Christ's disciple.  He forgets the great and miraculous power that Jesus has.  Jesus feeds the 5,000 right before this story.  Even after witnessing that incredible, inexplicable event Peter's faith falters due to a trying situation. 

I see so much of my life right now in this story.  God has done some ridiculous things in my life over the past 5 years.  He has always been faithful and constant through every storm and every trial.  I'm now a new creation in Christ and I can do anything through him.  However, when times get rough and hope is something you have to fight for its so easy to be overwhelmed by human limitations.  Faith dwindles.  To me, faith is belief beyond human limitations.  Hebrews 11 is filled with heroes of faith who believed not in their humanity, but in the power of God working through them.  Lately I've been so focused on my limitations such as differences in culture and language.  I become so obssessed with it, that I begin to feel like such a complete fool and it affects everything around me.  Too much attention is paid on the negative on the humane, instead of having faith and believing that God is so much larger than anything, including different cultures and different languages.  There is so much that I want to do here.  So much that I want to share with the people of Venezuela.  My human limitation of fear, more specifically, my fear of failure is keeping me from moving forward.  I have to let it go and have faith that trusts no matter what.  The road before me is not going to be easy, and without constant faith its going to be impossible. 

Kendall Payne is one of my new favorite artists.  I highly recommend checking out the song "I will show you love."  The song is written as if God were singing to us.  There is a line that says, "Walk out on the water where you have no control.  So scared to death of failure you sacrifice your soul please let that go."  I think its finally time for me to walk out on that water and stop sacrificing my soul. 

Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

Spring is almost here! Okay maybe not in Maracaibo, Venezuela where we live in endless summer...haha. But I know that back home in the states, the snow is leaving, the grass is growing, and flowers are blooming. Its probably my favorite season because I can see such great testimonies of God's great power, beauty, and love all around me. I miss Spring. I miss looking outside of my window and just thanking God for his beautiful creation. Lately, I've been having a hard time trying to find that here in Maracaibo. There's not a lot of grass, mainly concrete, usually broken. Lots of dirt and trash. More so than just the physical aspects, lately its been hard for me to find beauty here in Maracaibo. I just feel overwhelmed by the ugly things the growing problems of insecurity, their loco president, and all of the craziness that's involved with living in a city. After some much needed quiet time, I realized that I've been looking at these situations with my eyes, instead of God's. I've learned over the years that as we seek to become more like Christ, we lose a lot of ourselves in the process. Today God was really wanting me to change my perspective and to start seeing the world around me through his eyes. Though the world, might label my new surroundings as "third-world", and others might say "ugly", I have to choose to look beyond what's there at the surface and see the beauty that God has intended for it. Also known as: grace. The greatest image of grace that we have in our lives is Jesus Christ. I mean if we read the entire bible until the arrival of Christ we see that Israel has been largely unfaithful to God. They've mocked him, ridiculed him, replaced him, and forgotten him. If you look into the history of the Hasmonean kingdom before the time of Herod you learn how they sold, bought, killed, and tainted the office of High Priest in the temple. I even remember what my life was like before Christ. I chased after lesser gods and I thought that I could control the world around me and be successful independent from God. I might have well just slapped God in the face and told him that he wasn't needed, that he was nothing. Even after all of that, God chose to look past and forget all of the times that we rejected him, all of the times that we mocked him, and we belittled him. He looked past all of our sin-filled hearts, he saw us for who we truly are and sent his one and only son to earth to be a living sacrifice for our sins. So, that we can be with God again; even though we didn't deserve it. And that's what grace is making the ugly beautiful once more. My lesson for the day: How quickly we forget to share the grace that we have been shown.

What once was hurt, what once was friction
What left a mark no longer stains
Because grace makes beauty out of ugly things
Grace finds beauty in everything
Grace finds goodness in everything - U2

What's new!

Hebert and I started our new job a couple of Saturdays ago at a local English institute here in town. Hebert is teaching 9th-10th graders and I'm teaching 2nd graders all the way up to 5th graders all in one classroom. The differences in my age groups have been quite the challenge I must say. I've spent the past two Saturdays in tears. Let's just say I have a whole new respect for elementary school teachers, especially here in Venezuela. You know how in the US you have two or three kids that are constantly acting out...imagine a whole classroom of them and you have elementary school in Venezuela! But I can already tell that just from these past two Saturdays I have grown a lot from this experience.

Last week I also started up my other job teaching private English classes. I really, really enjoy teaching these classes. Its so much more fun and relaxing to only have to teach one or two students. Currently I am teaching Angeles and Jennifer they are sisters and are both in high school. They are incredibly smart and very motivated to learn English. I've really enjoyed just getting to know them and using class materials from their favorite movies, books, etc. We're reading Harry Potter in English to work on their reading skills and watching clips from Twilight to work on their listening. Later on, once they have a good foundation I want to teach them how to share the gospel in English, so that when the team from the US comes this summer they have an opportunity to use them as translators.

Another great joy for me this week has been an addition to our family. Yes Hebert and I have made the decision to be foster parents...don't worry its just a hamster! Our good friends Sarah and David are currently in Peru studying linguistics for bible translation, so they asked us to care for their hamster while they are away! Her name is Honey and she is very sweet, like her name implies. Our hamster Po, is currently going crazy knowing that there is a female in the house...I'm sure we can all use our imaginations to know what he's thinking. However, we are keeping them separate because I refuse to raise 48 hamsters!

Other updates...let's see...Maracaibo has been so INCREDIBLY hot lately. Yesterday, according to the weathermen it felt like 120 degrees outside. So, I guess the temperature in Maracaibo does change some...it goes from Hot to Hotter! Hebert and I will be getting a break from the over 100 degree weather this summer when we travel with our youth to their summer camp in the mountains. Hebert and I are going to be camp counselors. It will be exciting to explore a new part of Venezuela and I'm really looking forward to getting to know more people from church. Hope you are all doing well! Love you and Miss you!

How much of change can we survive?

The above title line is from a song from one of my favorite artists, Sara Groves. Her songs were such comfort and inspiration for me during those hard times of adjusting to living in another culture. Out of all of the changes I have experienced lately, I have to say it is the hardest one to endure. Last year, I graduated from college, moved to another country, and got married. As many of you know, the first year of marriage has its challenges as you learn to live with another person and become "one flesh". Pair that with culture shock and you have enough stress right there to make you go insane.

Now, I had some experience with this before I moved to Venezuela. Of course, not first-hand experience, but I learned from observation. My mother is from the Philippines she met my father while he was serving in the military. They fell in love; got engaged. She made her way to the US and shortly after they got married. Well I came along before their first year anniversary so I've sort of been with my mom ever since she's came to the US. I remember how she used to cry and cry and cry. I remember how she used to get angry or confused because of cultural misunderstandings. I remember the fights. But most of all, I remember looking down on my precious mother for years, because she couldn't understand those cultural norms as easily as I could. Now some 20 years later...here I am going through a similar situation --- and I can say probably for the first time in my life that I'm beginning to understand my mother and I have a whole new appreciation for her.

You never really understand how many little things can differ in a culture until you live in another country. My best friend is also here in Venezuela, she was recently married in December. I cannot begin to tell you what an incredible blessing it is for me to have her nearby. Its been such a relief to share with each other how we are feeling as we are going through all of these changes. We have a description of ourselves here in Maracaibo, "alien babies". That's exactly how I felt those first several months here in Venezuela. First, you definitely feel like an alien to everything - its all new. I had to re-learn how to do pretty much everything from the way that I learned it in the US. I mean even the little things like cleaning, cooking, shopping, and transportation. You feel like a baby because you are always dependent upon somebody else in order to do something. The dependence thing is very hard on me because I am very independent by nature.

So, do I regret making the decision to live in Venezuela? Absolutely not, and I never will. I have learned so much through these changes. Even though they were painful, and even though I shed so many tears, and even though there were times where hope seemed dim I will always be grateful for these changes, because they transformed me. You see, by living in another country and being an "alien baby", I'm far away from all of those things that I've ever put my confidence and identity in other than God. Such as my family, my friends, my intelligence, my car, my university education, my comforts, and my accomplishments. I was so far away from all of those things, that all I could do was to turn to God and depend on him and re-learn to rebuild and actually revision my identity in Him alone. I had to turn to Him...I had to choose God or my only other choice was depression. I have matured so much from going through this pressure-cooker, and although there will be more changes to come in the future; I now know that in Christ I can do all things.