Revisiting the Mission Statement

I've been thinking back to my mission statement I wrote a few entries ago and am frustrated because I feel like I'm not living that out. But I want to. As a reminder, I wrote that I want to "pour my life out as an offering to God. I want to be spent, sold out in obedience to God...whatever that looks like. But to obey, one has to hear, which is another hope of mine while I'm in Montevideo...to have the desire to ask for God's voice, to actually hear it, and to radically obey. " So lately I've been focusing mainly on the obedience, but in that, distorting what obedience is…what I even wrote that it is. Obedience, to clarify to myself and to you all, is not doing things, but responding to God. I've been wanting to do things though, and I knew that before I came down here. I wanted to get up with the sun and take a bus into the city, volunteer for an organization or with a group for awhile, and return in the evenings to relax, go to church stuff, or explore the town. So can I just say how much that is NOT happening? Ever since I've arrived here, it seems like every door I try to prod open is locked. I'm talking won't budge. I've tried my best to make it known to the people I meet that I am here, have a free summer, and want to serve in the community by doing things. While there are surely many needs here, it is difficult to find someone who wants to be helped or a group who needs help. There have been countless times where I feel like yelling out "Hola! I have nothing to do! Does ANYONE need help?" So for any of you who are not abroad and thus feel like you're not "off saving the world," let me just tell you straight up: I'm not either. Uruguay doesn't need a gringa to do things for them. ..they have been very much self-sufficient for awhile. And those who need things generally need money, and I'm not really in a position to be giving a lot of that away.

Last night, my obsessive frustration with my lack of actual doing (even though I wanted to be doing) was revealed to me (probably unknowingly) by a missionary here named Charles…Kyle's dad. We were in house church and Ana was leading it, but Charles made some side comment (I don't even remember how it related) about the story of Mary and Martha in the Bible. In summary, Jesus went over to their house (they were sisters) and Martha was very busy preparing the meal and such for Jesus to serve him while he was there, and Mary just sat at his feet to listen to him talk. Martha asked Jesus to tell Mary that she should be helping her in the kitchen, but Jesus said that Mary has chosen what is better. I've heard that story many times in various sermons and Bible studies, but never when I actually needed to hear it. It made me realize that I've been hoping and trying to validate my time here by doing lots of things. All I wanted to do though was serve, who can argue with that, right? Wrong. Serving in any way is an amazing and humbling thing to do, but what is the point if I am not in communion with God…supposedly the one I am serving? As some of my friends know, it has been hard for me to pray lately, to even desire to do so, and the same thing with reading Scripture. Since those things are means of communicating with God, I am essentially saying that I haven't been wanting to talk to or know God lately. So I think that would make me some sort of a hypocrite if I was to work with some group, or even do anything "in God's name" or "to serve Him" when I can think of a million other things I'd rather do than talk to this "great God" with whom I'd like people to know that I am associated. Since yesterday, I haven't magically started desiring God as I used to, and I haven't done anything (since I've learned that's gotten me no where so far), but rather I've given up something. I'm surrendering my "good works." They're useless apart from faith. I surrender my striving. I am actually starting to believe that there is NO GOOD WORK I can do here that will earn God's favor or love for me, because I have it already. It is faith, in Him, just a loving relationship, a yearning for love and intimacy that I choose to fill with that which God can offer me. Well dang, I'm living here in Uruguay all summer and one of the first really hard spiritual lesson's I've learned is that I need to stop doing things. Great, that was an expensive epiphany. But what if I had to come down here to learn that lesson? I'm in no way saying that God couldn't have taught me this another way. But should I have stayed in the US this summer, I would be working as a rafting guide or a more boring job to stow away cash, serving myself. Sure I could've done other things, but that was my plan anyways. So I came here, expecting to serve, and realizing that it's SO not the most important thing. And I guess I had to get myself into a situation where I was obsessed with the idea of servitude in order for that lesson to sink in.

So now, I am letting God take the reigns. If he wants me to do something, He will have to make it abundantly clear to me, and in the meantime, I will seek Him where I am. This is not to say that I will remain locked in my room all day, but wherever I find myself throughout the day, I will seek to know God. Today, I was in the National Library (it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to check out a book, even with assistance, but then I realized I wasn't even able to take it out of there) and while I was reading a book on Uruguayan prisons, I just stopped and prayed "God, why the heck do I like this stuff? This is so strange that I'm fascinated by prison systems and means of rehabilitation." I decided to keep reading though, and I dared God to use this strange passion of mine, of His. It's little things like that…little daily surrenders and decisions that are so hard…not to actually make, but to turn to God and choose to share his mentality towards them.

While I was reading en la biblioteca, I got a call from my missionary friend Matt about meeting with a woman today about helping to lead a "conversation club" at a local English learning center. So today, the three of us met, and tonight, I went to meet 2 of the classes to just chat and announce that I'd be starting a conversation club, and will meet a few tomorrow, and will return on Wednesday for my first evening of convo club…2 in one night! So I'm pumped about this! The teachers are Uruguayan, so they introduced me as a "real native speaker" (not gonna lie, I totally felt like some sort of indigenous specimen) and people are excited to practice with me. Woot! (It's too bad people aren't as excited to meet me when I'm talking Spanish, haha) So this fell into my lap today, and so I say "yes" and thank God for the opportunity to be a part of education in this community!