Pensamientos

This is week four for me in Chile. I can´t tell if it seems like I´ve been here a few days or a few months, it´s one of those weird time warps where certain things feel like I´ve been doing them forever (like lighting the water heater before taking a shower and holding the front gate in just the right way to lock it) and it seems like I´ve always known certain streets and stores, but there are some things I think that will just never feel familiar no matter how long I´m here. No matter how good I am at speaking Spanish, I will always be a gringa, and there´s not too much I can do about that.

I really don´t want this to sound like it´s complaining, because I promise it´s not. I just know that I´ll always be a foreigner which just means I´ll always be different; cultural immersion doesn´t change who you are. I think God´s actually using that knowledge to teach me about being a stranger in this world. Like Chile, the world is not really my home no matter how much time I spend here or how well I know the locals. Hebrews 11:13  talks about how those of great faith in the Bible knew that they were foreigners on earth and knew that their real inheritance was not here. I would really like to always have that eternal perspective.

The Lord has also been showing me the blessing of Christian fellowship. I´ve been blessed with a wonderful church back home and small groups full of awesome girls that help me grow in my faith and make me want to look more like Jesus. I have definitely not been left without that here in Chile, but it´s a lot less than what I´m used to. In the end, my relationship with God comes down to what I put into it, and I´ve had a lot more solo time with Him these past few weeks. Brothers and sisters in Christ are such a blessing and encouragement, but if I´m not seeking Him on my own, their encouragement can only go so far. Seeking God alone has been more challenging for me but really fruitful as well.

I wish I was good at transitioning my thoughts. I´m almost a third of the way done with classes, which is crazy. There have been some pretty hard things going on with the group here, so prayers would definitely be appreciated. I´ll be in Argentina and Uruguay next week and I´m super excited! But right now, I´ve got to go catch a metro!

Hasta luego

How is it February already?

Hey, everyone!

Big news: I´m tan!! Or at least much more so than I usually am in February. We went to Valparaíso and Viña del Mar last weekend. Valpo is a port city built on a bunch of hills. All the houses are super bright and colorful and I wish we could have spent more than a few hours there. We did get to tour La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda's three houses (Pablo is an uber famous Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971 and we just read a novel about him). It was a really cool house and it seems that Pablo and I share a love of world maps. Viña was really fun too. You can´t really swim there (in fact it´s illegal, but no one really pays attention to that) because the waves are so strong and there´s a crazy undertow. I stood at the edge a lot, and the one time I went in it felt like I was in a washing machine full of sand. Not fun. BUT...I did get to take in some sun, play a little soccer (before a stray dog destroyed the ball), and hang out with Furmanites, which is always hilarious.

Then I got to come back to classes (I´m trying to focus more on the fact that I was AT THE BEACH doing homework rather than having to do HOMEWORK at the beach; does that make sense?). So far this week hasn´t been too exciting. I´ll let you know if that changes :)