As the clock ticks away...

Countdown: TWO DAYS until I leave for Guatemala. !!!!

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On Sunday we had Dr. Moises and Maria Mariscal over for lunch after church. They served as missionaries in Spain for a while and then in Guatemala for about 10 years. How convenient, since Elizabeth is going to Spain for 10 days this summer and I, as you already know, am going to Guatemala. :-) They were a super helpful resource to both of us, not to mention a great source of entertainment. Not only were they able to answer our questions and provide us with helpful information and advice, but their stories from Spain and Guatemala (and life in general) had us laughing a lot! For as long as I can remember the Mariscals' missionary card has been in my family's collection of missionaries we pray for, but this was the first time Elizabeth and I actually got to meet them since we were babies. It was a joy to be able to put personalities with the faces and names I've seen on their card for years.


Today, after much procrastination, I finally started packing! I typically enjoy packing, so I don't know why I took so long to get around to it. I made a packing list a couple weeks ago and went shopping this past weekend but am just now getting around to gathering what I need. I already realize that everything on my packing list isn't going to fit in my suitcases, so soon I'll need to sort out what I really need and what can afford to be left behind. That's probably going to be the hardest part... but a good lesson in living simply, I guess. :-)

I'm not going to write much more since I need to get back to packing, but here are some ways you can be praying for me:

• I noticed a day or two ago that I've been spending much less time with the Lord now that I'm busier with last-minute preparations and such. Pray that I'll be diligent to read the Bible and spend time in prayer despite the craziness that will accompany the next couple days as I prepare to leave and then as I transition to life in Guatemala. I'm a fool to think I can go even one day without letting God be a part of it! Jesus is my source of life and I need more of him every day.
• Pray that I'll increase in love for the people of Guatemala and the missionaries I'll be serving with.
• Pray that I'll have the strength and humility to submit my fears to God and to trust him with all my heart.

Hasta luego!

"God loves losers"

And Levi [aka Matthew] made Jesus a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." (Luke 5:29-32)

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Countdown: 9 days until I fly to Guatemala.

As my trip to Guatemala draws nearer, of course my fears and insecurities are starting to creep closer to the forefront of my mind. What has been just the dream or thought of going to Guatemala is very soon going to be a reality. What if I'm oblivious to cultural/social cues and accidentally offend someone? What if I'm not energetic or extroverted enough for the girls to like me? Am I going to get flustered not being able to express myself in English the majority of the time? What if I say the wrong word in Spanish and end up looking stupid? (Or worse, what if I use the indicative when it's supposed to be subjunctive? Haha)

At the root of many of my insecurities is a fear of failure and of disappointing people (including myself).

A discussion with some friends this past Friday night has helped to put things in perspective for me and remind me what God thinks about people who are failures. My church's Young Adults group gathered at someone's home Friday evening to enjoy desserts and to discuss a couple different topics, one of which was based on the article "Being a Loser and the Freedom to Fail" by Ed Welch. During the discussion a friend shared about how she wishes she had been more open about her struggles and weaknesses while she was abroad for a six-week mission trip last summer, and not been afraid to ask for help. "After all," she said, "God's power is made perfect in weakness [2 Corinthians 12:9], and Jesus came for the sick, not the righteous [Luke 5:32, above]." Since I'm leaving soon for a longer short-term mission trip like my friend did last summer, her comment resonated with me. As I listened to her, I realized that without a doubt I am going to fail and struggle in a lot of ways while I'm in Guatemala, and also without a doubt my pride is going to motivate me to try and hide my weaknesses and failures. But I need to remember that when I am weak (and allow myself to appear weak), God's strength shines through more clearly and the credit for any success goes to him, as he deserves. It's the sick who need a doctor, not those who are healthy. It's sinners who need a savior, not righteous people. In other words, it's the losers who need help, not people who have it all together. God loves losers. After all, he sent Jesus to save losers who can't help themselves. Recognizing our status as losers/failures points us to our need for God. I think it's important to realize that everyone (yes, you too!) is one of those "losers" that Jesus died for. There isn't a single person who doesn't need God's saving grace and help from the only Physician capable of healing the spiritually sick.

I'm a perfectionist at heart (which probably explains why it's taken me a couple hours to "perfect" this post L), but it's time for me to accept the fact that I can't and won't be perfect, and to allow God's power and strength to work through me in spite of my own weaknesses and failures. As another friend at the discussion said, "We all like the idea that God loves losers... but we still don't want to be a loser." It's not going to be easy to let go of my pride...but thank goodness God doesn't expect us to pull us up by our own bootstraps, because then we'd really be in trouble. I hope this summer I will learn some valuable lessons about the freedom to fail and consequently the ability to receive grace from God and, hopefully, other people.

Prayer Update & Lessons from my Devotional

For anyone who's not on my email list for prayer updates and is interested in praying for me, here's a copy of the prayer requests I emailed to my prayer supporters on Tuesday. After I leave for Guatemala I plan to include prayer requests at the end of each post.

First of all, you can thank God with me that he has faithfully provided ALL of the financial support I need! I'm blessed to be able to focus on other areas of preparation in the next few weeks and not have to worry about finances.

Second, I leave for Guatemala on May 30 (not the 31st like I erroneously sent out in some versions of my support letter) -- just over two weeks away! I have been gradually receiving more and more information from my internship supervisors about what to bring, what to expect, etc., but for as much information as they may give me, I think there are some things I just won't know what to expect until I actually get there. That's a little scary to me, but at the same time it's a great lesson in trusting the Lord. Please pray that the Lord would help me prepare adequately for my eight weeks in Guatemala but that I would trust him with all of the unknowns.

Finally, please pray that God would continue preparing my heart to humbly love and serve the girls I'll be living with at the Oasis. Pray against pride and wrong motivations that often stem from an American way of thinking that we need to 'help' or 'fix' other people. Pray that I would instead be open to learning from the people of Guatemala and loving them with a "love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (1 Tim. 1:5).

In response to that last request, one of my friends who received my email on Tuesday suggested I read When Helping Hurts (by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert) before I leave for Guatemala. I ordered it on Amazon and I'm planning to start reading it as soon as it arrives.

Another pre-Guatemala reading I'm doing is a daily devotional called Before You Go (by Jack Hempfling), which the staff at Camino Global sent to all the interns and asked us to read, well, before we go! The devotional is designed for 40 days, but since I'm leaving in less than 2 weeks and the devotionals are pretty short, I'm going to read a few a day so I can get through it before I leave.

Some helpful lessons so far from the first 4 days of the devotional:

• "Technical preparation and excellence are important; after all, we serve an excellent God and a team should strive for excellence in practical preparation. Most importantly, however, team members must prepare their hearts to stay focused, unified, positive, pure, humble, submissive, and full of praise and faith. Combining both the practical excellence with focused heart preparation is best of all" (page 30). So in my own words, it's a good thing to be prepared (it honors the Lord and also helps me feel more secure), but more importantly I need to be spending quality time with the Lord by investing time in the Word and in prayer to keep me spiritually healthy so my investment in ministry is more meaningful and effective.
• Kind of similar to the first bullet point: "It's important to work hard at preparing a ministry plan and having as much ready as possible; that level of diligence and commitment to excellence honors the Lord. Yet God may intervene in the plan and adjust the direction as you go" (33). This quote is from the chapter entitled "Expect the Unexpected," so Hempfling's point is basically to make a plan/be prepared but also be aware of unplanned opportunities that the Lord may create, and be willing to follow His leading even when it differs from our own plans. In other words, I need to be flexible and keep my eyes open to how God is leading.
• Day 3's devotional talks about not letting anyone else or even myself limit me because of certain qualifications (related to gender, age, race, education level, condition, etc.). It's easy for me to get too confident in my own skills/qualifications or to become insecure because I lack certain ones, but Hempfling says no one is called to missions purely because of their abilities, but rather, "your primary qualifications are that God has deposited His presence within your heart and your life, and that you have made yourself available to Him" (35-36). The prayer at the end of the devotional confesses, "Because taking the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth is Your idea, I resist all temptations to focus on my personal limitations, nor do I care what others who know me might think" (37). I have a feeling this might be a prayer I need to bring to the Lord repeatedly throughout the summer because I am often tempted to dwell on my own failures and shortcomings.

Welcome to my blog!

I'm not much of a blogger, but I wanted to create a simple way for my family and friends to keep up with my upcoming trip to Guatemala, so here it is!

This summer I will be interning for 8ish weeks in Guatemala (from May 30-July 21, followed by debriefing in Dallas, TX from July 21-24) at a ministry called El Oasis that serves and cares for girls, many of whom have come from abusive backgrounds. El Oasis is a ministry of Kids Alive International but the internship is set up through Camino Global.

Just a quick note on how I got connected with this internship. For a while now I've wanted to spend a summer or a semester abroad in a Spanish-speaking country to challenge and improve my language skills, since I'm a Spanish major hoping to be a Spanish-English interpreter someday. Then this past December I attended Urbana, a tri-annual missions conference in St. Louis, Missouri through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. At Urbana there was an exhibition hall with tables and tables of missions organizations, seminaries, etc. I realized many of the missions organizations would probably have summer internship opportunities in Latin America, and what better way to spend my summer than to combine my love for Jesus, my love for the Spanish language, and my goal of improving my language skills? So after inquiring with Camino Global and three other missions organizations and making a spreadsheet to weigh  the pros and cons of eight different internship opportunities through those four organizations, I finally settled on El Oasis with Camino Global! (Oops, my "quick note" turned into the longest paragraph in the post. J Now back to the point...)

As an intern at El Oasis my primary goal and responsibility will be to show Christ's love to the girls and building relationships with them, but I may also be doing things like tutoring, mentoring, helping the girls with homework, helping them communicate with their English-speaking sponsors, helping out in the kitchen, or assisting with administrative tasks in the office (or a number of other things, I imagine).

Despite all the information I've received about my internship, I still don't think I can really know what to expect until I get there. I'm learning to trust God with the unknowns, whether big or little. I would appreciate your prayers as I prepare to leave in just over two weeks. Pray that I would be prepared with all the physical/material things I need, but also that God would be preparing my heart to love and learn from the girls in Guatemala.

Watch this short video for some more information about El Oasis.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the rest of the summer!

All for Jesus,
Emily


Background photo credit: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/guatemalan