A Sensational Day

The long and winding road is my parent's drive way as it curves into the depths of our property. Nestled right where I left it a year and a month ago is our house (slightly bigger due to an addition), sitting like an old friend on a grassy rock, waiting for my return. The addition is Dan and Alicia's apartment which was a work in progress last year at this time. I've been dying to see the finished product, so at 2am last night I crept into their quarters. Since the two of them are on their way back from Florida right now, they didn't get to hear my ooo's and aaa's over how smashing everything looks.

Home is a good place. The sights, sounds (or lack of sound!), and smells wrap themselves around me and massage my heart with their warmth and familiarity. Every trip between Bolivia and Canada is like moving through a portal from one very different world into another. In my first day back, I've already appreciated the following things:

- the sweet sensation of warm water falling from the tap
- unthinkingly going to place my TP in the garbage can and having to remind myself that for the next while, I can flush the stuff down the toilet
- how wonderful my family is and how precious my nieces and nephews are to me
- the thrill of driving...even though I left my license back in Bolivia...oops!
- 7am here feels like 3am there....man, it stays dark long and gets dark early!
- not being in a perpetual state of dripping sweat.

The first day back has been sensational. I trust that the next six weeks will be just a superb!

A Beautiful Man

An old man and his grandson boarded the bus today. Old is hard to judge here, since age is difficult to determine based on appearance, but he must have been in his late sixties. All of his wrinkles curved up and even with a straight face one could tell that this man spent most of his life in a state of smile. His eyes glimmered with glee and I thought he was more appealing than any of those stretched, surgerically altered types you see on TV and in magazines. Here we have these famous "somebodies" spending sickening amounts of money to maintain a facade of youth and I was admiring an unidentified "nobody" in the middle of nowhere Bolivia. By the way the grandson beamed at his grandfather, there was no doubt in mind that my eyes beheld a good man. His wrinkles testified to the hardness of life, but a life where smiling was still supreme. He truly was a beautiful man.

Love is in the Looking

Love is not gazing at each other but looking outward together in the same direction.

I know I'm single and as such this line that I read in a magazine shouldn't really apply to me, but I like it and it keeps popping into my head. In terms of romance and pairing up, I think it's a one-liner worth adopting. The key to successful relationships is unified vision and shared passion. Although this certainly applies to non-platonic relationships, I feel it works in the realm of friendships as well. My dearest and most cherished friends are those with whom I share a common sense of God's call and movement in our lives. They are fired up about missions and anxious to hear and follow the leading of Christ. As we view life, the same things strike us as funny and we find ourselves thinking the same things, if not saying the same words at the same time. The connections that I cherish most are the ones where all eyes are fixed in similar directions.

I write similar directions because I realize that there has to be room for some variance. How wretchedly boring life would be if we were all doing the same thing. There are always things to look at in the peripheral, but when all eyes are fixed ahead, there is only One in our line of sight, Jesus Christ. Love is not about gazing at one another, but about serving others and setting our sights above.

And by the way, this time, next week, I'll be on a plane, flying home to see the ones I love so much!

He Called a Fool

Who were you when you were called? Paul tells us to think about that, so that's what I've been doing in recent days. Who was I when I was called to Bolivia?

When I came to Bolivia, I didn't come with eloquence or superior wisdom. In fact, I came speaking Spanish like a pre-school kid. Any 'wisdom' I may have attained in Canada flew out the plane window as I landed smack-dab-in-the-middle of a world where my Canuck culture became irrelevant, best left in storage until my return. I came to testify about God, but found myself cursing the barking dogs and struggling to grasp the ins and outs of people who seemed to see the world through different glasses than I. I resolved to know nothing while I was here except Jesus Christ and him crucified...there was no other choice because I really didn't know anything even thought I thought I did. He was the only one who I could speak too and know that he understood exactly what I wanted to say. I came in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. I knew not a soul in Cochabamba and my concept of the living conditions initially caused me anxiety and dread. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with hand gestures and grunts filling in for the words not yet registered in my brain. Yet, the demonstration of the Spirit's power amazed me constantly as vocabulary I didn't know I had would come out my mouth. Through it all, my faith came to rest not on man's wisdom, but on God's power.

These days I'm grunting less and I have a firmer grasp of the way this latin world runs. The temptation to rely on my own wisdom and strength is stronger, but I heed the counsel of Paul to remember who I was when I was called to Bolivia. I remember who I was when I was called to Christ himself and I am humbled even more. Thank you Lord, for choosing and calling a fool like me.

Walk Past My Vineyard

Bronchitis, intestinal ulcers, and a skin rash (unrelated to the manicure) are my excuses for not blogging for over two weeks. The recent past has been a mesh of minor miseries and yet, I find myself in good spirits. Even the appalling realization that somehow the 80's infiltrated the world of fashion while I've been gone, failed to plummet me into despair. Alison came back from two weeks in Costa Rice with current magazines in tow. Sweater dresses, polka dots, tights under shorts, and tapered pants filled page after page. Forgive me if upon my return I fail to aclimatize to a climate of fashion that I left twenty years ago.

Sickness has been a part of my regime as of late. In the midst of endoscopies and dropping off 'samples' of bodily excretions, I also managed to forget my VISA card in a bank machine and my camera disappeared. This is not meant to be an invitation to a pity party held in honour of Marcee. In fact, all of this has truly been character building. Each time a bomb dropped was an opportunity to not get worked up and stressed. The card and camera were just things...things of value, but certainly replaceable. My poor health has been cause to ask this question,"How closely connected are spiritual and physical health?"

Sometimes, a lot of times, I think that full time ministry is the worst thing for my spiritual health. Prayer with others and discussion of Christ occur frequently through out the day, but personal discipline in the areas of intercession and Bible study decline the more involved I am with the work at hand. Life has been very 'involved' as of late.

Contemplating the extent to which the spiritual and the physical are attached, I read from Proverbs 24:30-34:

I went past the field of the sluggard

past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment;

thorns had come up everywhere,

the ground was covered with weeds,

and the stone wall was in ruins.

I applied my heart to what I observed

and learned a lesson from what I saw:

A little sleep, a little slumber,

a little folding of the hands to rest-

and poverty will come on you like a bandit

and scarcity like an armed man.

I know that I have been a spiritual sluggard and I've lacked judgment in how I spend my time. To risk a cliche, I get so involved in the work of the Lord, that I neglect the Lord of the work. Thorns have been coming up and around this branch of Christ and in effect, the spiritual wall that hems me in and protects me, is in ruins. I've chosen to fold my hands in rest instead of prayer and opted to sleep instead of seek. Applying my heart to what I read and learning a lesson from what I'm seeing in my life, I believe that the physical and the spiritual are one and the same. Nothing occurs in the one without having effect in the other. Poverty of health came upon me and scarcity of insight beseiged me.

Still, peace and contentment reign in me. Nothing can separate me from the love that is mine in Christ Jesus my Lord...he loves me still...even if I wear a big-buckled belt over a polka-dot shirt with tapered jeans and a banana clip to boot.