Mangos

Today, while sitting in class, a random, precious memory entered my mind. My World Lit 1 professor was talking about the Odyssey, and she said the word "ration." I'm not quite sure what the context was, but I do know that whenever I hear the word "ration" my mind automatically takes me back in time to when I was an 8-year old visiting my grandparents who were missionaries in Honduras at the time. This was the summer between my second and third grade, 1994.

Honduras was experiencing a terrible drought, so water and electricity were being rationed for several hours a day by the government. The power and water only came on for a few hours early early in the morning and in the evening, so we would have to fill buckets with water the night before if we wanted to bathe the next morning. I believe that this was also the summer when my brother and I developed our fascination with entertaining ourselves with candles every time we were around them. Picking the dripping wax off the sides of the candles, rolling it up in little balls of wax, and yes, we even added kool-aid powder to some wax to make it the color we wanted and to see if it would taste/smell like kool-aid candles. Duh.

Our parents had sent us to stay with our grandparents for three weeks that Summer. We went to mission meeting with them at a lake in Honduras, which had a Baptist camp grounds. The place was so humid and disgusting. The name of the camp was (and still is....) BAGOPE, and acronym in Spanish for "Bautistas Gozando y Pescando" (Baptists Enjoying and Fishing). Whatever...the missionaries joke that what BAGOPE is really an acronym for "bugs and gnats on people everwhere." Because if you've never been there, that is really what the whole experience of BAGOPE is. Because even though there are screens on all the windows and doors you have to have a mosquito net to sleep under. I went back there several times throughout Jr. high and High School, and I must say it is not one of my favorite places to visit.

That was one of the weirdest Summers of my life. It was the Summer that my parents moved us permanently to Xela, the city we had lived in half of the time when we weren't living in our village....and when my brother and I got back, we were all moved in to our house and out of the village house that we went to maybe once a month after that.

This was also the Summer when, I guess one night while I was sleeping, I got bit by some sort of "blister bug." I had a massive blister on the back of my leg for days, and it was painful. I had to take antibiotics or something to get rid of it. Weird...don't ever get bit by a blister bug.

Back to my point. One of the best memories I have of this Summer was in Honduras, at my grandparents' house. On those nights when the power was out, those hot, muggy afternoons in one of the warmest places in Central America, my grandmother would cut Mangos (just to clarify, "mango" is pronounced with a long a, as in ah...NOT with a short a as in a) that had to have been the size of a small watermelon. The things were massively huge, and the most delicious Mangos I have ever had in my life. Even to this day, I can't say that I've seen a Mango as big as the ones that my grandmother used to cut for us, nor have I tasted anything as delicious as those Mangos that were the highlight of possibly one of the strangest, most precious Summers of my life.

Books that Changed my Life...

My whole life, I have gone through spurts of being super into reading books, and then I can go for months without cracking anything but a textbook. Recently, I have been in a novel-reading phase. Not so much as one of my roommates, who sometimes would much rather spend the day with a book than with people, but that's ok.

Aside from liking novels, I have never really been into the Christian novelists who are known to write easy-romance reads for ladies. Until recently. I was in LifeWay a while ago, and picked up a book by Karen Kingsbury, called Even Now. The book caught my attention, and was one of those sweet books that I could (and probably did) lay in bed all day and read huge chunks of at a time. As soon as I finished the book, I found out there was a sequel to it, and I had to get it. I bought it and started reading it soon after. The sequel is called Ever After. It too, caught my attention, but more, it caught my heart, and has given me a new, interesting outlook on something in my life that I have never really given much interest to.

Let me explain. Being my MK-self, I have never really felt very patriotic towards the U.S. In the book Ever After, there is a young soldier, the romantic interest of one of the main characters. I won't ruin the book for anyone who might want to read it (once you have, let's chat!) , but things that happen in the book have made me evaluate my level of loyalty to the country whose passport I hold. Yes, some silly mistakes have been made, many of which have cost lives, but because of this book, I am reminded that there are men and women giving their lives for my freedom, and for my privilege to have citizenship to this nation.

This is where one of my many MK complexes comes in...when I finally declare appreciation for the United States, I suddenly feel disloyal to every country I have ever called home. No, I don't have voting rights in any of them, but I do have an opinion about their politics. No, I probably will never live in either one of those countries again, but as I have said before, my past will always be a part of who I am and affect who I become in the future.

Needless to say, I highly recommend these two books, Even Now and Ever After by Karen Kingsbury. And, I went out and bought two more books by her....yes another session will soon begin!

Now that I know...

Now that I know that at least 2 sweet people are reading this blog (thanks Ashley and Elise!!) I will post the thoughts I put down on paper when I was in a very pensive mood a couple of weeks ago....not doing homework. Here goes....

I'm not quite sure what this feeling is. No, it's not love, it has nothing to do with anyone but me. It's an internal yearning, to break out my passport and fly somewhere. Experience something new. It's almost surreal, this feeling. I've had it before, but only when I knew that what I was experiencing at that time of life was only temporary. Like when we would come to the States for vacation or furlough. I knew what was happening was only for a little bit, and that soon I would be returning to my normal life in Guatemala or Nicaragua. It's the same kind of feeling, too, that I would get when I was on the last drive to the airport knowing that that bit of highway was the last I'd see of the US for a while. This sensation is the one I've gotten the last few years a little while before I've been about to travel to Guatemala for a few weeks in the Summer or at Christmas. It's like a final taking in of what's around me so that I can remember everything when I want to return to that moment later on when I'm not liking my current situation. It's almost a feeling of freshness, of knowing that something will soon come to an end, but that something new will soon begin. I want to know if I'm the only one who has ever felt this way before, or if others get this sensation, too. Is it because my temporary life which is full of temporary chapters will soon become a life of permanence in one way or another? With this feeling, my mind has been flooded with small, random memories of moments in my life, but I feel like, for an instant I'm back in that place at that time doing that thing with that person. Am I not accepting my current circumstances? Am I wishing for a time gone by? Am I longing for something I used to have that I will never have again?

I know that soon this college chapter of my life will close and God will take me to a new place, surrounded by new people, experiencing new things. I'll never be that barefooted little blond girl running up and down the only road that cars could go on in that village on the side of a mountain in Guatemala. But that child will always be a part of who I am today, and will have a big impact on who I become. No one will ever know that sassy seventh-grader that I once was, claiming the attentions of many boys in Nicaragua. But the memory of those years will always stick out in my mind as the best in my life, for I did well in school and had lots of friends...until I became that "neutral" new girl in the school I wouldn't have wished to finish high-school at. The pain of the rejection I faced the final three years of my pre-college education will always haunt me and cause me to naturally not want to impose my company on anyone, though people normally enjoy it. I feel that because of that fear, I may not have lived my college life to the fullest socially, but I'm happy with the good friends I've had so far.

It may e the fear and uncertainty of the future that is what causes this sensation to come over me. It is definitely uncomfortable knowing that the soonest I might return to Guatemala is next Summer, and that this might just be the first 12 month period of my life when I have not used my passport for one reason or another. Knowing that the next time i do leave the country it will be for a mission trip to Honduras, and not even home to Guatemala, I'm not so sure how I feel about it. I mean, I love the Honduras trip, and I love serving and doing missions, but selfishly I want to return home to my house, my room, my bed...my youth. But my life will never be that way again. I'll never be back at that carefree place in my life where I can go people-watch in the park for hours on end thinking that moment will never end. Knowing that I need to savor every moment of everything I enjoy about my life is bittersweet. Why would I want to do something with the knowledge that this will be the last time I ever truly might experience this precious moment? Maybe God is trying to teach me something...maybe I should learn to search Scripture in light of the temporality of life. I know that my life is not my own, that Earth is not my home, but I also know that I have a purpose and that is to know honor Him in all I do, loving Him with every breath, knowing Him in light of all the situations I go through. Also, to make Him known to those with whom I come in contact. Living my life and enjoying it as something temporary, knowing that my place is in Heaven should cause me to strive for the enjoyment of what God has given me. After this, my life should, and will, never be the same.