Ohhhh the week of goodbyes.  This week was full of "lasts"- the last time going to our internships, the last time in Granjas, the last time in Estrella, our last Sunday at church- God has been so abundantly good in the way He planned this week- even though it has been full of tears, we have had some really sweet times of prayer and fellowship with friends here. 

Tuesday we said goodbye to Sara's family.  We met Sara in November, I believe, after already having known her 3 children for at least a month.  Junior, Justin, and Kimbo were always running around in the street, and we never even really knew which house they lived in until we decided one day that we really should meet these kids' parents.  We chatted with Sara a few times before we left for Christmas break, and she was pregnant when we met her, so Jenny especially got really into finding lots of things for the new baby (she originally told us the baby was due in February).  When we came back after Christmas, the family had moved to another part of the city, but had left their three year old son Justin behind with a neighbor.  This is quite a foreign concept to most of us, and as well it should be- you just don't leave your kid behind when you move.  The neighbor told us that the parents always hit the kids (who are 5, 3, and 2- and all from different dads), and she didn't know when the family was coming back to get him. 

About a month ago, I saw Sara again- still pregnant (either the doctors had been off about 3 months, or she hadn't ever had a checkup and just made a guess about when the baby was due).  Every time we see her, she's been a little bit less stand-offish than the time before, but has never welcomed any talk about God/ accepted our invitation to cell group.  Last week her son Junior came to cell group to tell us that his little baby brother had been born, and his mom was in the hospital, so Jenny and I thought we would just try to see if we could find favor in the eyes of the hospital staff to get in and visit her (they've always told us that's the only wing we're not permitted to enter).  But we prayed, and God answered!  It was so cool, because we didn't even know her last name, but somehow the Lord granted us that favor and we got to enter the big room where the 25 plus new mommies all hang out together for a few days while their families find the money to pay their hospital bill and get them out.  She was so glad to see us- it was really cool how seeing someone in a situation like that somehow makes you feel so much closer to them- and I think that's how she felt about us.  Like we had done something huge to come visit her, even though it was just the Lord's creative provision that allowed us in.  We got to hang out with Sara and her new baby boy for about 45 minutes, and God gave me the honor of being the first person to ever pray over this little boy for his life- it was really neat.  

   We got to see Sara and her husband two more times after that- we talked to him a little bit about what an incredible blessing and huge responsibility God gives along with the gift of children.  I don't know the current situation in their household regarding their physical actions towards their kids (other than the fact that they are the dirtiest kids I see in Granjas, so hygiene is not a priority), and saying bye to their family was absolutely heart-wrenching.  As I held Kimbo for the last time (that I know of), I prayed for a layer of protection around her and her brothers.  I wanted so badly to take them all with me.  

Our relationships are changing, but it doesn't have to mean they're changing for the worse, right?  Even as I write that I only halfway believe it.  Because I'm thinking, I'm in control, to some degree, and so as long as I'm here, I can build this relationship more, show this family more of Christ's love, and somewhat control their lives.  What a me-centered attitude.  My God is the Sovereign "I AM"- and He loves those kids more than I could ever imagine.  As much as I want to think its about me, I claim the fact that it is about what God is doing here, and the ways in which He honored me with the privilege of knowing and loving on those kids for the time I did- and that they loved me back!  What a gift- and that alone shows that whatever goes on in their house at least has not caused them to completely shut down when people hug them or hold their hand or rub their back.  Knowing everything going on in their family life, He brought them into my path for these few short months.  This has been a hard few days as I prepare to leave, but Jenny showed me Psalm 12:5 the other day, a verse she found while she was praying for the kids-

"Because of the oppression of the weak
       and the groaning of the needy,
       I will now arise," says the LORD.
       "I will protect them from those who malign them."

Back in March I made a plan to read through the Old Testament before I left, and even though I should be somewhere around Joel or Amos by now, I am still in Ecclesiastes.  But God in His infinite mercy is showing me exactly the thing I need to learn right now before I come back to the states- He has set ETERNITY in my heart (Ecc 3:11).  In the 15 days immediately after I get home I have two wedding and three graduations to attend, which I am absolutely so pumped for, but a graduation does not "redeem us from the power of the grave" (Ps 49:15) and there is no ultimate saving power in a marriage.  These things are joyful, but they are all eventually "a chasing after the wind" in King Solomon's words. One really cool thing about being in this program is that its been a little easier to "set my mind on the things above, not on earthly things" (Col 3:2) because we have an hour of quiet time every morning, then group worship, and then we sit around for an hour and talk about what God is doing in our lives and hearts and internships and colonia ministry, then we have a different teacher fly in almost every week, people from all over the country coming to impart their knowledge on us, and then we go to our different internships or colonias, depending on the day, and allow God to move in whatever cool ways He wants to through our conversations.  So the challenge will come when I go home- will I seek my reputation and approval, or will I seek first the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God?  When we don't have the title of Missionary attached to ourselves, is it a little harder to fully set our minds on things above?

As my time in Mexico is ticking away (3 weeks left!), one thing that continually crosses my mind is when I start to get sentimental is, "at least I will have my own room again."  Living in community can be so difficult, but the Lord is reminding me of what a refining process it is.  I can't have things exactly the way I want them to be, catered to my preferences, which can be frustrating, because many of you can attest that I am a woman of many systems.  I really like my systems.  They work for me.  But when I really think about it, the last thing I want to be is like King Nebuchadnezzar, "contented and prosperous" in my "palace"- what a dangerous place to be in, where you control everything about your little world.  We had some teachers fly down for the week to talk about worship, and one of the things Dick, who used to be a Chemistry professor, mentioned was that He saw us as diamonds, sitting on a backdrop of carbon.  We start out as just ordinary matter, but in the heat of the furnace of living in community (and it sure can get hot in here!) comes this priceless opportunity for God to refine us into diamonds.  Not that I feel like I've been perfected this year- as soon as I think "I'm doing pretty well these days" I've fallen into the miry pit of pride, where the darkest sin lurks- of thinking I can do anything without Jesus.  But instead of sitting around mourning over how crappy and dark my heart is, the Lord is teaching me what He taught His people in Nehemiah 8- God's holiness is actually violated if we have accepted him as our Savior and we still dwell in our sin.  May the JOY of the Lord be our strength!

Since we returned from Christmas break, I have looked ahead to the Johnson Ferry project as being one of the last things we did before going home. Its very bizarre to now be past that project with only a few more weeks of regular ministry left before we return home, but God is reminding me that He is going to carry this work that He began until its day of completion- in other words, it is not time to check out of the program. Fortunately, I am still absolutely loving the work He is involving me in here, and He is constantly allowing me to see that what He is doing is on a much larger scale than I ever could have imagined. So much is happening, I thought I'd give you a week in pictures:

Recently at the hospital, we have been spending all of our time in the new pediatrics wing, where we have had multiple rich conversations with moms who are waiting with their kids.

Our friend Laura is having a baby in just over a week! Tomorrow we are throwing her a baby shower- so many people have been gracious in donating the "gear" for a little girl, so we are going to really shower her with goodies.

At the shopping center, I saw Karina, one of the girls I met while with the Johnson Ferry group. She has just started reading the Bible on her own, and we are going to try to catch up next Monday to hang out.

This week we've been building the house for our friends… it isn't the same family that we originally thought we'd built it for, but being in Granjas is definitely cementing our witness that we're not just about loving with words, but also with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).

For the past 2 weeks, our team has been at the Gateway (the long-term AIM base here that hosts short- term trips) prepping for and leading a group of 250 high schoolers from Marietta (of all places!) on their spring break trip. Leading this trip was the undoubtedly the most exhausting thing I've done in Mexico, but it was just such a cool opportunity to rely completely on what the Lord was doing through me and in the hearts of these high schoolers. There was so much of the unknown going into the week- all of our FYM team had various leadership positions in which we had no experience (I was the ministry coordinator for one of the sites, and most of us served as ministry coaches/ translators/ cultural trainers, etc)- but as we made ourselves available to whatever God had for us, He just exalted Himself and we got to be in the privileged positions of watching how He was growing and refining some of these students. It was incredible.

One of the coolest things for me about this week was that as I tried to instill in the students a love for the Mexican people, I realized how much God has made my heart so soft towards their culture specifically. I think that in many instances, short term mission trips do more for the participants than for the people. This was a frustrating realization, and this sounds really harsh, but I'm going to be really honest here (what else are blogs for?) Without having some cultural training, there were some things that the students would say/ do that I just didn't want the Mexicans to hear/ see. Or I just had to pray that they had the grace to see that these students were still really young. In praying about this, God reminded me that one of the first times I really experienced him in a powerful way was when I went with Young Life to build a house in Tijuana, Mexico. I'm sure I did some really ignorant things while I was there and seemed super insensitive to their culture, but that was my first out-of-the country missions experience, and He used that to built a foundation in my life for seeking more of him. That week, I remember Allen Levi (big-time singer/songwriter in the YL world) led worship and I guess in between one of the songs or something he said something that completely changed the way I thought about myself as a Christian. He said, "God doesn't grade on a curve." That's the first memory I have of realizing that being a Christian involves a lot more than avoiding the "bad stuff" that a lot of high schoolers get into; that it demands us to wholeheartedly seek continual refinement as our goal is to "be holy, as I am holy" (that's somewhere in Deuteronomy I think and then again in 1 or 2 Peter- but I can't find it right now!). And I've come a long way since that week almost exactly seven years ago, but that doesn't mean I'm like, slowing down or getting close to the final goal in terms of how much work the Lord has left to do in my heart. God calls us to this life of following Him that's radically different from how the world sees goodness. I mean, how many times did the crowds say, after Jesus' preaching, "surely this teaching is too difficult". I'm just so thankful that we can't reach that holiness here on this side of heaven, but that instead we spend our lifetimes pressing on toward the goal (Phil 3:14) of holiness, toward Christ, who is the end of the law, the substance of the Gospel, and in living life doing this, we receive his mercies anew every day, moment by moment, as we depend on Him, the author and perfecter of our faith.

I wanted to kind of give an update on last week. I really enjoyed getting to know some of the students, seeing their hearts grow and their perspectives broadening. One thing I came face to face with last week was simply how much our different backgrounds give us different lenses through which to view the world. I simply want to have God's perspective, unbiased to see people as they are, as our Creator made them. My favorite part about being one of the project leaders was getting to know the family. This was such a privilege, and an open door since after the first day, I was mainly there as a resource in case the group needed anything while they were doing construction. So I just spent a lot of time with Carmen (yellow shirt in above picture), the mother of the Agustin, the man we were building the house for (his wife is Jessica, in the red stripes). She has such a heart for knowing God, but she has only been a Christian for a couple years, so there's a lot in the Bible that she doesn't understand (well, there's a lot in the Bible that none of us really understand) but she hasn't heard or read much of the Old Testament history, which makes it difficult to understand a lot of the New Testament as well, so I just had the opportunity to teach some about the Israelites as God's chosen people, and then how we are grafted in through the New Covenant, which was about the last thing I had expected to do. But God was so in the time, because then this lady came over to visit Carmen and she wanted to listen too, and then two of Carmen's daughters came in, so it was really neat to share with all of them. Before we went to lunch on the first day, she asked me if I thought the group could maybe build a house for her daughter and son-in-law next year. I told her I would let the AIM staffers know about the need, but our group (the 8 of us left, plus our 3 leaders!) have decided to build the house (we have the money, because we had planned on building a house for a lady in Granjas, but it turns out the Lord provided for her in abundance, because another church got to her first and asked if they could build her a house!) So its just really cool that God has connected us with this family now, I just really love them already, and I'm so thankful we'll have this opportunity to show how quickly and creatively God answers prayers.

So I've been hanging out in Judges the past couple days, not exactly thrilled to be reading about women driving pegs through men's skulls, but today God had some incredible relevancy for my life from chapter seven.  This week, we are back out at the Gateway to lead a week-long youth group trip that's here from Birmingham.  I thought I was just going to be going alongside the group as a translator, but after breakfast I was asked to be one of the two project site leaders.  We were leaving within an hour of when I was asked… so needless to say, I didn't feel like I was bringing a lot to the table.  In somewhat of a similar fashion, when Gideon was headed to take down the Midianites, God basically told him- in so many words, but including a funny story about lapping water like dogs- in order that you don't think it is anything that you are doing on your own strength that is winning you the victory, send home everybody except three hundred men.  Today, God glorified himself in a way that was clearly about him.  I brought no experience in leading 30 people in building a house or breaking into teams to go build relationships in the colonia or running a VBS, but somehow everything was accomplished and God was exalted in everything I saw today.  And when Jesus is lifted up in what we're doing, when He can be seen clearly through our words and actions, one could say a victory is handed over.  Please pray with me and for me this week; pray for my ability to listen to the Spirit's leading in order to lead others, and pray for the 60 high school students and leaders that are here, that God would reveal Himself to each of them in new ways, that we would all walk in obedience, and that none of us would begin to think its anything we're doing on our own strength that houses are being built, people are being loved, the Gospel is being shared, and that the risen Christ is being glorified.

Usually during my quiet time I journal a lot, but today I was reading Leviticus because I'm trying to read the Old Testament straight through before I leave Mexico and was actually really into it, which that alone is a work of the Holy Spirit, and so the only thing I wrote in my journal was: I want to know you more deeply, more fully.  I want to behold your power and glory in the sanctuary.  So at 9:30 when I went downstairs for worship the first song was "Holy is the Lord", which is a favorite, but just meant that much more today because what I read today in Leviticus (chapters 1-9) was all about the specific offerings and sacrifices- the specifics are so extreme that you're just like- really?  What is this all about?  But I read something that said "this unceasing sacrifice of animals was designed by God to burn into the consciousness of the Jewish nation a sense of their deep sinfulness, and to be an age-long picture of the coming sacrifice of Christ, toward whom the sacrifices point and in whom they were fulfilled" and I just during that song an overwhelming sense of His Holiness and my unworthiness, but I didn't dwell in the sin part because God immediately put it on me - "You are a royal priesthood"- that I don't have to be consecrated the way Aaron and his sons were- all the ceremonial stuff- I am purely and simply part by the blood of Jesus allowed to come into His presence, and I just felt God anointing my senses, and I touched my eyes, my nose, my mouth and my ears.  So then we sang "Breathe"- This is the air I breathe, your holy presence, living in me, and I just reflected on that presence being upon me, and as we sang "This is my daily bread" this really sweet smell came into the room, like bread with honey, except (this just shows you how slow I am) my first thought was "Oh, I didn't know Rita was here already" (Rita is our cook, and she usually gets to the house about 10:30 to start making lunch) and then I was thinking, "Since when does Rita make bread?"  And then it occurred to me that this could be God's presence I was smelling.  I've definitely never experienced that before, but afterwards God brought Isaiah 64:4 to my attention- Eye has not seen, nor ear heard (could God be saying, nor nose smelled?) nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.  In speaking to God about this, He just let me know- (remember we are grafted into His lineage, so the promises of the Israelites are for us as believers to claim)- "If you want me to blow your mind, to overwhelm your senses, to pour my Spirit out… Ezekiel 39:29- I will no longer hide my face from you, for I will pour out my Spirit on your house…

Praise Him in the sanctuary! Psalm 150:1

After a couple of weeks of craziness, our team is attempting to achieve some level of normalcy, and the new beginning really has been a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways. Its been an adjustment, learning to function as kind of a new team. In the midst of all the changes, five of our team members felt the Lord calling them back to the U.S., and so losing that many people obviously creates a climate of change, and the general team dynamics are quite different now. We were able to have some really cool times of sharing/ debriefing/ eating really good Mexican food at our favorite restaurant before they left, but of course it was sad to say goodbye to Laura, Ifeoma, Jess, Matt and John. However, it certainly hasn't been a hindrance that we were able to get an incredible new house for the 10 of us that are here for the rest of the semester! I really didn't know it was possible to live in Mexico and feel clean. My past experience has shown that the two are mutually exclusive, but now I can walk around barefoot in the new house and my feet don't get muddy! Oh, and you can't see it in this picture, but... we have a trampoline in our yard. Yes. God is GOOD. We will still be going to the same internships- last week was really cool because a group from Canada came and our team kind of led their trip, and Laura and I took took two of the Canadian girls to the hospital with us, where we met a woman named Elisabeth, who has AIDS, along with her baby (who she decided not to name, because he also has AIDS, and will die within the year). We were able to talk to Elisabeth for about an hour, sharing with her what we believe about God and His goodness- it was just really cool how God used us in a really powerful way during a week where neither of us had anything of ourselves to pour from- we were completely spent, and so every bit of us ministering to her was so clearly from the Lord. WOW is looking mostly the same except that the Granjas and Estrella teams are combined now (which is not a big change for me, since I already went to both colonias). We've really enjoyed exploring our new neighborhood, so I think we are going to spend one WOW day a week trying our hand at building some relationships here. Its so different from our old colonia, because we're now living among the wealthy, where everyone has a gate surrounding their house that they pretty much contain their activities within. We've been told that people aren't very open here to the type of ministry we're used to- just kind of walking by and striking up conversations with whoever is outside (which is not abnormal, and can easily turn into a full-fledged friendship), so I'm excited to follow the Holy Spirit's leading to see how life will look in this new area of town. This week our leaders asked us to let God develop a kind of personal mission statement for our remaining 2 ˝ months here in Mexico, and in listening to God, the first thing He said was that He wanted me to find utter pleasure in His company. It makes so much sense for that to come first- our ultimate goal in life must be to glorify God and ENJOY Him forever! Everything else will just come as a natural outpouring when we are living in right relationship with Him. I don't want my blogs to always be marathoners, but they are starting to look that way, so I'll stop here. GRACE and PEACE to you, my friends.