"The Lord of the dance summons us to the floor, and it takes time and discipline to learn the steps, to cease tripping over our own feet and to experience the obedient freedom of following God's lead." - Craig Dykstra
Today I went to a dance class with Monica and Rachel and made a fool out of myself. It was fun.
I want to be more teachable and a better learner.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Did I mention dance?
Dancing is an art form here in Peru. I don't really know how to dance their way, but I love to dance. Peruvians have dance in their blood - NO - I'm serious. Children begin dancing in the womb here. It is amazing! They come out tumbling and hip swinging and moving and jiving. It is incredible if you ask me.
So, I think I mentioned in a prior blog that we went dancing a few weeks ago. It was a blast! I think the last time we went dancing was 4 years ago! So, we celebrated David's and Jose's birthday. And I wore high heals - which I am not accustomed to doing - so I sat down a lot, but still had fun! Dancing is life giving! Keep Dancing Friends!
I have attached a couple of picks for you to get in on the pre-discoteca fun at Jose and Viviana's.
Life and What not to do...
Have you ever seen the movie "Newsies"? Its a movie/musical based on the true story of a group of children in New York city in the late 1800's and early 1900's who were very poor and sold news papers to make a living. Tonight, Monica and I sat and watched Newsies (she sang along) - it is a great pic if you haven't seen it, and after Monica told me what it was about, I remembered the stories that Nana (my grandma who passed away last year) used to share with me. She was born in the early
1900's and living as a child through the Great Depression - mostly living on the streets with her brother trying to make a living. One of the ways they worked, was by selling news papers. I don't think she every saw the movie. I wonder what she would have thought of it. Whatdo you think aunt Sherise? Have you seen it? It reminds me a lot of my friends who live on the streets.
Today I arrived at our meeting to find out that last night during the street outreach time there was a lot of violence. Pray for our friends. Pray for us as we go out to visit them in the place that has become their home. Pray for our friends to continue to return home, or new homes, and alternative positive places where they might make
their home.
What not to do...
Do not open a can of Afrikano (terokal - a brand of shoe glue) carelessly.
Today, to my own surprise I opened a can of terokal because I wanted to use it to make cards for many of you! What I didn't know was that it was hard to open, and when the top finally popped off, it was spilled all over my favorite jeans and on my hands. It burned a bit! Linsey sacraficially helped me rub it around a bit and peel some off and then we discovered that probably the only thing that is going to get that stuff off is turpentine. YUM! So, I'm fixing (yes, David, this ones for you)
to pour paint thinner over my jeans to try and peel off this stuff.
The other day, we were at the office making cards for friends of the mission, and we were using the shoe glue that our friends who live on the streets often inhale. Someone had the idea to pour the terokal onto a plastic plate so that everyone could use it. I was told, that within 5 MINUTES, the shoe glue had eaten through the plastic plate and the glue was sticking to the table! This seriously alarmed us as we thought about what damage the shoe glue is doing to the little lungs and brains
of our friends. Pray that chains would be broken. Pray that we would know how to meet them where they are at.
1900's and living as a child through the Great Depression - mostly living on the streets with her brother trying to make a living. One of the ways they worked, was by selling news papers. I don't think she every saw the movie. I wonder what she would have thought of it. Whatdo you think aunt Sherise? Have you seen it? It reminds me a lot of my friends who live on the streets.
Today I arrived at our meeting to find out that last night during the street outreach time there was a lot of violence. Pray for our friends. Pray for us as we go out to visit them in the place that has become their home. Pray for our friends to continue to return home, or new homes, and alternative positive places where they might make
their home.
What not to do...
Do not open a can of Afrikano (terokal - a brand of shoe glue) carelessly.
Today, to my own surprise I opened a can of terokal because I wanted to use it to make cards for many of you! What I didn't know was that it was hard to open, and when the top finally popped off, it was spilled all over my favorite jeans and on my hands. It burned a bit! Linsey sacraficially helped me rub it around a bit and peel some off and then we discovered that probably the only thing that is going to get that stuff off is turpentine. YUM! So, I'm fixing (yes, David, this ones for you)
to pour paint thinner over my jeans to try and peel off this stuff.
The other day, we were at the office making cards for friends of the mission, and we were using the shoe glue that our friends who live on the streets often inhale. Someone had the idea to pour the terokal onto a plastic plate so that everyone could use it. I was told, that within 5 MINUTES, the shoe glue had eaten through the plastic plate and the glue was sticking to the table! This seriously alarmed us as we thought about what damage the shoe glue is doing to the little lungs and brains
of our friends. Pray that chains would be broken. Pray that we would know how to meet them where they are at.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
The Little Things
It is helpful to keep this journal and to process outloud and at the same time let you into my life. In these last months, I have likened this part of our journey and my own, to the Israelites exodus from Egypt into the promised land and their experience of the desert. Sometimes I wonder what this personal desert is about and find the twisting undefined journey exhausting and confusing. There is so much I am learning here in this part of the desert. I am learning that it means letting go of control - letting go of a lot - recognizing that I cannot do anything to change the way things are and the best that I can do, is trust. I am learning. Somedays it is easier than others. But I have to say, that so many changing circumstances make it impossible to control everything. So, God leads, and I follow and there is a lot that is mysterious, but I trust - and try to trust. Thanks to those of you who have encouraged me by letting me know you are reading this. It keeps me writing. Thanks for caring.
Yesterday, I realized that in desert moments, it is hard to see the positive, to see the Lord's beauty because you are so concentrated on the desert. Where is the water? Where is the Manna? Someone recently prayed for me, that I might have eyes to see. I keep praying that prayer for myself. And often it is the little things that bring JOY and HOPE and BEAUTY and WONDER to our lives. It is remembering God's faithfulness through our days. It means at the end of the day remembering the "Manna" that was given from our Lord to us to eat (as Monica and Linsey would say).
So I am recounting to you some of the "Manna" I have experienced in these last days in no particular order:
When we were out on the streets and we were remembering with our friends who attended Casa Job about the English class that Tina taught and all the sudden I burst out singing at the same time as our friend V - HELLO, HELLO, HELLO, HOW ARE YOU? I"M FINE, I'M FINE, I HOPE THAT YOU ARE TOO! We laughed hard after that!
Caldwell, Linsey's boyfriend is visiting and he is from India and Nepal (although he lives in the US). He is making us real Chai tonight!
Isabel (the Langley's daughter) and I had a special date before her school started this past week and we had ice cream and went to Coney Park - a little fun park for kids! It was hilarious letting Isabel try the bumper cars on her own. She was determined to drive them, even with her little self!
The little boys playing in our park. They find the most simple things to be the most entertaining. Dirt piles, hand stands, soccer games in the street, pop-a-wheelee's, tree houses in the park tree.
The market juice lady! She makes the best extracts - beets, carrots, apples, pineapple, grapes or whatever fruit she finds!
Getting to hold new beautiful babies (there are many new baby girls!) - getting to hold and play with Natalia (the Langley's sweet "fruit snack" daughter).
Going with Rachel to the 80's tae bo class!
We received news that we will now have enough funds to purchase a building!!! Gratitude! We are dreaming with the Lord! What might he want us to do? Many ideas have been thrown out there including my newest idea to make a bowling alley and rent out the bowling lanes and have our friends run the business. What do you think!!!??
Luisa, Sebastian and Brian are back to work! Linsey and Monica are feeling better!
We celebrated David's, Jose Luis's, Anna's, JA's, M's, V's, C's birthdays...there are more...soon to come!
Music - lots of music - Birthday CD's - guitar playing, singing my lungs out, MUSIC is healing.
Dance - lots of dance - Birthday discoteca dancing - moving those feet, dancing until you can't move anymore, DANCE is healing.
I
The grace that is the health of creatures can only be held in common.
In healing the scattered members come together.
In health the flesh is graced, the holy enters the world.
II
The task of healing is to respect oneself as a creature, no more and no less.
A creature is not a creator, and cannot be. There is only one Creation, and we are its members.
To be creative is only to have health: to keep oneself fully alive in the Creation, to keep the Creation fully alive in oneself, to see the Creation anew, to welcome one's part in it anew.
The most creative works are all strategies of this health.
Works of pride, by self-called creators, with their premium on originality, reduce the Creation to novelty- the faint surprises of minds incapable of wonder.
Pursuing originality, the would-be creator works alone. In loneliness one assumes a responsibility for oneself that one cannot fulfill.
Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.
IX
The teachings of unsuspected teachers belong to the task, and are its hope.
The love and the work of friends and lovers belong to the task,
and are its health.
Rest and rejoicing belong to the task, and are its grace.
Let tomorrow come tomorrow. Not by your will is the house carried throught the night.
Order is only the possiblility of rest.
Wendell Berry 1977 "Healing"
Yesterday, I realized that in desert moments, it is hard to see the positive, to see the Lord's beauty because you are so concentrated on the desert. Where is the water? Where is the Manna? Someone recently prayed for me, that I might have eyes to see. I keep praying that prayer for myself. And often it is the little things that bring JOY and HOPE and BEAUTY and WONDER to our lives. It is remembering God's faithfulness through our days. It means at the end of the day remembering the "Manna" that was given from our Lord to us to eat (as Monica and Linsey would say).
So I am recounting to you some of the "Manna" I have experienced in these last days in no particular order:
When we were out on the streets and we were remembering with our friends who attended Casa Job about the English class that Tina taught and all the sudden I burst out singing at the same time as our friend V - HELLO, HELLO, HELLO, HOW ARE YOU? I"M FINE, I'M FINE, I HOPE THAT YOU ARE TOO! We laughed hard after that!
Caldwell, Linsey's boyfriend is visiting and he is from India and Nepal (although he lives in the US). He is making us real Chai tonight!
Isabel (the Langley's daughter) and I had a special date before her school started this past week and we had ice cream and went to Coney Park - a little fun park for kids! It was hilarious letting Isabel try the bumper cars on her own. She was determined to drive them, even with her little self!
The little boys playing in our park. They find the most simple things to be the most entertaining. Dirt piles, hand stands, soccer games in the street, pop-a-wheelee's, tree houses in the park tree.
The market juice lady! She makes the best extracts - beets, carrots, apples, pineapple, grapes or whatever fruit she finds!
Getting to hold new beautiful babies (there are many new baby girls!) - getting to hold and play with Natalia (the Langley's sweet "fruit snack" daughter).
Going with Rachel to the 80's tae bo class!
We received news that we will now have enough funds to purchase a building!!! Gratitude! We are dreaming with the Lord! What might he want us to do? Many ideas have been thrown out there including my newest idea to make a bowling alley and rent out the bowling lanes and have our friends run the business. What do you think!!!??
Luisa, Sebastian and Brian are back to work! Linsey and Monica are feeling better!
We celebrated David's, Jose Luis's, Anna's, JA's, M's, V's, C's birthdays...there are more...soon to come!
Music - lots of music - Birthday CD's - guitar playing, singing my lungs out, MUSIC is healing.
Dance - lots of dance - Birthday discoteca dancing - moving those feet, dancing until you can't move anymore, DANCE is healing.
I
The grace that is the health of creatures can only be held in common.
In healing the scattered members come together.
In health the flesh is graced, the holy enters the world.
II
The task of healing is to respect oneself as a creature, no more and no less.
A creature is not a creator, and cannot be. There is only one Creation, and we are its members.
To be creative is only to have health: to keep oneself fully alive in the Creation, to keep the Creation fully alive in oneself, to see the Creation anew, to welcome one's part in it anew.
The most creative works are all strategies of this health.
Works of pride, by self-called creators, with their premium on originality, reduce the Creation to novelty- the faint surprises of minds incapable of wonder.
Pursuing originality, the would-be creator works alone. In loneliness one assumes a responsibility for oneself that one cannot fulfill.
Novelty is a new kind of loneliness.
IX
The teachings of unsuspected teachers belong to the task, and are its hope.
The love and the work of friends and lovers belong to the task,
and are its health.
Rest and rejoicing belong to the task, and are its grace.
Let tomorrow come tomorrow. Not by your will is the house carried throught the night.
Order is only the possiblility of rest.
Wendell Berry 1977 "Healing"
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