[an email to a friend in Honduras]
Hola amiga,
The subject just about sums it up. I have learned and grown SO MUCH in the last year. I was thinking today about how a year ago, I was walking in the independence day parade in Tegucigalpa, and how much God has taught me since then.
As you know, I was more than ready to leave Honduras. I knew I would miss you and Kurt and a few other people and the villages and the mountains, but I was ready to leave the city. It took me four months to actually miss anything else from my semester in Honduras. But by March, I really missed it. And I began to feel guilty for not taking advantage of more opportunities in Honduras. I kept thinking, "I could have done that better, and that better, and gone there..." Then a wise person told me that if I ever went back, of course I would do those things better. Generally, we always do things better when we do them a second time, and then better and better with each time following. I realized that I did the best I could then, and that was enough. But even understanding this, I did not want to live in Honduras again. I would be willing to visit, even for an extended period of time if I could speak in English and was with people who knew me and whom I knew. I knew that I could be used anywhere, and I was hoping that God would just keep me in west Michigan. I continued to process my semester as school finished and then I started camp.
I learned a lot this summer. And God put a lot of people in my life and showed me himself in many ways. I learned to walk with God this summer. I think I have always been learning this, but especially this summer. There were a few themes to my summer: joy, fear/love, healing, and calling.
This summer, a friend asked me if I lived my life looking for a problem to fix. I have been asked this question a number of times, but I always said no because I thought that was a dumb way to live. However, I always knew I did actually live like that, and I always tried to change that about myself (possibly proving that I was once again trying to fix a "problem"). I never did change that about myself until my friend asked this summer. This time, I told her that I did live like that. I think that I lived this way because I knew that God calls us to become more and more like him, and he's perfect. I knew I could never be perfect because of sin, but I thought that I needed to try. And that led to try fixing problems outside myself, and led to a passion against injustice in the world. Although that passion for justice was good, I could never fix all the problems, so it led to despair. I kept failing. I was never good enough. But back to that friend and her question... I realized that if Brittani cared enough to ask the question, she would care enough to help me live more fully, a better way than despair. So I asked her. She then held me accountable to finding joy. I could still see problems, but I also had to see the hope. As soon as my telos changed from looking for problems to looking for hope, I moved from despair to joy. It was so freeing. Life is so much more wonderful with all of this hope! It seemed as though my entire life had led up to that night. Every experience and every lesson learned was to lead up to living this true, full, joyful, hope-filled life. I can now look back on experiences, like Honduras, and see ways that God was teaching me and molding me and stretching me and preparing me. I could see pieces of hope that weren't visible to me when I only saw the problems. Don't get me wrong, I can still see the difficulties and the pain and the hurt and the injustice, but I now see the hope alongside all of that. I began learning that the next week when I had to call child protective services for a camper. Life isn't fair and injustice is still here, but I now know that my joy is complete in Christ, even when my world seems to be falling down around me. I don't know what made me finally understand all of this, but I do. I know that I will always be learning to live more fully, but I have crossed a mark and I won't be able to go back to life before it, and I am so grateful.
Every Wednesday this summer, for 10 Wednesdays in a row, I had to share my story with kids. We shared two word stories (and then explained them). My words were: fear/loved. I told the kids that "1 John 4:18 says that perfect love casts out fear. I used to be scared a lot. I was afraid of little things, like the dark, and of big concepts, like failure. Then I told them how Jesus was my superhero (that was our theme for the summer) and rescued me from fear because 1 John also says that God is love. And Isaiah 43 says that God will be with me, even in the scary places. So, if God is love, and he is always with me, and perfect love casts out fear, I never have to be afraid!" And saying this every week and answering their questions, really cemented this way of living in my heart. So, now I'm living a life of joy and hope, with no fear, because I know that I am loved with a perfect love.
I had shin splints already the first week of camp. I get shin splints a lot. I'm used to it and I have a very high threshold for pain. I just kept dancing and running and jumping all day, every day. By week seven, they were stress fractures and I was physically ill with the pain. I had this feeling that I needed to ask Brittani (the girl who asked me about how I lived life) what she thought about praying for healing. She said, "I believe in it. I'll tell you my story later. Let's not waste any time. Let's pray." So she put her hands on my shins. She prayed. I prayed. We said amen and started gathering our things to go home. My legs didn't hurt. They ached like every other part of my body; I had been running and jumping and dancing and belaying kids all day, but they didn't hurt. Brittani told me to go home and read what Jesus told people after he healed them. I did and I felt convicted by the story of the blind man in Mark. Jesus healed him and then asked if he could see. He answered that he could see people walking around that looked like trees. And then Jesus healed him completely. I felt convicted to not settle for good enough. I couldn't just take God out of the box and put him in a slightly bigger one. God is bigger than any box and I needed to know that. So Brittani and I prayed again the next morning and my shins haven't hurt since. Praise the Lord.
Finally, God has been calling me again. I had felt called to Honduras in high school. I didn't know why, but I did. So I went to Calvin in order to spend a semester in Honduras. While I was there, I was convinced that I had misunderstood or something, and that I could never live there long-term. I still don't know what I'm called to do, but God placed a lot of people in my life this summer who encouraged me toward social justice work. One couple was a host family to me for a week. They encouraged me to go back to Honduras, but not to the city. I loved the villages, the rural areas. I really did. So they encouraged me to go back, even for a little while. And Brittani shared a vision with me that she was given while she was praying for me. I was surrounded by little black kids and I was radiating with joy. I'm taking that with a grain of salt, especially because she told me to, but it was still encouraging. And I don't know where I am in that picture, but it gives me joy and makes me excited for the future. I'm also going to a couple conferences in October, one through CCDA about community development, and the other is about immigration. I'm very excited. There are so many opportunities ahead. And I plan to take advantage of them.
And now I must head to class, but I hope that even though an email you can see a difference in me. I feel like I have become more myself, who I was created to be, than ever before. I feel very different than a year ago. And say hola to Lorelle for me. I miss her.
I hope you are doing well. Thank you for the role you played in all these things I learned. I do thank God for you whenever I think of you. Take care, and let's talk soon!
Jessica
