Following God's lead across countries and across the street
20 Jan 2013 Leave a Comment
in Family, Little Sisters, Miss, Photos
I observed to the father that I don’t think I’ve ever spent a weekend at home without the small sisters being around in all of the five years since they forever became ours.
It’s a funny feeling to be here and not have them around.
But the mother has an iPhone and she texted me seven pictures today, upon my request. And they’re having a wonderful time with grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and soon, the three ladies will back here in Chicago.
Photo taken June 2009.
~Natalia
27 Dec 2012 Leave a Comment
in Beauty, God, Longing, Love, Mexico, Miss, Questions, Spanish, Weather
There’s snow falling outside. Well, actually, it’s stopped falling for the moment. But it was before and I stood in the kitchen and watched the white specks swirl past the window. Kitchen faces the brick wall of someone else’s world, but in between this home and that home, snow flakes fill the open air.
I drove to work. Drove carefully, carefully, but I’m worried about being late and I should have wiped the snow off the car windows before I left. I can see what I need to see, visibility’s not incredible right now, anyway. And there’s a thin heap of snow balanced on my window, and I’m only rolling fifteen miles an hour, surely nothing can go wrong. But you never know and I roll down the window, watching snow pack together in a heap, and the air is cold and flakes swing gently into the car, landing soft on my face, my hair. And the light is green and the window’s still rolling down and the tiny snow bank on the outside of the window collapses into the car, and I’m driving up the street with a pile of frozen white on my arm.
It kept snowing while I was at work, too, and the parking lot’s near empty by the time I come back out. There’s a snow scraper in the car and I’m careful to use it, but I almost forget to clear the snow off my window again, because I can hear Taylor Swift on the radio inside the car, and I’m thinking about Mexico again.
And the car wiggles on the way around the corner, but I’m driving so very slowly and it’s more fun than scary, really. I park in the garage, because I think that’s what the mother would have prescribed, but I don’t like going in the back door, so I walk around to the front. Walk straight up the middle of the alley, and it’s so still that I can hear the snow packing together under my boots. A soft, straining, settling sound. And the snow’s still falling gentle and wet on my head and coat and it’s settling on everything it can touch.
And before I shuffled the car into the garage, before I pulled around the corner to the street I’ve grown up on, there’s a stop sign on the corner, and snow is everywhere and snow can be so much. Because glance up, look around: snow is beautiful. Stunning, breathtaking wonder on every surface that it can get its sticky grip on. But there are other words with snow, too; like dangerous and wet and slippery and cold. And there’s an inches-thick white layer on everything in sight, but can you even tell what’s underneath? Because snow can be deceptive, tricky, disillusioned, too.
And God’s put beauty in this world, and He’s shattering this night with the silent wonder of snow falling, and a strange guilt starts to creep in, because I should be appreciating all this. And I am, actually. I really do love the snow, and I do breathe in tight when white-laden branches catch my eye; bright ice reflecting soft yellow street light glow. But I answered my mother’s phone because she was wrist-deep in dish water and the other end speaks Spanish and I forgot to not, and one time Hermana Tere asked me about snow.
And Mexico missing’s not always so close by, and the ache of longing softens with distraction. But Skype conversation at midnight says unless you do what you love, you will never be happy and there was more, too, but there’s snow outside and tightness in my heart because I know what I love and I know where I love, but snow isn’t just snow, and it will never be that easy, will it?
~Natalia
17 Nov 2012 1 Comment
in Chicago, Christmas, Friends, God, Kiddos, Mexico, Miss, Sovereign, Spanish
Wednesday morning, maybe even Tuesday night, homework rules my mind. Empty time loaded with assignments, trudging through to-do lists both academic and otherwise. Sitting in class, eating, on the train, I can’t truly focus because a brain that’s spent every waking hour planning my next move, next assignment, doesn’t just stop on command.
Chapel, class, meals, and sitting. I shouldn’t be sitting anyway, no doubt. Reeling, reeling: what’s next? What are my goals for this morning, tonight, before Sunday?
Work and outside commitments, time for conversation with friends, too- Heaven forbid I’m a total hermit. Mind’s going, going, and I’m balancing the tightrope between just about making it, and crashing through deadlines, last-minute scrambling to get it together.
But Kat’s downtown for the morning and I’m gloriously free. Mind says no; I’ll not think about to-do, about due by Monday, due by Monday, due by Tuesday. Turn that off and enjoy time with a friend God placed in my life before I can remember and who He’s determined to keep in my life. I don’t always recognize a great gift when He’s dropped it into my story, and I don’t see immediately how truly wonderful Kat time is, until hours in.
Lunch on the other side, the lake side, of Michigan Avenue, and maybe Kat’ll head back to the suburbs; back to the school she calls home. But they’re setting up for the Christmas Light parade and more and more people are filling the slick city sidewalk and no, what if you stayed just a bit longer?
So back to the room and sitting on my bed, squares of light warm and clean on the floor, on the wall. She reads, I write, and God whispers normal and breathes peace over the pair. There’s a bond of time and trust between us and it’s easy and comfortable to sit and do homework together. Country music (she taught me to like it) hums out of my computer and we work, swapping occasional stories as the sun moves ever so slightly and the clock slides towards 4pm.
Project complete, assignment over, there’s a study break in there, too, and we’re close together on the bed, pulling the computer back and forth from my lap to hers, clicking through YouTube, Facebook, and more.
Study break, parade, and we grab coats and ding, elevator downstairs. We’re blocks from Michigan Avenue, and an hour early, but people are thronging to that Magnificent street. Hearts pumping happily, we step briskly through crowds and past sweet cheek babies bundled in strollers.
Sun sets and parade’ll start in a bit or two, and we’ve found a spot along the street where we can see the street… more or less. Two women with dark hair, three little angels with them, stand directly in front of us. The smallest child, slick black hair pulled into a messy ponytail, has my attention before she even makes a noise. But her mother hoists her up and the little one’s at eye level with me now and shy black eyes look me over before turning away.
People are packed in all around us; three rows deep in front and five rows deep behind. Conversations flow and build on every side, and a parade marshal standing in the street is leading the wave among the crowd. I can hear so much, see so much, but the baby child next to me is exclaiming in Spanish and her words hit the Mexico ache in my heart like few things do. Parade marches on, and Kat and I, we exclaim and yell, taking pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse and cheering exultantly when the lights on the trees all around us click on in an instant.
Parade, Christmas, lights. Kat, pictures, music. We’re pressed tight together, everyone in this crowd, and it only gets worse when we pull away and begin to move south, to the river, to the fireworks. But there’s a thrilling kind of excitement in so many people together, moving and living and celebrating.
And there’s fireworks, too, and we sit on a ledge by the river, thousands upon thousands of people all around, and watch colored fire explode amongst skyscraper after skyscraper. There’s so much there to celebrate, to enjoy. And I do.
And all the time, the sweet child’s voice rings in my ears, and the tug of Mexico pulls on my heart hard. Missing is sweet and terrible and red and green explosions of beauty over the river and suddenly, I think of a story that Hermana Tere told me about forgetting to pick her cousin’s daughter up from a doctor’s appointment. And life can’t be easy for a moment, can it?
Because homework comes relentless and it’s such a wonderful night and my heart breaks with emotion I can’t, or won’t, give name to, because it’s a multi-ethnic city and Spanish rings soft in every place I look. There’s a conversation of nothing but Princess Bride quotes in my text messages, and hot chocolate party in the lounge, and everything in me fights the homework I must return to now.
Every piece of my life demands more of my attention than I can give it and I feel like a puzzle divvied up, yet underneath it all, there’s a foundation- there has to be a foundation. Because God gives only what He can help me handle and He is sovereign and His will is perfect and my heart’s long since rubbed raw because a part of it is left in Mexico. But maybe that’s supposed to be.
Maybe all of this is supposed to be.
~Natalia
10 Oct 2012 Leave a Comment
in Casa Hogar, Chicago, Longing, Mexico, Miss, Remember, Spanish
I’ve been putting it off rather a long time, actually. I think about it frequently, but it’s been easy to stuff it down a little. I’ve told you- between classes and Missions Conference and work and friendships, I’ve had other things to fill my mind.
But with every activity that I pour myself into, with every task I jump on, every experience I relish, something stops me, grabs me, and puts me right back where I was.
Where I was thinking about Mexico.
Because it would seem that every single thing I do, every place I go, is brimming with reminders.
There’s a little boy I coach, chubby seven-year old with a swimsuit just a tad too big for him. There’s nothing Mexican about this little one. But he has a story to tell and I lean down, squatting to his level on the white tiled pool deck. And he tells me his story, and I hear him and I’m listening, but my heart is somewhere else entirely.
Because the way he blinks, the nervous little twitch of a blink that lasts too long and happens too frequently, has taken me right back. Right back to a little boy, ten years old with dark skin and curly black hair cropped close. A little boy just arrived, barely a month at the Casa Hogar.
It’s nervous thing, a habit learned and ingrained, who knows where from. Practice good or bad, the blink, with the accompanying nose twitch, is a part of him, and as his little face swims in my memory, it’s inextricably bound to this. This blink, nose twitch. This habit.
9pm on a weeknight, and I’m almost back to campus. Work two hours, commute almost an hour each way. I’ve spent some quality time on the train, and I’m never bored. My favorite stop is the one across from the community college. There are several in this city, and I’m not sure what sets this school apart. But the school sets this train stop apart by virtue of its mere proximity.
Metal doors lurch open, students board, doors shut haltingly, and we’re on our way again. I’m sitting in the front section of the car, and to my increasingly heightening interest three Hispanics take the seats across the aisle from me. I’m white and they’re not and I’m not supposed to understand what they say, but I do.
They’re talking about where they live and housing and neighborhoods and jobs both current and previous, but I could honestly care less about the topic; that’s not what I’m listening to, anyway. I’m unashamedly eavesdropping, and each piece of Spanish slang, each familiar mannerism, each markedly mexican trait drives deep into my heart.
Because I’ve been in hundreds of conversations, with countless individuals. Manuel and Tere’s home, the car, the office, the church, the kitchen, Casa Hogar, the school, outside; we’ve been places and said things and exchanged words and the same trademark communication quirks thread throughout mexican culture.
The laugh, the sigh, the way words are picked up and laid back down again, the topics, the exclamations.
I’m silly because I’m sitting alone on the el, hardly suppressing my grin, as the Spanish language washes over me. But then it’s time to switch trains, stand on the platform and wait for the next train, and I have to get off. And I stand in the chilly fall air and the longing for Mexico, to be immersed once more in a place where that language, those jokes and interjections, fill my head and my heart constantly; that longing gnaws at me.
There’s more, too.
If I kept a list, I could tell you a hundred different things. More than one hundred reminders of the country, the city, the family, the culture, that holds my heart.
Mexico has my heart and will keep my heart.
And lately, it’s had a fair portion of my mind, too
~Natalia
30 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment
in France, God, Mexico, Miss, Writing
It’s a positive and a negative, really.
Doesn’t happen all the time,
heck, it doesn’t even happen frequently.
But sometimes, I’m thinking of so many things,
have so many things that I could tell you,
that I pull my computer onto my lap
and have to just think for a bit,
until I decide just what I’ll write.
Write about how I’ve been missing France lately.
I’m an elementary education major who left a substantial part of her heart in Mexico, and who pines nostalgically after Paris.
I’m interested to see how God unfolds that lovely blend of emotional connection and passion.
Write about the paper I’m writing,
a rephrasing, really, of the worldview statement I wrote last semester.
Talking about the love of God;
intense, persistent, overpowering Love.
Love that I so often deny, turn against,
decide not to accept, sometimes.
Write about God’s provision in the little things;
pay attention, or you might miss it.
Write about this, write about that,
there’s so very much to write about tonight,
maybe I’ll write none of it at all.
~Natalia
29 May 2012 2 Comments
in Chicago, College, Friends, Love, Miss, Moody Bible Institute, Music, Remember, Summer
It’s 8:30 in the evening, and the sun’s last rays are trying adamantly to reach into the rear windshield of the car. They’re not making a lot of progress, and cars up and down the road are clicking on their lights, as freshly lit street lights glow cheerily overhead.
My window is rolled down a couple of inches, and I can feel the cool breeze whipping those little strands of hair that insist upon escaping from my ponytail. I roll to a stop at a red light, and take advantage of the moment to switch radio stations. Sometime during the school year, Stevy took the time to set the radio presets to stations that I appreciate, as well, and I flip through two or three stations before a familiar tune fills the car.
The light still red, I lean back against my seat, my mind wandering back the last week of school.
It’s the Tuesday of finals week. I’ve been in the library all day, and will probably do the same tomorrow. This paper, this final paper, is due on Thursday morning, and I’m determined to do well on it. And people are already done with school and there’s packing to be done, and there’s a list outside Mary’s door that provides a rough estimate for when each girl is emptying her room and moving off the floor. Moving away for the summer. For a semester. Forever.
School marches on, and I feel just a couple good night’s sleep away from truly being on top of academic things. Friends and friendships insist upon being fluid, living, breathing, changing, growing things and as much as I want to hold up my hands and yell, “Freeze!” just so I can get my footing, I know it won’t do any good.
There’s grace, and forgiveness and understanding, but hearts and stories and friends and souls stop for no one.
So I keep my feet under me as best I can and keep running, desperately trying to keep up with lives, hearts, relationships that I barely understand myself.
And plans and ideas and obligations are hurling themselves at me from all sides and I’m tired of wondering what to do, and tired of turning things down, and all that is swirled together with tired of doing so much. I was in the middle of a hurricane, scrambling to keep my wits about me as finals week plod steadily on.
But it’s Tuesday night; Breakfast at Night night. And it’s 10pm and the SDR is packed, and the line runs out the door, and I’m sampling every cream cheese at the cream cheese bar. It loud down here, so very loud. Someone just serenaded his girlfriend at the table behind us, to the enthusiastic applause of tens of Moody students.
Across the table, Ellie’s trying to get my attention. I take another bite of my bagel, this time with strawberry cream cheese, and lean towards her to try to understand. It takes a couple tries to understand but then I get it- Do I want to go out for a drive around the city with some people?
Now? I can’t. I have too much work.
But Ellie is persuasive and you’ll be back around midnight. So, come, please?
I go.
We’re a little delayed in heading out, but soon enough, Ellie’s driving an SUV full of six girls down Michigan Avenue, and it’s warm out, and the windows are down, and the music is turned up, and the pair of girls sitting in the very back seat are dancing back and forth in time with the music, hands waving in the air.
I accidentally end up sitting shotgun, and I let my flip-flops fall to the bottom of the car as I pull my feet up in front of me. Swiveling in my seat, I’m met with five happy pairs of eyes, as the entire back of the car has picked up on the dancing, and there’s laughing and yelling and when a song comes on that we know, you better believe we’re singing right along.
And the city is bright and tall and breathtakingly beautiful and the ride comes to an end far too quickly. And Elli parks the car and we step back onto our little campus in the middle of the Big City, and are suddenly once more smack in the middle of the whirlwind.
But for that hour, driving up and down the brilliant Chicago streets with some of my closest friends from the school year, the whirlwind faded and fun took over.
And tonight, driving alone to the same songs that formed the soundtrack of that late-night car ride, I missed that moment, that evening, those ladies, very much.
And I love this summer, and I love the opportunities and fun I’ve been having, but deep down, I miss, too.
~Natalia
07 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Casa Hogar, Family, Friends, Kiddos, Love, Mexico, Miss, Photos
I’ve been putting it off for months. I let school and life and work and relationships coat over the part of my heart that truly belongs to Mexico. I allowed myself to lose touch a little bit with the souls there that I know so well. I let relationships with my Mexican family slip to the background, surreptitiously covering over how much I miss them.
And then, this afternoon, I called them. Skype buzzed and beeped a couple of times, then Manuelito was on the other end. And how are you, how’s the family, how’s the Casa Hogar, how’s school going. And good, and yourself and here, my mom just got back from the Casa Hogar.
And then Hermana Tere was exclaiming warm greetings into the phone and suddenly, I was in Manuel and Tere’s house, watching a movie, surrounded by children and friend who I adore.
And we caught each other up on our lives, and this little one has been placed with his mother once more, and these four are doing so well in school, and these two are getting ready to graduate middle school, and this one is maturing so much.
And we talked about Ana and Karen, Beki and Manuelito, Celeste and Danielito, the siblings that I worked and played, lived and slept with during my stay with Manuel and Tere in 2011. And he’s only got one more year of high school, and she’s doing well in home school, and she’s expecting a second baby in November, and she is hoping to enter school to become a nurse.
And we talked and shared and asked questions and encouraged, and then it was time to go. And we exchanged goodbyes, and I pledged to call next week (hold me to it) and then we love you, we miss you, greetings to everyone, and she hung up.
And then I couldn’t pretend anymore. Sitting on my hard wooden desk chair here at school, I was once again face to face with how much of my heart I leave in Mexico every year, and how hard it is to miss. To love and to miss.
And suddenly, I wanted very badly to stand in the white tile kitchen at the Casa Hogar, dishing out food, then standing back with the rest of the kitchen crew and watching as a full dining room of young hearts dug in to their plates.
Wanted to accompany the Casa Hogar on an outing to a party. To sit at a festively decorated table and laugh and talk, smile and share life with these people who I have come to love so dearly.
I loved catching up with Hermana Tere, and I hope desperately that I will be able to spend some time this summer in Mexico with them. And today, Hermana Tere hung up and I clicked out of Skype, I could not possibly deny how much I love these ones, and how excited I am to see them again.
~Natalia
10 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in College, Faithful, Friends, God, Grow, Intentional, Love, Miss, Trust
I recently told God that it would be much easier if He would just come out and straight up tell me when I’m doing something right, and when I should choose a different option. It would be so much easier, I told Him, if You could just say “yes” when it’s yes, and “no” when it’s no.
And then He said, what about trusting me?
Not just trusting Him that there is a right answer, but that He will show me the right answer. I have no trouble believing that He knows His stuff, and that He has everything that looks so big from down here completely under control. What I struggle with more is the concept of how the heck I’m supposed to know what He wants me to do.
I had a little trouble coming off of spring break and fighting the feeling that I’m just swirling around aimlessly in this Moody student life. But, over the days and weeks since I wrote about feeling so swimmy, my life has fallen into place a little more. I feel comfortable, settled in many areas of my life. I like school and work and relationships and life and I’m content.
But I can’t escape the lurking feeling that I should be doing more.
Because there is a paper-chain countdown draped over my neighbor’s door, and the days until school is over are decreasing rapidly.
Because there are relationships here that will change when we pack up and leave for the summer. Changing does not necessarily mean worsening, or ending, but it does mean growing, and loving, and missing deeply.
And I’ve fought to keep my heart in the now, and not get wrapped up in what happens next, what comes after, how things will be different. I’ve thought about that, I’ve struggled with that.
But I’m not thinking about this fall, about returning to a school, a floor, that is different, oh so different, from the one I will leave in five weeks’ time.
I’m thinking about now. I want to know what God wants me to do now. I want to know how to keep developing friendships, right up to the day when we wheel our suitcases and bins down the elevator and off campus. I want to honor Him with my time, even as the number of projects left in the semester dwindles rapidly. I want to grow, I want to love, I want to honor Him.
I just wish there was an easy way to know exactly what He wants me to do.
~Natalia
05 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in Birthday, Family, Little Sisters, Love, Mexico, Miss, Photos, Remember
My mind and heart has wound down a bit from the craziness of the past couple weeks, and this afternoon I found myself thinking about Mexico.
Thinking. Missing. Loving.
And then I returned to my room after an evening spent fellowshipping with different people on my floor, and this picture was sliding across my computer’s screen saver.
And I remembered Glendy’s 5th birthday party, and I missed it all very much.
~Natalia
