Prayers and Blessings!

Well, I never thought I’d be saying this…but I’ve dealt with being homesick this these past few weeks. I think what started it was that I was not feeling useful in my job. I still have problems understanding a lot of what is being said, so my usefulness is limited. We also found out that we won’t be able to learn how to put in IV’s (one of my dreams) or give injections, so I think I was just feeling let down. I began to wonder if I had made the wrong decision in coming here. Am I really going to be able to be a force for God, be able to do anything for Him at all? Why am I here? These were the kinds of questions that were running through my mind. Combine that with not being able to communicate effectively with anyone and that gives one a pretty dark outlook on life. But there is a reason for trials in life. Each morning during my devotions I had to hash it out with God. It took a while, but eventually I came to peace with the situation. I realized that if God has put me here, and I know He has, he has a plan. And with God, the journey is never a downward journey. It is always a path to greater heights: heights of faith, heights of friendship and a deeper relationship with God, and at times heights of achievement. Realizing that there was no reason to fret over whether or not I had made a bad decision in coming here, realizing that God is there constantly guiding me, realizing that all I have to do is pursue God with all of my heart, gave me peace. That peace didn’t immediately make me see the world through rose-colored glasses but it gave me the strength to keep going. It was absolutely amazing to me the hunger and thirst that I’ve had for God in these past few weeks. It’s something that I’ve never experienced before. I pray daily that this hunger and thirst for God does not leave me.
Fortunately things have gotten a lot better for me lately. God blessed me in the area of language this past week and something clicked. I’ve been able to communicate a lot better. Still on the level of a small child but it’s a step in the right direction! It’s coming easier to think of how to organize sentences. This increase in comprehension and ability to speak a little bit better has made it easier for me to be useful in the nurses’ station. I am starting to understand more of what is said by the patients and thus am able to take care of some of there calls without having to call another nurse to help. This is an entirely new feeling for me, essentially having a job and not having any studying that absolutely has to get done. But I’ve found something about myself, I actually really like to study when I don’t have to! Go figure! Not that I that absolutely hate studying normally, but when I can pick something that really interests me and applies to what I want to do. I enjoy discovering new things. In this case it’s the Spanish language, which applies very directly to my life here. I’ve been trying to study as much as possible. It’s become very clear to me that I am a visual learner. If I can write a word down and see it a couple times I can usually remember it fairly well; but if I just hear it, it takes a lot longer.
This last weekend was interesting because we helped a couple, Jan and Kevin Nick, to lead out in Sabbath school in the “Iglesia Central.” Jan teaches at Loma Linda in the School of Nursing and Kevin works in the Geology department. It’s kind of funny, because I’ve actually heard of Kevin before in one of my classes at Andrews University because of some work he did in Peru. They are here because Jan is helping with some of the nursing programs here in Paraguay. Anyway, I said my first prayer in Spanish, which was interesting. I had to write it all out beforehand because I definitely didn’t trust myself to make something up on the spot! We also read the mission story. And guess what, it was about the United States. Yep, this quarter’s offerings are going to help missions in the U.S.! We also did a special music, which went surprisingly well for the amount of time we had to practice it. That evening we went to Sociedad de Jovenes (a vespers type meeting that happens every Saturday night) as usual but this time we stayed afterward because there was a group of people going to the Chaco region of Paraguay to hand out clothing and bring a bit of food as well. We left at midnight and drove through the night in a rattletrap old bus; one of the “collectivos,” or public transportation buses that they have here. We got there around six in the morning and got to look around a little bit at a school that ADRA had built. The woman that organized the trip is a truly amazing woman that seems to have gotten the school off the ground mostly by her shear willpower. She showed us all of the buildings that she had had built while she was there and the improvements that had been made. Soon we were off once again, further into the interior and away from the main road. The phrase “eating dust” became very real to us as the bus began to pick it’s we around and, yes, through gigantic potholes on a dirt road. One of the biggest problems for the people living in the Chaco is the lack of water. It only rains two or three months out of the year and the rest of the year is completely dry. The water table there is also extremely saline, meaning the people cannot access water via a well either. There are also very few rivers, and these dry up to hardly nothing during the dry season. They have to have water brought in by truck, which causes even more problems. You can imagine what happens to water that sits in big plastic containers for weeks on end. The indigenous people that live there all look a lot older than they are; a combination of extremes in weather and untreated medical problems. It was good to be able to do something for them, even if it wasn’t that much. Many of them have no hope of raising their status in life because they do not have ready access to education. The trip back was enlivened by the youth director, named Alejandro, who decided it would be funny to put toothpaste on people that were sleeping. Everybody ended up with some of the stuff on them…I got my glasses and stomach pasted while I was asleep. However, what goes around comes around. Alejandro ended up with minty fresh hair, not my doing I might add!
Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes. I am in constant need of prayer as I learn more of the language here and try to let God work through me in whatever ways possible!