I have found it harder to write here than I had assumed. I have also found myself much busier than I was last year. I believe this is due to two reasons. One, I am one of the team leaders and have much more work to do. Second, I am better at time management and making sure I get done what is on my to-do list. Needless to say, keeping up with this blog slammed to the bottom of my to-do list this past month. I felt like I was just scrapping to get by. Or better yet treading water. That's definitely what it has been like here. Just keeping my head above the line, trying not to choke on the waves while breathing, barely. It's mostly due to the adjustment period of being back, figuring out this leadership business, fighting to have a semblance of a schedule, the start of ministry being crazier than the rest of the year and many other things. That's been this past month and a half. Oh STINT, how I have missed thee.
So, what's new? Well I do believe I have cried more this past week than I have in a long while. You see, there is this thing called the Valley of Despair. It is also known as culture shock. It's a normal part of adjusting to a new culture. And even if the culture isn't brand new, every time you enter into a new one, you go through the whole process all over again. I get to do these whole thing all over again? Yay! It's a hard thing about 2nd year STINT that this happens and the second time tends to be harder. This is due to a lack of the honeymoon stage where "everything is the best thing ever!" I mean, I had a honeymoon stage but it lasted a few weeks as opposed to last year where it lasted a good two and a half months.
So it goes like this: Honeymoon stage, Valley of Despair, then normal. Normal means you normalize to the culture. It is no longer the greatest thing or worst thing, just normal with its good and bad like your home culture. Everyone has to go through the valley to get to the "normal". What characterizes the valley? It is filled with frustration, confusion, tension and embarrassment. There is a tendency to have a unwarranted criticism of the culture and people. You also get to have a heightened irritability, Utopian ideas of your previous culture, a preoccupation with returning home, and much much more. Then you tend to respond by either Flight which brings the urge to avoid everything and everyone that is different or by Fight which is where you judge people and things that are different as bad or foolish.
So guess who hit the Valley of Despair this past week? This girl. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been this angry this long. I'm just angry all the time. And frustrated and tired. I definitely haven't cried so often in a very long time. I don't want to go into too many details. Mostly because its just sin after sin after sin. It isn't really that edifying for anyone if I go into that. What is good to know though is I'm here. I will probably be here for some time too.
The most I can do right now is by faith cling to truth. That is, God wants me here. He loves this country and these people. He loves my team. He wants me to love as He loves, by faith. Even if I don't feel like it or haven't been loved well myself. Regardless of how people treat me or how I feel, I need to love them well. Simply because that's what God does and has asked me to do. This is unconditional love. This is covenant love and it is hard.
Of all the things I may ever learn on STINT, it will be how to love. How to love past myself, my sins, other's sins, all of it. That's where God's grace breaks in. I can't love like that but He can. He does. I will fail to love my team and the students I minister to. I will be selfish and desired to be loved more than love. I will be prideful and demand my rights. I will be hurt and fling around bitterness and guilt. Somehow, through this mess I may love and Christ be seen in me. Now that's grace. That through my awfulness and dung in my life, God's love could actually shine through and others experience a supernatural God that goes beyond our natural human nature.
God is pretty amazing and reminded me of that this week. He loves perfectly, listens perfectly, pursues perfectly. He creates perfectly, saves perfectly and redeems perfectly. He is the awesomeness in my life. He is my life source and blood line. Right now I feel this truth more than ever due to my desperation. I once heard a sermon on how being desperate is what drive us to Jesus. I must agree. Well, enough of my rambling. I don't know how to end this well since I'm still going to be a hot mess after this and tomorrow too. Maybe I'll let you know how that goes next Saturday. Until then my friends.
