2013 Goals

So, it's been a very long time since I've published anything. There's no need for me to try to catch you up to speed, because that would take days. So I'm just going to start fresh!

I'm really big in to setting & accomplishing goals these days. So I'm going to just list my goals for the year on here. Keep me accountable!

1.   Save. AT LEAST $3,000, preferably more
2.   Pay off debt. Credit card. And what I owe my mother :)
3.   Lose 13lbs. I WILL fit in all the summer clothes I bought last year.
4.   Memorize scripture. At least 2 full chapters.
5.   Be intentional. At work. At home. At church. With friends. With my family. With my 242 girls.
6.   Devotion. To be in the Word. To love. To a greater cause.
7.   Be content where I am (this WILL be the hardest)
8.   Be vegetarian for a month. (Aiming for Feb; it's the shortest)
9.   Learn. From the Lord. From others. From myself. From the past.
10. Craft. Make things rather than buy them.
11. Wear jewelry. Because I don't now.
12. Dance. Grow out of this socially awkward bubble & get jiggy with it like I secretly want to.
13. Be a good steward with all God has given me. Time. Money. Gifts. All of it.

This is really more for me than for you who read this. I feel like if it's set in stone & people know about my goals, I'll have more drive to reach them! Let's see how it goes!

I'm going to try to get back into blogging too. If I bore you, tell me so I can spare everyone else the pain! :)

Blessed

So although I'm in America, this journey isn't over. This is actually my first night to myself to just sit and think about how God's remained faithful and gracious towards me this last year. Blows my mind. Tonight I just want to share a little bit of this with you!

I got home last Saturday, and I start work this Monday. This is a huge deal.  I was terrified leaving Peru without a job. I spent HOURS every day looking for jobs in Nashville my last couple months in Lima, and kept getting rejection emails. I didn't have enough experience, and speaking Spanish isn't a big deal anymore. So I finally decided to just stop looking and just trust the Lord would provide me a job when He wanted. Praise Him and that He wanted me to have one soon!

I start at Mercy Children's Clinic as one of their Front Office Receptionists, and I'm soo excited! This job is a perfect match for me right now. They're a Non-Profit ministry that serves all children in Williamson County, whether they have insurance or not. So I get missions, administration, babies, and Spanish all in one job. That's God's faithfulness my friend, and NOTHING of my own doing. 


Just wanted to brag on Him for a bit!

Ya te extraño, Peru

I leave this country for good tomorrow, and that weirds me out like no other. 

I like change, but this whole jumping into the unknown doesn't seem to tickle my fancy much.  It builds my faith in God and His promises, which I'm assuming is why he's sending me back without knowing anything about my future.  It's just a new kind of adventure.

Speaking of adventures, I've had the awesome opportunity to go on many adventures in the last 10 months.  I won't share them all with you know, but I do want to share what I will and will not miss about life in this crazy town (I know this may seem so random, but all week I've been walking around saying to myself "I won't miss this" and "Aww man I'm going to miss this!).

I will miss...
Cheap public transportation
Cremoladas
Fresh bread every morning
Walking everywhere
The Llorenses
Living on the beach
Visits to the orphanage
Patty Arroyo
Arturo Tovar
Erika Beltran
Santiago Tapia
$5 meals at Chilis
Trips to Pamplona
Ice Cream before trips to Pamplona
Spanish
Speaking Spanglish and everyone understanding it
The Olsons
My church
The stairs on the beach
My daily faces I see while running
Mountains
Adventures with Tammy
Cheap prices

I will not miss...
Men whistling at me no matter if I'm wearing shorts or 5 pairs of sweat pants
Putting on shoes while doing laundry so i don't get shocked
Fish smells
Pig smells
Poop smells
Poop on babies, poop on the streets, your poop, my poop, poop in general
Throwing all toilet paper away
Combies
Standing with 95 of my fellow Peruvians on a bus while 5 more get on
Bad logic
Taxis preventing me from crossing the street
Taxis profiling me
Taxis offering me a ride while I'm running and obviously have no money on me
Pollution
Car alarms


America, be nice to me please!

We Run Lima

I'd like to tell you all a wonderful story...

Pre-story:

For the past 6 months Tammy and I have been exercising. This is a big deal for several reasons: 1. We go at 6 am Monday-Friday. 2. We've progressed a whole stinking lot since we started in October. 3. The accountability between us keeps us both going because neither of us would do this sola.  BUT we're going to complete 10 laps this Thursday/Friday, which is meeting our goal. So whoop whoop!

Story:
In October or November Nike hosted a 10K called "We Run Lima".  At that time I could walk up 250 stairs at a decent pace, but that was it. Needless to say, I did not participate in this event.  BUT I SHOULD HAVE! They gave away the most awesome T-shirts. They're orange Nike Dry Fit shirts & say "We Run Lima", and just pure awesomeness that I have had to see people wear every stinkin' day since then!  I've said atleast 15 kazillion times "I WANT THAT SHIRT!!"  So Tammy and I crafted a plan to get one.

We always said that we were going to take 20 US dollars and another T-shirt to the beach in the morning and offer to buy/trade shirts with some random person. Sounds like a golden plan doesn't it?! Yeah it does!

Well, 6 months later, I still had no shirt. Time is running out!  They had us a going away party last Wednesday, and Tammy and Tony started it with a gift for each of us.  I was totes not expecting a We Run Lima shirt, but that's totes what I got!

Tammy and Tony went to Wong that afternoon and when they came back, Tammy saw a man with that shirt. I believe her exact words were "Tony! That's Gerica's shirt! Go get it!!" And he did.  He walked up to this guy, who just happened to be a lawyer, and began to talk to him about his shirt. Then he asked if he could have it, and the lawyer man looked real confused.  Then Tony offered him $20 dollars and another T-shirt, and he agreed. He walked with them to their apartment and changed shirts and collected his money! *Side note: He had tattoos and muscles. And my shirt still smells like him after 2 washings!* 

My friend Patty's mom said this was all for love. My love for the shirt. Tammy's love for me. Tony's love for Tammy. And the lawyer's love for some money!

Moral of the story: Take chances. Or at least make friends who take chances! You may get an awesome shirt and a cool story!

 

It's that time...

It's time to reflect, and may I say that I do not like this time.  I know it's good to reflect on everything God's done in me this past year, but it makes leaving more difficult.  So instead of doing that now, I'm going to make a list of things that I want to do before I leave. Maybe I'll actually do them if people hold me accountable!

1. Love on those orphans as much as I can in the last 3 times I see them!
2. Take at least 50 more photos.
3. Hang out with Erika and ONLY speak in Spanish.
4. Run 10 laps around the park by the beach.
5. Exercise every (weekday) morning that I have left.
6. Dance on a crowded bus, and document it.
7. Learn. Learn. LEARN about what the Father's got planned.
8. Find a job!!
9. Pray without ceasing.
10. Love people, even when it's difficult.
11. Go to the good bakery on Wilson at least 3 more times.
12. Make another Pinterest craft.
13. Get interpreters assigned to trips through the end of May.
14. Eat at the red roof menú.
15. Go back to Barrio china.
16. Not cry when I leave.
17. Find out what the lawyers at the shady law office really do.
18. Go to Minka.
19. Memorize at least half of Romans 8.
20. Get a "We Run Lima" shirt.

Let's see if all this happens :)

James 1:27

One little month left.  THIS.IS.CRAZY.

So much to do, so little time.  I'm crazy excited for what the Lord has in store for the next 4 weeks, but I must admit, it's going to be sad to see them pass by. This whole experience seems to have flown by, and there's no way 10 months have passed since I first got on a plane for Peru.  More on my mushy feelings later. Now, let's talk about babies.

While we were on a team retreat in the jungle in February, a man on our team told us about an orphanage just outside of Lima that had about 800 children currently staying there.  I first thought, "This is crazy. There's no way. He's exaggerating." But he wasn't.  A week later Jim took Tammy and me out to Ventanilla to see it.  We just went to the baby room, and it broke my heart.  I must admit, I just went to a corner and cried for a sec, and then realized that God put me there to love on those babies, so I had to dry it up and do just that.  Every Friday since, Tammy, some other short term missionaries, and I have taken a 2-3 hour bus ride out there to do that.

This "home" is different from most orphanages, in that it receives support from the government and various churches from the US, even though it is not a Christian orphanage.  They don't adopt the children out of the orphanage either, which I don't understand at all. Everything here is very institutionalized.  They wake up. eat breakfast, go to school, eat lunch, go to their career center, eat dinner, go to bed.  They eat in a large cafeteria together (except for the babies), and they cannot talk during meal times.  The dorm that talks or is late must wash the dishes for the entire community, and let's face it,  I could be quiet for 20 minutes if it meant washing 800 plates!  The older kids that we see do not look unhappy or anything. They all greet us with words and the cheek kiss, but that's about all the interaction we have with them.  Our focus has been to help in the baby room because there's about 30-40 babies and 4-5 workers in there. We try to come at lunch time to help feed all those hungry little bellies! It's mass chaos at times, but so fun and rewarding. I want to tell you about some specific babies to think about/pray for, and hopefully I'll get some pictures of each of them next week!

Lunch time with the first group!

First, I want to tell you about Lucy.  This girl is a MESS!! She's about 1 and a half pushing 2, and she is all personality.  The first week she seemed like a bully, especially when she was tired.  She climbed up in a high chair all by herself just to get away from everyone and fall asleep! No worries, she woke up just in time for lunch!  Lucy is a priss. She'll rear her hand back like she's going to hit you, but if you tickle her, she'll die laughing and just fall in your lap.  She loves to be held and hugged, but likes to do things on her own as well.  Like I said, I thought she was a bully at first, but she just has too much personality for such a little body!

Lucy and her snack that first week

 Then there's Jolisa.  She's probably 3 going on 4, and she's a diva. Not too bad, but she wants things her way.  She loves to dance with me, "ride a lil horsey" (caballito caballito!), play with my finger nails/try to bite them off.  She, alone with the rest of them, say "cargame" (carry me) with the pitiful whiney face that I don't buy at all.  She always acts like we're bff when I'm there, but the next week she asks me my name again!  Oh well, I love making that girl laugh and just have fun for a little bit.

Jolisa is on the far left, the only one you can see her face!

 Finally, there's Christian.  Christian was the first baby that we connected with, and he has won our hearts over.  He's about 7 months old, and just adorable.  I call him Mountain Man Miguel because that's what he looks like!  The little babies like Christian are usually in jumpers or walkers or cribs when we get there, and we just wait for the slightest whine and then pick them up and love on them.  Tammy has taken a deep interest in Christian, and he loves her back. Last Friday the workers told us that he doesn't interact with them like he does with Tammy.  The first 2-3 weeks, he was always mad.  It's summer here, and they keep them bundled up in long sleeves and pants, and they're just miserable.  After several hours of intense interaction with him, Tammy got him to smile.  We both saw it, and it filled our hearts so much.  The past few weeks he's been all smiles, and who doesn't love a toothless baby smile? 

Christian and I the first week. He's so much bigger now!

I want a such a better life for these babies.  I want them to get all of the love and attention they need at such a young age.  I want them to prosper. I want them to be healthy and happy.  I want them to have a family that loves them, that tucks them in, and that teaches them about the Lord. I want them to know they're special and unique and loved and wonderfully made by someone who knew them from the beginning of time. 

I've been wanting to post about the orphanage community I've started going to for a while, but it's difficult to really explain what its like just through simple words.  Until you've seen their faces, wiped their noses, smelled the smell, and heard their cries, I don't expect you to fully understand. I do, however, expect you to pray for these little faces and personalities that you don't know and may not ever know, because that's what we as Christians are called to do.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27 ESV)

falta un poco

i've only got 6 more weeks here, and it just really hit me today.  there's a lot that's going to happen, that needs to happen in this short time, so pray for guidance, wisdom, and patience this last little bit!


on a lighter note, things are going great.  we've got bust with random little things lately, but it's a good kind of busy.  i've started traveling with Tammy to an orphanage every friday. it's a long bus ride, but totally worth it.  i'll make a full post about that real soon. promise.


i just wanted to do a short post to say that i'm alive and well. my goal is to post atleast once a week from here on out.  i'll try my best not to let you down!