Monday, November 28, 2005

Stained

Stare at the sun. Stare at a lightbulb. Close your eyes. Do you see it? The harsh glare has stained the back of your eyelids. Even when you open them, this greenish-yellow blob continues to interfere with your vision. It only disappears if you stop staring at the source. It`s like the blazing brutality has branded your eyeballs...temporarily.

My eyes have seen other glaring images that have permanently stained my perspective. The scenes are dirty and hard to erase from my mind. The source of these stains are on the streets. I close my eyes and I see a 7 year old boy with an aging squeegie, swiping the windshields of protesting taxi drivers as his younger sister pleads their impoverished case from the sidewalk. I open my eyes and I see weathered women, extending bobbing, cupped palms. Their bottom lips are pouting and their black eyes plead, "Please...one boliviano...to buy bread".....for the babies suckling at their bare breasts.
I close my eyes again and shake my head, but this time I see a man missing half of all four of his limbs. Course rope holds pieces of black tire to what remains has he swings his lower stumps through the upper ones, slowly conquering the steep cobblestone street. With my eyes open or closed, I see men with uncut hair and curling fingernails, passed out and using a rock as a pillow in the middle of a public plaza.

The sad sights are everywhere. I don`t even have to stare, the scenes are staring at me. A boliviano doesn´t fall into every bobbing hand, but I try to lock eyes with the person and hope that the lumination of Christ in me will leave it´s mark on them. These people have branded me and it interferes with my vision. I can´t look at anything the same ever again. I stop looking and their silhouettes stay with me...they don`t disappear like the blobs from bulbs do. I´ve set my gaze on those in distress, but so far I feel like a useless, gawking bystander at the scene of an accident.

God grant me the wisdom and strength to keep looking...to become more than just an onlooker. May the bleaching effects of time never fade the stains that these streets have left in me.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

0 to 60 in 5.2

It took a while to register this morning that today signifies thirty years of walking this earth...make that 28, because I probably crawled for the first two. Half-way to sixty doesn`t really depress me. It does make me consider if I`m doing all that is possible through Christ in my life.

I`m not even sure if 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds is good time for a car, but it feels like I hit thirty in 2.6. Life really is a small blip on the screen of eternity. How am I handling the race? Are my eyes fixed on the finish line or on the crowds that surround me? I long for the prize that will not rust or fade over trophies that collect dust on crooked shelves.

Some of the pit stops have been unexpected and surprising. After family camping near the unknown town of Tillsonburg for some 18 years, I never would have expected to work and live there for four years. I guess it`s not completely unknown. Every time I mention it, someone usually serenades me with Stompin´ Tom´s ode to tabacco, "Tillsonburg, Tillsonburg, my back still aches when I hear that word!"
I was as surprised as anyone when after my first visit to Bolivia, I heard myself promising to come back for a year...and then two more!
Still, the people in the pits have been the tops! The laps of my life could not happen with out those who cheer me on, fix my blown tires, and make sure my fluids are topped up!

So, as I smoke the thirty year marker, my hope is that I will continue to race in a way that honours the one who gave me the opportunity to enter it. If I`m falling behind or competing with a wrong attitude, feel free to flag me down and remind me who`s really behind the wheel.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Katie

One of my things with meeting new people is if you can make fun of me within the first hour of knowing me, then we´re probably going to get along just fine. If you laugh at something I say within that initial hour, we could become the best of friends.
Before I came back to Bolivia, I was told that another girl would be living with us. I thought, "Great, she´s probably sleeping in my bed and using my desk." I was right about the bed, but at least she gave up the mattress that fits my six foot frame.
Arriving at the apartment early in the morning, Katie walked out of her room in her pyjamas...well, I thought they were her PJ´s but it turns out she was dressed and ready for the day.
It´s not that she looked bad, in fact, Katie is one of the prettiest girls I know. She works out everyday, but stopped running. Here in Cochabamba, a bouncing beauty attracts waaaaay to much unwanted attention.
Even though I only got to live and hang out with Katie for a total of two weeks, in those days I met a person who made me laugh and laughed at me. Our conversations were blunt, honest, and meaningful. I like her because she thought it was great when I used the word "chortled" in one of my stories.
Our experiences living and working in Bolivian culture were frighteningly similar. It was almost healing to be able to talk about the uncertain items in our soup or the state of the bathroom or the little hop from foot to foot that a certain someone does.
The most hilarious has to be the permeating smell that invades her room (what used to be my room) and the fact that it disturbed both of us so much...thinking that maybe it was our shoes or something on our bodies. Let´s just reiterate again, that the reek does not and never did originate with us...it is certainly something that the lovely Chiqui left behind at some point in her travels. May that room remain forever vacant!
Anyway, this blog may bore some, but I´m writing it for my "studmuffin" of a friend....don´t ask me but, she calls her girlfriends "studmuffin".
Y en español para la Katie:
El hogar no es el mismo sin tí. Ya se que estabas conmigo por dos semanas no más, pero fue un tiempo muy divertido y lindo para mí. Siempre voy a acordarme de tí y espero que tu vida ande bendicida y excelente. Teniamos nuestros tiempos de reir y compartir y es una lastima que nuestras trés meses no fueron iguales. Eres una chica inolvidable y espero que Luke supe como bendicido es para tener una novia bien bonita y enamorada con Dios. Que te vayas bien por siempre y tengo los mejores deseos para tí, para Luke, y para tu familia entera!! Bendiciones de Bolivia!!!

Friday, November 18, 2005

The Painter´s House

Metaphors and analogies swirl through my head like objects in a twister and Blogger has become the resting place for these twirling thoughts. Even if nobody ever read a single one of these entries, I would still come to this chair, place my fingers on the keys, and allow the meanderings to spin out. Blogging is like finding a bathroom for my brain after holding it in for way too long.

My most recent brain movement was brought on by this house that I walk by everday. In the upper, left corner of the front of the dwelling, a sign has been placed advertizing that one of the inhabitants is a painter of interiors and exteriors. What slays me is that this adobe casa is the least painted house on the street! The only thing with paint on it is the sign that says "Pintor de exterior y interior".

It makes me ponder every time I pass it by, but my family`s experience with my dad being an automotive technician has not been so different. Although my dad is an expert at fixing vehicles, our cars and vans were always old and in need of one repair or another. Why buy new when you can maintain the old? I´m not complaining, I´ve always driven for next to nothing. My first car, a VW Rabbit, only cost me $200 and ran for eight years before it stopped hopping. My brother has me beat though. His first car, the Mighty Pegasus, only made him short $75 and that red Hyandai trekked all over Canada and down the Keys of Florida before it stopped flying.

Back to the point, the painter´s house stands outside naked, without a single coat of paint on any of it´s grey shoulders. The cars of a mechanic come cheap but demand constant TLC (which my dad dispersed on many a long night after hours!). All this reminded me of an old saying, "The shoemaker´s children have holes in their shoes." The shoemaker was busy stitching the worn out shoes of his customers while his own ran around with their little piggies bare to the elements. The fathers are intent on providing for their family, but in that provision, the families have to live with a drab looking home, not- so- pretty wheels, and frozen toes.

To be brief, I think the Father in heaven is intent on providing for His children as well but that doesn´t mean we have everything together and looking good all the time...and that´s o.k. He´s not being neglectful, He´s an expert at what He does...He loves...He gives...He fills...He heals...He saves...He speaks...He loves. He´s not too busy to stitch together the holes in your soul. He wants to give your interior and exterior a fresh coat of paint. He longs to spend many a long night with you, dispersing TLC to you. The Father´s children have holes in their hearts that only He can fill.

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Call Me Donna

"Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons."
Before commenting on this quote, can I just say that I love Donald Miller? Almost everything he writes sounds off a gong inside me that resonates long and loud. Reading one sentence after another, I keep thinking, "I wish I wrote that!" In fact, I want to write like that. I´m not some freaked out fan, but I want to be the next Donald Miller..except you´d have to call me Donna.

The thought of leaving is terrifying to some. It was the last thing on my mind when I was younger, but now I can´t imagine staying in the same place for my entire life! I´m sure that many of my friends and family will disagree with me, but I don´t think you can really love home unless you leave it for a time. I love Dundas, Ontario, Canada more these days than I ever have. In a similar way, my affection for Cochabamba and Bolivia has become more profound. When you are away from a place or people, the heart sharpens it´s ability to love deeply and from the heart.

The concept of home is complex. My home is thousands of miles north at the moment, but I feel at home here. Jesus says that when we believe in him, he makes his home with us. I am home to the Spirit of Christ. I feel at home wherever I find myself. Larry Norman sang, and others repeat, "This place is not my home, I´m only passing through." I believe that earth is our home, but it´s condition makes us long for the day when Christ returns to do a little "housekeeping" and make the whole place new.

"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home....It may be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave
....Don´t worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." -Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Lessons in Lasagna

Last year, I made lasagna for my Bolivian family. It was everything a lasagna should be: seasoned hamburger, tomato sauce, mozerella, spinach, onions, garlic, and of course, noodles. Shortly after, my mamita decided that she would make a lasagna of her own. She made it according to my own recipe, but she decided to add raisins and olives. The integrity of the dish was slightly lost, but it still tasted like lasagna.

A few days ago, I came home for lunch/almuerzo and mamita said that there was lasagna in the oven. What I saw in the oven was not lasagna at all! It was only a vague memory of the one I had made over a year ago. It still had the noodles, but everything else was completely altered. There was no sauce, but there was a layer of egg. There was no spinach, but I think I saw peas and carrots...or maybe the orange pieces were the hardened cheddar that had been in the fridge for weeks. What lay on my plate was not lasagna at all, but an imposter, a casserole pretending to be something it was not. The original recipe had been lost and replaced with some foreign thing.

There was something to be learned from this "lasagna". I have been writing fluffy emails and funny (I hope) blogs about my life here in Bolivia. Truthfully, I think I punch out these hilarious happenings because I don´t want to be honest. It´s easier to laugh and be stupid then to tell you that my relationship with God is not what I´d like it to be. It´s not the alien dish that I ate a few days ago, but there is evidence of raisins and olives. Despite my daily discipline of reading the Word and journalling, I find that my prayer life is lacking integrity. I want to pray like a warrior doing battle. At times, I feel like the battlefield, trampled and covered in blood.

I suppose what I want to communicate is that although I am a full time worker for the Lord, it doesn´t mean that I always look the way the recipe dictates. I might look like a lasagna, but if you look closer you may find alterations in the ingredients. I never want to be the fraud that mamita prepared the other day, but forgive me if at some point, you see a raisin or two between my layers.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

Where are my keys?

Notorious is not the word for it. In unique and consistent ways, my keys always seem to lose themselves. Remembering my last stay in Cochabamba, my entire set of keys,(for house, gate, and school) misplaced themselves THREE times. I´m told by my Spanish teacher that if the key disappears again, the owner has to pay for a new key lock and set of new keys for ALL the students. I tell ya, those keys of mine better smarten up or I´m going to be a very poor missionary.
My parents and previous co-workers will also testify to the wandering nature of my keys. I´m constantly calling their name, wondering where they´ve wandered off this time. Somehow, they always return to their worried owner, wondering what all the fuss was about.
Am I the only one with this dilemma? Or are there others out there who find their keys less then loyal to their keepers?
Leaving my car back in Canada, I fondly remember how I had only one key for that fine automobile. In all the months that I drove it, not once did it run away or hide itself from me. In fact it loved me SO much that it hitched a ride with me all the way to Bolivia...keys like that are hard to come by, eh Dad?