Tuesday thoughts...

I realized this morning I have been having the same song going through my head every morning when I head to the bus stop.  I don't think about it in the morning or at night before I go to bed, and yet, every morning, as soon as I step out the door, it's there:

Oh, Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back like a scroll,
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul...

And quite honestly, there were several days when this happened when I wasn't actively feeling this way at all.

Life has been complicated, but in the end, God is good. 

It has been good to be able to step back and see the thread running through some of the past...see that good can come from things that didn't seem so very good at the time...

Those moments of clarity are so very precious.  Sometimes I wish they would come more often.  Then I am thankful I am able to have these times at all.  It puts everything in perspective, for the time being, anyway.

On a side note, I got my first request for a job interview today.  That was a very pleasant surprise, especially since it's from a district I hadn't completely finished applying to yet.  I'm just praying that God will guide the process and I'll end up in the place that's best for me (whatever "best" might mean--I'm learning "best" doesn't always come in the packaging I expect it to be).

I am thankful for the blessings, the greatest of which is the ability to see.

Update...

Life decisions are hard...

I used to think that all grown-ups saw life as following more of a plot...that you just knew what road you were on.  Mine hasn't been that way so far, and I am beginning to see that things may not be changing on that note anytime soon.

But I've also started realizing that other people are in that boat, too.  And have been in the past.  I've been reading through Genesis and starting Exodus, and I have been really struck by how confusing things must have been for the people involved.  Joseph...Moses...people I always imagined totally having their act together.  But from the way that they reacted to the things that happened to them, I get the impression now, it probably was hard for them, too.

I started experimenting with praying instead of worrying over the past few days...so far it has helped a lot, though it still hasn't made life what I would call "easy."  But the load is lighter, and I guess that means a lot.  And it is a healthier way of dealing with my problems. 

My worries have seemed a little heavier the past few weeks...little by little, I am physically feeling better.  Latest word is that I don't have any typhoid anymore, but there is some other kind of lingering infection I need to take medicine for.  My emotions are starting to rally, too, which has been great, though still not back to functioning at 100%.

And I've been filling out job applications and waiting for responses...and then the past few days started wondering if I really wanted to go back to the United States next year after all (the old second-guessing step in the decision-making process...).  I still think I'm going home.  It's the step that makes the most sense right now.  I imagine I'll be second-guessing more, though, before I actually make it home.  Although, it would be nice to have that go differently this time--to learn how to enjoy being here without wanting to cling to it to make it something more.  To enjoy life for what it is right now while being willing to let go, knowing something different and equally good will be coming in the future.

As far as that goes, we had our last Mexico trip a week ago...now I'm good to stay in the country until I fly home in early June.  Holy Week is next week--a whole week off of school.  Quite a few teachers are going traveling, but I think I'll stay home and get together with people.  Take it easy.  Maybe read some books, go to church, maybe go and watch a few processions...

I would appreciate prayers for emotional and physical energy.  While I am feeling much better than I did not too long ago, I am still dragging a little bit in both regards.  I would like to end the year strongly to be able to move forward to what is coming next with energy and excitement.  Major transitions can be hard enough on their own, even when I do feel prepared to face them.

Confusing...

I saw him in a grocery store a few months ago...young, dirty.  First asked me for a quetzal and then broadened the request to include groceries.  I bought them and thought it was done.

Then I ran into him again at a pharmacy...Well, not "ran into" exactly.  I saw him walking by on the street (trying to place where I had seen him before) and he came inside to greet me.  And ask for money...

I wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but he said he needed the money for medicine, and he did have a nasty-sounding cough...

So I gave him the money.  He lingered, alternating between smiling at the people in line (some of whom were giving him dirty looks) and avoiding their eyes. 

He did indeed buy amoxicillan, but then, outside the pharmacy he decided to ask for more money.

He stopped talking whenever other people came into earshot.  Some confusing story about needing money to pay for medicine on the coast, that he owed somebody, begging me to help him pay for it.  Promising to pay me back if I meet him outside a specific place this Saturday.  Then wanting money for a birthday gift for his mother.  I told him I would feel better helping him buy the gift instead of giving money.  He said, standing with his back to one side of a parked car (hiding, I sensed, from the way he was looking anxiously around him) that he couldn't in this neighborhood.  Too many people know him.  He could get mugged.  He was afraid...

So I started to ask him why he was afraid.  "I don't know" was his answer.  Was someone forcing him to do something against his will?  He said no and went back to asking for money.  Begging.  Promising to pay me back.  Telling me he was sick and his sister was a lot worse.   He got down on his knees on the curb to ask me again.

In the end, I gave him the money.  In spite of my better judgment.  It wasn't a lot by American standards, but I know it's a lot for a kid walking alone on the street to be carrying in his pocket. 

And now I am confused, wondering if I did something wrong or even dangerous.  Knowing if I see him again, I will have to say no.  It's not a good idea to be giving money out that way in the Guatemalan streets.  No way of knowing what could be perpetuated or if I'm making myself a more obvious target. 

One thing is for sure--I plan to avoid the place he claimed to meet me so he could pay me back the money.  Just in case there is something else at work.

And frustrated.  Wishing it didn't need to be so complicated.  Wishing I knew the culture better and the best way to respond.  And wishing I didn't stand out so much to bring larger numbers of these kinds of situations to my attention.

The asking gets so complicated.  And receiving help sometimes only makes the problem worse.  Or leads to the person returning to ask for more and more and more...not a long-term solution to the problem. 

Saturday

I decided to start taking French today...I took a semester back in college, and I decided to take it up again.  This now makes two times in my life that I intended to learn a biblical language only to end up learning French instead.  In January I had gotten word that I could audit a New Testament Greek class for free at a local seminary, but then I got sick and after so many weeks have gone by, I have a feeling I would be hopelessly lost if I were to try to start.  So, on a whim yesterday, I went in to ask about the classes I saw advertised on a sign.  The conversation went well, and I started classes today.

The director of the French school recommended I join a class that has already been meeting for a couple of months.  That way I could have the challenge of catching up rather than being bored as they go over things I already know.  (She's a woman after my own heart. :-)  It was fun.  I found myself taking mental notes of what the teacher did that helped me understand since he spoke quite a bit of French and I am nowhere near a conversational level yet.  (Having taught so many English Language Learners, it is helpful to throw myself into their shoes once in a while to gain perspective.)  The teacher called on me in class and often stood beside me to check my understanding as they went over the activities he had assigned as homework.  I even got to take a test.  It wasn't for a grade, just for practice for a test the students have the option of taking in May.  I gave it my best shot--I'm sure I made some drastic mistakes.  There was a moment when I wrote the french word for "mother" and was afraid I might have accidentally written a similar sounding word that means something very different (something you would definitely not want to call your mother to her face :-).  It will be interesting to see how I actually did when I get it back. 

So I'm taking French in Spanish, and finding I like it.  It's a lot of fun.

On another note, I need to go to the doctor tomorrow to get some more tests done about the typhoid...then I get to go to a specialist on Monday to find out why all my symptoms haven't gone away yet.  Quite honestly, I am getting to the point where I am praying to God to let me go home in one piece...with no lasting side effects.

Update

My apologies for not posting to this blog in so long...

It's five weeks now since I first came down with the typhoid...About halfway through my round of hard-core antibiotics, we had the annual staff retreat.  Thankfully, I started getting my energy back the day before we were scheduled to go.  I didn't HAVE to go; the school would have understood if I had needed to stay home.  However, the staff retreat is at a really nice resort that is (I believe) run by the Guatemalan government...right across the road from the water park/amusement park.  We went to the water park in the morning and then went across the street to where the hotels are located.  It's a beautiful complex of hotels, restaurants, a spa, swimming pools, and lots of greenery and fancy birds.  My favorite were the peacocks.  I had never realized until this trip how very loud they are.  For some reason, with all their finery, I had always pictured them as being very quiet, letting their feathers speak for themselves.  But no, their voice is loud.  So loud that when we first got to the hotel and were gathered outside for instructions, the peacock in the branches of the tree above us drowned out the speaker's voice, and she had to wait until the bird finished to continue.

 For an example of the peacock's call, you can check out this link:  http://youtu.be/QaH0Q42lbGw

Staff retreat was interesting...since I was recovering from typhoid, I didn't really feel up to doing very much.  And eating at the restaurant was a little tricky since my diet at that time was still very restricted (no grease, no dairy, no sugar, no beans...).  I came prepared with some food of my own, and then had to be very careful at the restaurants.  The entire experience gave me a new empathy for people who have to live with food restrictions on a daily basis...having to ask the employees for changes in the menu, having to trust they would indeed make the changes, knowing if they didn't I would end up getting sick...In the morning, when we went to breakfast, we went to a buffet (mostly because I figured it might be safer to be able to look at the food before deciding if it was safe to eat).  And I realized after looking at all the options and asking questions that, out of everything being offered, I could literally only eat the bread.  I'm not used to making a fuss when I go out to eat.  I usually just try to blend in as best I can..,but I decided to ask the man who had taken my ticket if it would be possible to switch my order to something off of the menu.  When I explained why, he immediately said it was no problem, he would simply ask the kitchen to make items without the grease, sugar, dairy, etc.  It was very sweet, and humbling, to have them going to so much trouble.  And I ended up with a massive mound of food...hard-boiled eggs, fresh-cut fruit, papaya juice without added sugar, oatmeal with no milk or sugar, boiled plantains...it was wonderful.  He even made small talk while I was waiting.   

We had a very nice devotional time led by a couple of the teachers in the evening while we were there, sitting outside, asking God for direction and listening in silence...

A few days after we returned from staff retreat, I finished my antibiotics.  Then I had a few days of waiting before getting tested again to see if all the typhoid was gone.  It wasn't, but the levels were lower.  The doctor said it would probably be okay to just let it be since the levels would continue going down over the course of about a month, but when the school asked another doctor's opinion, that doctor thought I should try another week of antibiotics (the easy kind, wimpy ones without all the side effects) especially since I wasn't feeling 100% normal yet.  However, the levels were low enough that the doctor clarified that I no longer actually had typhoid.  That was encouraging.  So I had a week of more medicine combined with probiotics to get my stomach back to normal after so much sickness and hard-core medicine.  I finished that about a week ago.  I had a couple of days of still feeling kind of tired, and then I came down with a cold.  Which actually doesn't bother me that much because, even though I don't feel awesome, I feel way better than I did before.  And I'm back on regular food and have been for almost two weeks now.  That is amazing. 

We have Spiritual Emphasis Week this week.  A team came down from Littleton, Colorado.  The principal had mercy and told me I could stay at the school with the elementary kids instead of going along on the retreat with the secondary students, even though they don't have as many female teachers to chaperone.  I so appreciate it...after having been sick for almost five weeks straight, the principal said they didn't want to push me too hard since my body hasn't completely bounced back yet.  So with the elementary kids I have been in charge of taking pictures at the activities to put together a slide show for the last chapel at the end of the day tomorrow.  We've had chapel everyday and then the elementary students have had VBS activities for about an hour every morning and games for a half hour in the afternoon.  Half the team stayed here to work with the elementary kids and the other half went on the retreat with the middle school and high schoolers. 

I've gotten really good at planning activities for my students around not feeling well.  I think that has been a good thing.  I do less teacher-centered teaching and have them more actively involved.  Overall, I would say it has been going well.

We have the end of the quarter next week.  Then just one more quarter to go before the year is over.  I already bought my airplane ticket home.  And I have been applying for jobs...  We go to Mexico in about a week.  Then we have parent-teacher conferences (the last ones).  Then a few weeks after that will be Holy Week...we get that entire week off of school (along with a big percentage of people in Guatemala).

We had our embassy meeting earlier this week.  Every year and a half or so the ambassador and a few other officials from the American embassy in Guatemala City come to our town to touch base with the Americans living here, give us some information and take the time to answer questions.  It was surprising how many people in the crowd I recognized...not by name, necessarily, but by sight like I had seen them before.  There were the Mennonites who run The Bake Shop (they took up a couple of rows), some business people, some parents from our school, random people I've seen around town...and I met someone who works for an NGO who I realized today might possibly live right around the corner from where I do (near some other teachers from the school)...it's a small world.

Apart from all of that, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the future.  I've realized I'm really not used to getting sick...normally I am really very healthy.  I think because of that, I tend to start thinking of myself as someone who doesn't get sick, like it becomes part of my identity.  So, in some strange way, getting sick has in a way gotten me thinking more about my own weakness, my own mortality...not that I was near death, but by seeing myself as weak, I also saw a little more clearly the closeness of death, even though I wasn't standing near the door myself at all.  I'm just not as invincible as I thought I was.  And I've been realizing I need to take care of myself.  My mental clock keeps saying there is a time frame for feeling one hundred percent better.  And then I would get frustrated when my body wouldn't follow that clock...I've had to throw up my hands and just deal with it.  There is no way to rush getting better.  Rest is just that--rest--not a striving and pushing forward.  So I'm taking it slow...And I'm seriously thrilled by how much I am able to do now. 

I would appreciate any prayers about the future.  And for health.  A lot of people have colds right now.  I think the situation isn't helped by the winds we have been having lately.  With it being dry season, there is a lot of dust to blow around.  Probably not surprising so many people have sniffling noses and coughs.

I should probably sign off now and go to bed...I intend to post more often in the future.  I appreciate all of you who do check in and see how it's going.