Kicking Off Spring Break

10 Mar 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Family, Travel

I don’t think I exactly told you, although you’ve probably picked up on it by now: I am on spring break.

Spring break at the Moody Bible Institute is two weeks longs, which length I took advantage of last year by going to Kenya. There are no international travel plans this year, but tomorrow begins a week of adventures in Florida, followed by several days in California. We’re departing rather early in the morning, and I’m off to bed quite soon, but I have prepared for you a list of things we’re rather excited about, in no particular order- a list of Happy Thoughts, if you will.

• Going to Florida
• Staying in a hotel
• Swimming in the hotel pool
• Seeing Stevy swim at Jr. Nationals
• Reuniting with the Michigan-based side of the family in Orlando
• Going in Disney World (!!)
• Not being in a city where snowfall is replaced by rain which is replaced by grey
• Reuniting with the California-based half of the family
• Going to Yosemite
• Spending time with each other, our aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins

We’re looking forward to a wonderful, crazy, exciting two weeks- stick around and we’ll see how Spring Break 2013 unfolds!

DSC_0955

~Natalia

Good Kenya, Bad

03 Feb 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, God

kenyaface1

I’ve created pro/con lists before. Drawn a line down the middle of the page and listed all the benefits on one side and all the negatives on the other side. I’ve done that to make decisions, and it’s helpful, I suppose. But just now, as the iPhoto folder loads and images of my time in Africa fill my computer screen, I’m tempted to make a pro/con list for what already happened.

Because I know God took me to Kenya for a reason, but the reason behind His will is sometimes a little ambiguous, and my patience is short while my curiosity is growing steadily. I want to know why. I want to know what. I want to know which lessons I learned, and how they apply to my life. I want to know if I’ll ever go back someday.

And I know I’m demanding much and my faith is comparably so small. I know that. I know I need to wait on His reason in His timing, and follow His leading, and be ready for what He throws across my path next. I know all that… in my head. But I’ve looked through the pictures now and my heart trips up on things I don’t understand, and I just want to know.

So I think about what I’d list with the positive and what I’d categorize negative, and my pride shone stark through even that, because who am I to decide what is good, what is bad?

All heads bowed, we’re standing in a tiny hospital room while I pray out loud. But the woman lying on the bed has a seizure and slipping outside the room, next thing I know, four African nurses are lying me on a bed in the closest empty room because I blacked out and hit my head on my way down to the ground.

Good or bad? Positive or negative?

The sun is hot but not muggy, and I’m standing in the sharp green grass, clutching my camera and laughing as I watch. Saturday program for little hearts gathered here, and they’re running races during this little break. They run from the fenced-off area where something must be growing, all the way to the gate and back, and their dark feet pound heavy and fast on the solid African ground. I can hear their yells and cheers from here, ringing loud in a swirl of Swahili, Luo, and English; three different languages spanning those gathered here.

Good or bad? Positive or negative?

On our way back from visiting a school, Anna and I are in the very back of the bus, but I can see David and D, our guide and our fellow traveler, a couple of rows up. It’s funny to think about rows in this bus because it’s a tiny vehicle, but we’re packed in so tight, there are twenty bodies in this van and the woman sitting inches in front of me has a little baby girl. It’s a girl, I know, because she’s dainty in a dress, and there’s something feminine about the untamed curls beginning to sprout on her little head. The bus jolts and sways constantly, and the infant sways in her mother’s arms, one eye desperately crossed, the other sliding gently across my face as her mother kisses her little neck.

Good or bad? Positive or negative?

Death happened and life grew. Food was eaten and food was given. Same with medicine. We rode straddling the backs of bikes, skirts wound around our legs, and we walked up and down hills of hardened mud. We saw and we prayed and we asked and we learned.

Was it good? Was it bad? Was it positive? Negative? Can my time in Kenya even be described?

You tell me, I guess.

~Natalia

2012

01 Jan 2013 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Blogging, Faithful, Family, Friends, God, Grace, Grow, Mexico, Provide, Remember, Summer

I’m determined to write a 2012 recap post. I love turning around to catch a glimpse of where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I learned. Through the hundreds of posts I’ve written over the past year, I can dig deep into what He’s already done; get my bearings, and step confidently into what He’s yet to do, because past give reason for present, and faithful then can’t be anything other than faithful now, faithful to come.

There’s a thread of redemption story, of God’s character and grace, winding throughout 2012, and there’s a personal story,too. This blog is a personal account of my life, my heart, and my story is nestled small in the grand narrative of God saves. And that’s what I want to see when I look back at 2012. When days are lined up alongside longer days, and months are tipped end to end in line, I want Him to shine bold amidst the snapshots of life that make up this blog.

I started 2012 in Mexico, ringing in the New Year with the hearts that I call family. Birthday, Christmas, New Years; I soaked in every moment I could, but the cold came every night and I laid in bed in my sweatshirt, blankets piled on top of me, and dread of school settled heavy and tight in my stomach.

A semester that I look back on as rocky, unsure, stressed, I landed hard on God’s gentle grace at every fall, and God’s provision rocked me to the core. Three months of stress culminated in a two weeks in Kenya, during spring break. The western world, the world that I’ve spent my life spinning through, is clean and neat and suffering and death sweeps easily under the rug.

Not so in Africa. There is no rug in Africa and sickness and death is the backdrop of millions. Nine months since my return to this country, and I still don’t know why I went to Africa; man places a question mark on I don’t understand, but God’s will is unmistakable in hindsight and He put Africa in my heart, and maybe someday He’ll tell me why.

The spring semester ended like a marathon, and the shroud of school life stayed thick around me for a while after. School breaks are a funny thing because they inevitably come after days, weeks, months, of fast-paced academics. Go, go, go turned to wait, relax, enjoy in the blink of an eye and I hesitated for a moment, shuffling back and forth, swirling uncertain between a long semester and a wonderful summer.

But life waits for no one and summer 2012 vaulted itself into action with a running start. Weddings, Grandparents, WOW camp, Michigan, cousins, Mexico and marched together, one long train of events created their own routine, and I landed back at school in August excited for another semester.

God’s not more real this semester than last, but He’s close, and we’ve gone back and forth. He knows words before I speak them, whisper them, yell them, and His response pours grace, mercy, healing on a heart that He holds always. Friendships developing in the spring found new depth, and He continued to grow me into who He says I am.

There’s much more than I could say, there’s always more that could be said. But I’ll stop now because I’m not ending; a year is a continuation, not beginning to The End, and there’s not resolution because God’s still working.

I still alternately fight against grace and lying powerless and grateful against its incomprehensible redemption. I still shrug off Child of God, forgetting that the grace-work of my salvation is not a blanket for cold days, but a heart-deep stamp that changes everything I do. I’m still unsure, sometimes stumbling where I wish I was stepping, and falling where I thought I’d not.

2012 was grace and mercy and learning, and 2013 will be, too. Because faithful then is faithful now, and changing dates don’t change a thing to change to character and heart of the God who’s been God since time began.

~Natalia

Like Teaching

21 May 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Casa Hogar, Little Sisters, Love, Mexico, Teach

Sometime in between fifth grade and Fall 2011, I convinced myself that I am not a teacher.

It’s hard to teach, I told myself. I looked at the public schools that I occasionally spend time in, both here and in Mexico, and something inside me rose up; nope, not going there.

Because I’m not a teacher.

My 5th-grade dreams of being a teacher slipped to the back of my mind, and I proceeded with my life; a Children’s Ministry major desiring to be the hands and feet of God to the vulnerable children that I may encounter.

But I’m standing in a white-washed classroom in Kisumu, Kenya, and there are forty sets of dark eyes watching me. The Choose to Wait lesson was just taught, and we three visitors have been asked to each speak a little about our own testimony. I don’t talk long, and I don’t talk much, but God was gracious to give me words to say and ways to encourage, and I sit down with a little thrill in my heart.

And I’m walking up and down the aisles in the quiet stillness of the library. I’m in the children’s section, a purple slip of paper with book call numbers scribbled on them clutched in my hand. CAMP, the summer school-like program that I created for my sisters last summer, is beginning again tomorrow, and I’m pulling anything that I could possibly use off the wide library shelves. And I’m sorting through potential materials, and jotting down workbook ideas, and composing lesson plans and I can’t even begin to deny it that I’m really enjoying myself.

And I’m sitting on Hermana Deysi’s bed in the Casa Hogar, my head hunched over just a bit, under the low-slung upper bunk. My dear Lorena, a close friend and sister, is sitting on the bed next to me, her English homework perched precariously on her lap. She’s clutching a tiny stub of a pencil and eraser, and we’re slowly compiling a list of 30 English antonyms. And there are nine other girls in the room, sweeping and homeworking and chattering, and there’s a small one sitting on the white tile at my feet, working studiously on her own first-grade workbook. And what’s the opposite of “rough” and what am I supposed to do on this page and where is the dustpan and can you help me with this assignment? And I help and supervise and direct when appropriate. And I love it.

And it’s beginning to become more difficult to deny that I really like teaching.

~Natalia

Go for Them

11 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Family, God, Health, Little Sisters, Need, Prayer

During a short phone conversation yesterday, my mother happened to mention that our youngest family member, the Little Larissa, has a cold.

Two hours later, not thirty minutes after joking with someone about my excessive and routine consumption of vitamin C, and the resulting state of good health that I have been blessed with, I felt a faint tickle in my throat.

Twenty-four hours later, my throat is still scratchy, my nose is getting sniffly, and my head hurts a bit. But the head thing might be because it’s almost 1am. Again.

But really though, I’m not suffering. There are people much, much sicker, much more hopeless, much more miserable all across the globe. A slight cold contracted from sharing a bed with a baby sister is a mild concern compared to the hurt, the broken, the dying that is everywhere in this hurt, broken, dying world.

Talking with one of my Africa teammates tonight, he told me he would “go to the prayer closet for that cold”. I believe him and I very much appreciate both his compassion and his prayers. And his words served as a reminder to me. A reminder to go to the prayer closet. Because there’s so much to pray for.

So much that needs the touch of God. So many people desperate for His love, His grace, Him. Yes, go to the prayer closet tonight. And go there for them.

~Natalia

Compelled?

31 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Kiddos

During an evening devoted entirely to homework, I took occasional (okay, maybe frequent) breaks to text a bit, read a blog or two, and open Facebook once or twice. On one of these breaks, I opened my Google Reader page and skimmed through recent posts on blogs that I subscribe to.

One such blog was a written by a friend, an update on her and husband’s quest to add a special needs baby girl to their family through the gift of adoption. In her post, my friend considers the contrast between the sorrow and beauty in the process of adoption. At the end of her post (all of which can be read here), my friend included the lyrics to Sara Groves’ song Esther:

I have a picture of Esther and David

She is a young bride and he is a soldier

They didn’t know then that David was dying

They wouldn’t have children

Alone with a life time, Africa called

She went for the first time, it grew in her heart

All of the children, all of those children

Now Esther has 2.4 million children

She writes us and asks us to pray for them all

She’s compelled, she’s compelled by what she’s seen

And she tells us, she tells us do anything you can

To help, oh please help, there’s so much to do

And I’m just Esther

She visits her homeland, she fights with her words

She comes to the courts of the kings of the earth

Who don’t understand their inherited power

To answer her question

She’s compelled, she’s compelled by what she’s seen

And she tells us, she tells us do anything you can

To help, oh please help, there’s so much to do

And I’m just Esther

I know the song. I’ve heard it many, many times. My mom listens to Sara Groves, I listen to Sara Groves; I know this song.

But the words have never grabbed me like they did tonight, first reading them in my friend’s post, then listening to the song, paying close attention as the familiar tune drifted out of my computer speakers.

My heart caught on the song, caught on the idea, caught on the words. Because I have been to Africa. I have seen the children, so many children. I saw children healthy and children sick, children with parents and children all alone. All of the children, so many children.

But am I compelled? I’ve slipped so easily back into my life here in the States, and I’m haunted by the idea I will not be compelled by everything that I saw, everything that I did in Africa. As the days since I’ve returned to the United States stack up to become first one week, and soon enough another, I can’t help wondering what I’m doing with what I saw, what I heard, what I experienced.

I just don’t know if I’m compelled, and that kind of scares me.

~Natalia

Back Now

23 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Chicago, College, Family, Grow, Little Sisters, Sleep, Travel

I’m back in America now.

At my house, in Chicago, to be specific.

We arrived back in the US of A this afternoon, and I just finished watching Winnie the Pooh with certain small children who happen to be my sisters.

Alright, in all honesty, I didn’t actually watch the movie, but I did hear little snippets as I drifted in and out of sleep while lying on the couch in front of the movie screen.

This is ironic because my father has yet to remain conscious for the entirety of that film. “There’s just something about that movie,” he says, “that puts me right to sleep.”

But please do not take our sleepiness as a judge of the quality of the film in question; speak to me in person and I’ll give you a small speech about the wonders of the new Winnie the Pooh. I’m quite a fan, truly.

I just happen to be rather tired at the moment.

I thought, as we sped along the highway from our brief safari experience, back to the airport in Nairobi, that maybe it would be better if we all pretended that Spring Break had not happened and returned to our normally scheduled lives.

But I know that I’ve learned lessons and that the people I live and study with at school have learned lessons, too. And the incorrect answer is to swoop together our Spring Break experiences and shove them neatly under the surface of our lives, however easy that may be seem to be.

So I guess Spring Break 2012 did happen.

And I guess I’ll keep learning and thinking and growing.

And sleeping. Right now, I’ll be sleeping.

~Natalia

Classtime Q&A

20 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, Beauty, God, Kiddos

Okay, that is the end of the lesson. Now all the boys will go with Delroy to talk with him, and the girls will stay here in the class with Natalie.

The pastor’s wife collected her Bible and Choose to Wait guide and closed the thin wood door behind her. Through the window-shaped cutouts in the wall, I watched her walk up the cement pathway towards the principal’s office. Then I turned my attention to the twenty 7th and 8th grade girls sitting expectantly in front of me.

My name is Natalie, and I live in America; in Chicago. I told them. They nodded, a couple smiling shyly. I told them that I go to college, and said a couple of words about my family. Then I fell silent; their teacher had said they could ask any questions they had, and I wanted to give them a chance.

A girl in the back row, tucked snuggly into a bench with three other girls, raised her hand.

Yes? I pointed to her and leaned forward a bit, anticipating her thick Kenyan accent.

How old are you? She asked, her dark eyes sparkling and a smile playing across her lips. I answered her, and the class murmured as they looked me up and down; so this is what a 20-year-old white girl looks like.

There was a short pause, then another question, another girl. We discussed my hobbies, their favorite sport (running, obviously), which animals we all like, and what we all want to be when we grow up. By the time a slight girl in the front raised her long hand and asked if I liked the color of Africans, we were all grinning; we were having fun.

Your color? Yes, it’s wonderful! I exclaimed, and the class chuckled. And I love your hair! I added, running my finger across the braid of one of the girls closest to me. My admiration of their textured hair was met with general skepticism, and I nodded my head emphatically, No really, I do! It’s so different from mine. I explained, and then, on impulse, I reached up and took out my hair clip. My twisted, frizzy hair fell on my shoulders and I shook my head, sending my hair whipping around my face.

The class erupted in shouts of laugher and loud applause. I laughed along with the girls as I twisted my rather tangled hair and clipped it securely in place once again.

Our informal, two-sided interview continued for several more minutes, now in a much more animated manner. We were comfortable with each other, and were having fun spending time together.

Then, too quickly, the pastor’s wife appeared in the pane-less window, nodding that it was time to go. No, five more minutes! The uniformed young ladies protested, and we waited expectantly to see what her response would be. No, girls, you will be late for your next class! She contested, which announcement was met with general murmurs of dissatisfaction from the class; we were truly quite enjoying ourselves.

How about one more question? I asked the woman, and the girls nodded eagerly; please, just one more? Smiling, their teacher nodded her head. One more question, she agreed, making her way once more up the open-air hallway.

Before their teacher had appeared in the window, two or three dark hands had been waving in the air, eagerly and excitedly waiting for their turn to speak. Now, with one question left, I turned back to the class and saw just one hand, raised by a young girl who had asked some of the most insightful questions during our time.

Yes? I said, nodding my head in her direction. The girl hesitated just a second, glancing mischievously at her classmates. And then, grinning shyly, Will you allow us to touch your hair? Laughing, I nodded, and out came the hair clip once again.

Chaos ensued. Twenty girls enveloped me, rubbing my head, twirling my hair around their fingers, tugging lightly on my bangs. They pulled gently on my earrings, put their fingers through my ring-shaped necklace, and patted me kindly on the back.

The pastor’s wife returned quite soon, announcing that it was now most definitely time for their next class. She assuaged their mumbling protests with the suggestion of a song. Let’s sing God Made Me Beautiful, she said, and don’t forget to move your body! She reminded. Because what would a Kenyan praise song be without a little moving?

And so we sang, and we moved, and then we prayed, holding hands together in a lopsided circle. And as I hugged each of them goodbye, the words of the song came back to me, because regardless of our color, or the texture of our hair, God made us all very beautiful indeed.

~Natalia

Come

18 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Africa, God, Hurt, Music, Need

You know the songs- praise and worship melodies whose choruses contain some line about Jesus coming back. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Lord, rend the heavens and come down. Those kinds of songs.

I have always had a hard time with those songs, a hard time standing in church, in chapel, and meaning the words that I am singing. In fact, sometimes, when a song begins to beg Jesus to come, to return to Earth for a second time, I suddenly become aware that I’m no longer singing along, my lips have fallen silent and I’m no longer praising God with my voice.

Because the thought of Jesus coming back kind of freaks me out.

As I thought about it, a couple possible reasons for my anxiety over Jesus’ eventual and inevitable return occurred to me. A large part of my general hesitance to beg Jesus to return is what is eloquently referred to as The Fear of the Lord. I mean, think about it: He’s GOD, for goodness’ sake. And what am I compared to that? A speck of a speck of a piece of dust.

So, yeah. I was fearful. Awed. Intimidated.

Secondly, the thought of His immanent return makes me want to run around and do stuff. What stuff, I’m not sure, but there is so much yet to accomplish in the world. There are people to care for and children to feed and love and millions of souls who have not heard the Gospel and wait, Lord! Just give us a second to get on top of things!

But this morning, the faces of yesterday’s Care Point children still fresh in my mind, and memories of the injured, the sick, the dead still bouncing around in my heart, I told God I wanted Him to come back.

Because this world is broken, hurting, sick, dying. I knew that before I came to Kenya, and I know even better now. And yes, things are being done, but we’re certainly not on the fast track to improvement. There are problems, issues, and heartaches in this world that will not be fixed this side of Heaven. Jesus Christ is the only one capable of fixing, solving, healing.

So come, Jesus, come.

~Natalia

Things are Being Done

17 Mar 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Africa, Games, God, Hurt, Kiddos, Need


I don’t know… I don’t want to overdramatize life.

But Lord, there are so many children in the world with so much need. Broken people living in broken places, going through a broken system.

But we are all broken. It’s a broken world we live in.

And I don’t know what to do about it, Lord. What am I called to do, to respond to this need, to this hurt.

I cannot heal even one heart; it’s all you, Lord.

It’s so much, but I want to help, and I don’t know how. How will this problem be fixed? There’s so much yet to be done.

But things are being done. Every day, every hour, something somewhere is being done for the hurting, the helpless, the vulnerable.

We spent today at one of Christ’s Hope’s Ministry Care Points outside the city. 23 children, 23 little souls who need someone. Someone to help them up. Someone to encourage them. Someone to show them how to write the alphabet. Someone to play soccer, play tag, play basketball. Someone to tell them, show them, how much God loves them, how much He cares.

There’s so much need, but things are being done.

~Natalia

Previous Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 194 other followers