A String of Job-Moments

First of all, let me apologize to you folks, my would-be faithful blog readers.  It's not that God hasn't been faithful to me in Chile, he has... and more, but I haven't made time to record all of the little things and all of my little adventures as I should have.  I promise to try and catch up as I come back and reflect on everything that has happened here.  The statement still stands.  God has paved my path to Chile and successfully made my way down here and all he has asked me to do is to seek him as he reveals his purpose for calling me down here.  Was it an escape from Biology?  I had hoped.  Was it an escape from boy drama?  I had hoped on both sides of that debate...  Was he going to teach me about myself?  Yeah, yeah... thank you, Epicenter, advise me about how I'm going to grow one more time and I might just stop believing you (my apologies to those who put their time into thoughtful pre-study abroad preparation, you really did give me a great stepping stone).  I came down here looking for God and being open to what he might show me and believing that he would show me something, but I also came down here sarcastic, numb, and giving a little more than lip-service to things that I could recognize as God and trying to figure out what they could mean, but I also came down here with the voice of the adversary very strongly in my ear.
In the time that it took this morning to skip my 'Lectura de los Salmos' class, a class that is supposedly supposed to teach me about the Bible,  I sat down to write an email to a scholar-friend of mine who had just finished his Master's thesis.  An email that turned into God answering my soul-quest of the past three to maybe even eight years.  He has answered painful questions I have chosen to ignore and even barely voiced to my mom, hoping that they would go away, and even at times wondering if I had a demon living inside me.  The enemy had put an unintentional wall between me an my dad that I've been trying to ignore.  This past Sunday, he had reached an UGLY point in my soul where I'd been doubting my very faith and my Messiah College education all in one as many of us do.  Before I left I had felt like I had outgrown Messiah and had even been sarcastic about out lack of diversity and other things that I called a 'lack' of something before looking at the true abundance of programming and blessings we do have.  I had allowed myself to believe some of the hateful things that some alumni or transfer-outs have said about the community or credibility of Messiah as an institution, or even some of the things that have come up about students losing their faith before graduating (all the while testifying to the beautiful parts of Messiah in my job as a campus tour guide, which I also still believed in).  The truth is, I was honestly just a step away from becoming one of them, form cursing the institution that was feeding me and spurring me on to 'maturity of intellect, character, and Christian faith.'  I was full and empty.  I was lost and found.  I was secure and seeking.  I had both forgiven and remained bitter.

Every word of my blog up to now is authentic, don't get me wrong, but it has been a huge, masked struggle on the edge of two extremes, I was being blessed with leadership, but at the same time I was trying to figure out my own place.  My battle started in early high school with the question 'What do you want to do with your life?'  Thankfully, God has made that clear, along with my college choice senior year of high school and I have correctly chalked staying in Biology up to being obedience, but it's much more than that.  Satan wanted me to believe that my parents had forced me into my major and he wanted me to question not only my Messiah decision, something that he had been SO clear about, but my very belief in God.  He had used the lie that my college decision and my choice of major were just pleasing my parents to allow me to believe that my very faith was just something that came from my parents and their 'Christian college experience,' and even in finding themselves in Eastern's own version of 'Ring before Spring.'  Was I failing at the game my parents had won?  Where was my perfect Chirstian colege soul mate?  Was I a bad Christian because I hadn't been earned the Res Life stamp of approval to influence the personal lives of others?  Why was I seeking validation in men and leadership rolls anyway?  Why had God denied me things that I SWORE I wanted?  What about the desires of my heart?  Where was my heart may have been a better question.  I thought I knew it, I thought I knew me, but God had clearly sent me to study abroad when I told him I would be an RA or study abroad sooner and he clearly had not sent me any of the guys I had all but chased after.  Seriously, God... I've liked the same guy since freshman year and in that time he's had not one but TWO 'perfect Messiah girlfriends?!?'  Where did this air of entitlement come from?  Who owed me anything?  What was causing this insecurity?  How much of this insecurity had been fueled by a person in authority telling me that I was insecure and he could see it?

This is getting really long and I actually want you to read it, so let me give you a baby bit of background, I participated in a new-found friend's research for his Master's back in January before leaving for Wisconsin and he sent me his thesis (like 230 pages) today because I had asked to read it when he finished.  This is beside the point, but surprisingly enough, he too has an uncanny connection between Spanish and stewardship.  I was going to read it later, but I couldn't help myself because he told me he had quoted me.  What was he looking at?  'Green' formations and the foundation for 'Christian Environmental Stewardship' on Christian College campuses and he had been given my name as a possible interviewee through some connections I had.  All this had happened right about the time the backpacker article had come out (http://danika-adventuresinchile.blogspot.com/2011/01/hike-pray-protest.html).  I had felt really so convicted, in fact, that at that time I had even written a letter to KP, Kim Phipps, the President of Messiah, about these convictions, sort of realizing that I was dropping a bomb on her desk as I left for study abroad.  In reading part of Todd's conclusions, God was working on some MAJOR revelations in my heart that NEEDED to surface.

Even in my side trip back to the states that I mention here and may have to fill some of you in on later, a weekend in Alaska for my Aunt Bec's wedding in the middle of study abroad, I had questioned that seeing my family three months in would mess up my 'study abroad experience' and that I might not be able to divine any meaning from this time that was supposedly one of the most formative times of my life.  I had not found a Chilean identity like the famous Shaina.  I didn't miss my family as much as I probably should have, and I did not have a Chilean boyfriend like even Sarah, (YOUR experience will be YOUR experience) had found because I had only sort of surrendered my lack of dating life to God and my search for identity within the context of study abroad over to God.  I only sort of believed, or believed but not WHOLEHEARTEDLY believed that God was and is working for my good.  Even in my devos in Romans about being called by God and not being able to change that call, I was like... WHAT IF I'M NOT REALLY BEING CALLED BY GOD?  What if it's in my head?  What if God is only a concept in my head?   I was bawling like a baby at the wedding because I finally allowed myself to conclude that Aunt Bec's wedding was truly a thing of the Holy Spirit even though I had already testified to it over and over again as I told her story to others, my head knowledge was still trying to test my heart knowledge, still trying to find a fault in my new Uncle Brad to say that God wasn't 100% in charge.  I wanted an excuse to chase after boys instead of actually believing in the worth of waiting for God to show you 'the one' and even that there might be more than 'the one' or there might be more than 'one' plan of God.  I'm still working on where I stand on that topic, but I know that trust in God must prevail over all things.  The actual wedding was so beautiful and so obviously of God that that's why I couldn't stop crying.  Like Lizzy in Pride and Prejudice, I had been wrong about the Mr. Darcy of my soul (Jesus), I had been SO WRONG.

With that said, I thank God for his grace and for not giving up on me, however blockheaded, stubborn, and willing to be independent I am.

Here's my email to Todd, which includes some conclusions and thought process.  Right now, I feel like Paul writing to the early church.  God has just blown my mind.  He has just erased YEARS of doubts in one morning and given purpose to my study abroad, my relationship with my parents, family heritage, the connection between passion and career/ future career, my time at Messiah, and my faith, above all.
In my walk, I'm back to feeling.  I don't associate words like blind, simple, and ignorant with faith in my mind (where Satan had been leading my doubts just this week) anymore, I can't.  I had told God that I wanted to be moved to tears by the Holy Spirit again and I had been waiting on him to fulfill that, now, here it is.  I warn you, this is the authentic soul of Danika here:



Wow, Todd!
I am blown away with the similarities that you were able to draw from the interviews!  I knew we (the 'green college students') were a different breed of people, but I never realized how similar we are to each other.  I mean, I can Identify with all of the topics that they mentioned but I didn't.  It's a very valuable point that we have had perhaps a longer time to ponder all of the themes, and I would agree that It was more difficult for me to pick just a  few examples to answer your questions.  For example, Although I didn't mention it to you, I LOVED Little House on the Prairie, where as, I'm very 'new' the the Wendell Berry train, having just met him my freshman year while I was in DC for Powershift (okay, stereotype me as a radical, but that's where my 'friends in my on campus club' influence took me my freshman year... although maybe we all need to feed that 'radical' side to keep us going). 
I'm so glad that you quoted Cal DeWitt.  I love him.  I suppose that I've really been spoiled if you look at my AuSable childhood.  I'm just now realizing that my dad's colleagues, those who inspired him as a student and who he later worked for, the founders and professors of AuSable, are really all the forefathers of Christian Environmental Education movement.  I spent three summers as a child living in Cal DeWitt's basement.  Joe Sheldon, if you know him, knew my parents before they were even dating, and I would even say he's like an uncle or grandpa to me (and educationally in some ways, a 'father' of my thought processes).  I call both Joe and Cal by their first names and even now, with the articles we have to read for class, or looking at my shelf where sits, 'Redeeming Creation; the Biblical Basis for Environmental Stewardship,'  its neat to be able to look at authors and reflect on my time spent with them in the innocence of a child, not realizing that these people were shaping not only my life, but a movement.  Did you know that Cal DeWitt helped in the editing of the 'Green Bible?' 
What a growing process to rediscover the values of my parents and the 'bricks' that they helped to put in my 'house'  are really common threads that we all share!  I guess it's part of my self-revelation and self-discovery as I search for what I'm going to do with my bio degree that I really cannot escape.  I really struggle with staying in Bio as my major and what I'm going to do with my degree, but God continually shows me that it's obedience and that his plan has always been NOT to change my major as many times as I have wanted to.  I keep finding myself coming back to the common strands I have with my parents.  I have really questioned if I picked my major because of them or because of me, but reading your thesis has really helped me to realize that they're just a piece of my formation.  As much credit or blame as I'd love to give them, it's just a glimmer of what God has been reveling to me it my past 21 years.  I really can't help myself, valuing what they value, noticing the foundations they've laid for me, but is more than having something in common with my immediate parents, I'm really realizing that I too am a child of a movement.  I have been born into an idea set.  My 'house' has all kinds of bricks in from all different 'people' and revelations of the Holy Spirit.  I don't usually stop to examine all the little details of its walls of the 'house of my formation,' but I guess for me, my conquest for that 'self-identity,' figuring out what I truly value and what beliefs are mine and what are my parents' has really helped me to even see the cliché 'it takes a village to raise a child.'  It takes a seed to start a movement.  It takes kindred spirits, like kindling to keep it going, but it takes individuals to own it.

Wow, sorry!  I only intended to send you an email and this is becoming really personal, but God also just reminded me of my devo journey through the Old Testament.  Even Israel struggled with personal and spiritual identity.  Even Israel questioned ideas that weren't of the Holy Spirit to determine which ideas were truly of God, and even Israel had to break down the idea of the 'god of her fathers,' 'of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' before truly owning her personal relationship with God as his 'chosen people.'  For the Israelites as for many middle eastern cultures, the genealogy stuff in the OT was what gave them their legitimacy.  Here I've been fighting it, loving being called a 'Daddy's girl,' but also wondering if doing what pleased my parents was the 'easy path' or my roll as the typical oldest child.   Here I was, about to graduate college next year and wondering what part of my degree I had 'owned' on my own free will, and how I would fit my passion (if I even had any passion anymore) in my life post-study abroad, post taking biology (my personal struggle), out of my life to focus on Spanish, my other degree, for a semester.  Honestly, I've been struggling with even my faith lately and reconciling my Christian education with my Christian formation and trying to decide what part of my faith is personal and purely authentic.  I've struggled with what to do with all my head knowledge and where it applied to my heart knowledge, a struggle that many students from my college give up on, don't fight, and say that my school has been too liberal, hasn't given them enough answers, and decided to leave the faith because their experience had been to 'difficult.'   No, no, that hasn't been it at all for me...
Recently, Satan has been throwing the beautiful phrase 'the faith of out fathers' in my face, mockingly and trying to break down my personal identity as a Christ follower, trying to eat away at my personal convictions, trying to blur my memory of when God has come through to me personally time and time again, like acid, corroding the things I KNOW to be true, the things I have tested, the times he has stepped in and showed me his absolutely unfailing love and faithfulness.  'Obedience, Danika, obedience,' he's tried to assure me even by giving me little things like the confirmation of my summer job this past week after clarifying with him that I was done worrying about it and had finally decided that I needed to surrender it to him.  Like Job, I'm always getting caught up in the little pieces, the 'God, what if...' Like Job, God calls me out into nature to show me the hugeness of mountains, he calls me out of my comfort to realize his perfect strength, and he gives me the little things that I ask for, like a child begging for candy before dinner, to help guide me on to trying to see the bigger pieces.  Just as Job couldn't understand the vastness of salvation and the God's whole plan, sometimes the only thing we are left with is trust.  Sometimes the only thing we are left with are the failed plans, like broken toys, that we destroy without seeking God first, that we continually scoop up and hold up to him, saying, 'Daddy fix it.'  Like all of the prophesies of the OT that God used to PROVE that Jesus was his son (that we still choose to say are coincidence), like all of the miracles of Jesus that we still try to rationalize with science, which by the way is just our interpretation of God's world, we still 'pull a Job' because God is just THAT much bigger than our understanding.
Oh, wow, sorry again, this is getting super long.  I didn't really intend to answer your thesis with a dissertation of my own.  God has sent you to me at a perfect time (with the interview timing right before my study abroad and your finished research now as I'm starting to question what I have learned in the bigger picture here in Chile), and I am once again amazed by his perfect will and plan, his perfect assurance.  'Blessed assurance, Jesus IS mine!'
Thanks, Todd.  You have just been used by God to help me in my string of Job moments.
God bless you!
Danika



God just keeps leading me to Matthew 6:33, definitely my Chile theme.
SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Blesses ASSURANCE, Jesus is mine.  Blessed assurance, Jesus IS mine... Blessed assurance, Jesus is MINE!
Amen and Amen!

Marriage Licence

(Written around March 11)

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God…”

Fridays in Chile, or at least for our school tend to be a day of relaxing with little to no scheduled things and what is scheduled is pretty strictly in the morning with the rest of the day free.  Our first Friday in Vina was very important.  We went down to our government to start the process of getting out Chilean ID’s.

We arrived at 8:00 to make a line outside of the office even though it didn’t open until 8:30.  By 8:30, however, there was a line more than a block long to get into the small office.  Inside, it looked like the room of the DMV where you go to get a new license plate.  There were desks on 3 out of 4 sides and a reel where everyone had to take a number before waiting to be called.  There were, of course, babies crying, impatient people waiting, and us, a pack of semi-dazed Gringos who had woken up early after a PACKED, dizzying week of orientation and talking to our families (Chilean and Estadiounidense, the Spanish and more politically correct word for citizens of the Unite States, since we’re technically all “Americans”).

As we waited to have our pictures taken at this horrifying time of the morning and our fingerprints taken once again, my mind drifted, and so did my eyes.  I took notes on the people I saw: young, old, families, singles, and tired people, some happy, most impatient.  And the people I especially enjoyed watching were those in line for their marriage license.  How happy they were, how young, and how dependent on one other they looked.

God had already begun working on my heat by this point.  With the Aunt Bec’s engagement and the beauty that came of her waiting, with not one but two sermons about the lover relationship we are supposed to have with God,  the themes of faithfulness, purity, and dependence had already begun swimming around in my head.  Even in talking to my host mom and hearing her testimony and what she calls her “fracaso matrimonial” or, literally, marital failure, I’m realizing that marriage is even more beautiful and even more scary than I had ever really imagined.  My relationship with God is even more beautiful and profound than I can even try to aim for, but then there’s grace, as in a marriage between two people, compromise.   Compromise is actually the closest word that we have in English to “engaged” in Spanish.  How much more beautiful is “compromiso” than some word that sounds as if we are ready to shoot a gun or a cannon.  We’re “engaged,” the bullet is “engaged,” the United States is “engaged” in a dispute over foreign policy, Bill Clinton “engaged” in some relations with that Monica lady.

“…and HIS righteousness…”

God is already whispering in my ear.  He’s got secrets to tell me, and sweet nothings to share.  I just hope that I can be giddy over my relationship with Jesus and remember to allow him to be the man in the relationship.  He’s at the helm.  He makes the plans.  He loves me already for who I am, not who I try to be during group orientations.  It breaks his heart to watch me seek after the love of a man without first letting him define pure, prefect, fairytale love the way he designed it.

It doesn’t matter if the man-interest I left at Messiah is recently “with girlfriend.”  It doesn’t matter that I’ve never had a real boyfriend or that I don’t have any prospects.  I didn’t come to Chile to find my husband, either (even if that might be a secret and unfounded desire).  The fact that I even have to “like” someone at all times is rubbish.  God has every intention to romance me this semester and I’m acknowledging that here in public for a little accountability.  I want to be giddy for God.  I want to long for God the way he designed me to.  What good is a Christmas present if you’ve already peeked?  What good is searching and finding a boyfriend who is wrong and won’t last when in the meantime I can can grow in God and trust him to provide?  Isn’t God as big and as powerful, and even more, than I claim he is?

“…and all these things shall be added onto you.”

Language Gap

(Written around March 3)

folkloric dancers, welcome program for international students

One thing that struck me from the beginning, even before my fascination with windows is the idea of communicating in Spanish, my second language, with someone who it in the same boat, someone who also speaks Spanish as a second language, but who does not share English as their first language.

When you start learning Spanish as a child, you learn the 20 countries and capitols of the countries that have Spanish as their national language.  You start dreaming; maybe my Spanish will take me to Tegucigalpa.  No, maybe I’ll go to Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, or Ecuador, maybe even Chile.  Next, you learn vocabulary to talk about an experience in a market, buying wool sweaters on the slopes of Macchu Picchu.  You learn to say Chichicastenango and pledge to go there just to say the word, never you mind, the locals just call it ChiChi or something like that.  Never, however do you think about the other children starting Spanish in other parts of the world who might be thinking the exact same thing.

I do remember thinking, unfairly, what if I saw an Asian person speaking Spanish, or what about an African person who had learned Chinese or Japanese… I imagine thinking how strange that would be.  Isn’t it just as strange for me to be speaking Spanish?  Sure, It’s the language of my neighbor country, heck it’s almost the language of my neighbor county, but it’s not my language.  It’s not the language of my ancestors (German, Irish, English), but it’s hardly different than someone from Asia learning the language of their neighbors on the other side of the Pacific….

What’s been EVEN cooler to me this week (international orientation week), though, and even my first day has been to talk to other students from Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Mexico, and other countries that I have only read about by speaking Spanish.  Everyone here has had to work at learning Spanish.  Our orientation program, like our classes was purely in Spanish as that was the best guess at the language that all of us would understand probably equally.  

Dancing with one of the Folk-dancers during our orientation welcome program

Even out of the Chileans that are already here, there are differences in languages taught in the schools.  There are British Schools, Arabic Schools, Argentinean Schools, and many more.  Even passing shops here that sell Arabic food like shwarma have really helped to put me in my place as just another foreigner.  It’s not really that special to come from the United States. In Latin America, it’s almost less special because of some of out poor choices in foreign policy, but that’s another blog…  

The history of the world, like humanity is flawed and we’re all just trying to find our place.  It was really cool, though to talk to a German boy, who knows the city in Germany where my mother was born, but to talk about it in Spanish.  More windows than I could possibly imagine have been opened through Spanish!

Click to see more pictures of orientation

Caught up in the, "He said, she said"

(Written Feb 13)

“You will be tired; you will be very tired.” A friend advised me when speaking of her first month in Chile.  She warned me that there would be days that I would go back to my house in the evenings and simply want to shut myself in my room.

I hit this phase and I hit it hard, but it was a lot easier for me to hide it as I was still with my grandma Sherian and Paulina, so I was sill in between English and Spanish, but there were days that I woke up an understood neither English nor Spanish. I felt like I was loosing grip on two worlds.  Paulina and I spent a lot of time translating like I mentioned in the beginning, and even sometimes, I hear the Spanish and just not register the words even though they were simple words I hac known almost my whole Spanish career.  For the first time, I wanted to withdraw into myself, to do absolutely nothing, but I knew I was growing every day I applied myself, every day that I tried.

            I watched four movies in Spanish with Paulina: Megamente (Megamind), Comer, Rezar, Amar (Eat, Pray, Love), Dia de los Enamorados (Valentine’s Day), and Endreados (Tangled).  I felt so lost watching Megamind and questioned weather I even knew Spanish at all.  Again, I learned like a child watching Disney movies with his parents, watching the cartoon, listening to the ride and fall of the characters’ voices and trying to figure out who were the “good guys” and who were the “bad guys.”  The next two went much better as I had already seen both of them in English, but like movies in English, I fell asleep for parts of them.  By the third movie, however, I finally understood the characters, laughed at the jokes, laughed at the subtitles for being wrong (they were also in Spanish), and understood the story. What a rich experience it was to understand!

            By the time we got to Santiago, then I was able to talk to the chicas of ISA in Spanish and to really understand and be understood!  What a fulfilling experience it is to understand literature, feelings, and people in their native language.  I have run in to so many words that just don’t translate well.  There are feelings, experiences, and ways of saying everyday things that you just can’t get if you only speak one language.  Even in watching those movies, or even watching movies that are subtitled in “my two languages,” there are things that are lost in translation; there are things that are just more beautiful to hear in their original language.

To Dwell in the House of the King

Psalm 84
 ¹ How lovely is your dwelling place,
   LORD Almighty!
² My soul yearns, even faints,
   for the courts of the LORD;
my heart and my flesh cry out
   for the living God.
³ Even the sparrow has found a home,
   and the swallow a nest for herself,
   where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
   LORD Almighty, my King and my God.
⁴ Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
   they are ever praising you.^[c]
 
 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
   whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
⁶ As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
   they make it a place of springs;
   the autumn rains also cover it with pools.^[d]
7 They go from strength to strength,
   till each appears before God in Zion.

 ⁸ Hear my prayer, LORD God Almighty;
   listen to me, God of Jacob.
⁹ Look on our shield,^[e] O God;
   look with favor on your anointed one.

 ¹⁰ Better is one day in your courts
   than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
   than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
¹¹ For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
   the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
   from those whose walk is blameless.

 ¹² LORD Almighty,
   blessed is the one who trusts in you.


Today is day two in Santiago with the grupo de gringos.  Yesterday, I was REALLY frustrated with all of the English I was hearing, but It's a bit better now after being able to go out to dinner in smaller groups last night.  I still cling to Messiah friends and some like-minded friends from Luther, Trinity, and a soul sister from Pitt as most of the crazy and ambitious gringos went out to fulfill the gringo stereotype last night (crazy consumers of alcohol).

The view from Cerro San Cerro San Cristóbal

Today, we toured the Presidential Palace called, "La Moneda" because it used to be a mint.  It was all very impressive with all the fine sculptures, the guards, and the riches in the palace, however, that wasn't the thing that stuck out to me the most.  What was it, you ask?  It wasn't a what, it was a who.  One of the rooms that we entered had a maid in it, busily polishing away so that the furniture would be in tip-top shape for a presentation of credentials that would be happening later tonight.  I had already been thinking about all of the different jobs involved in running the palace and the differences between it and the White House (and how much more it seemed we were able to see), but when we came to the maid, I started thinking about what it must be like to be a maid in the house of the President of Chile.  Of course, it was a house of government, and a foreign one at that, so naturally, I felt all sorts of out of place, but she, no, she had a place.  The maid had a place and SHE was as much a part of the Presidential palace as President Sebastián Piñera himself, and maybe even more so as she wasn't limited to serving a term.

The maid, polishing

Of course, this theme came back as we later found ourselves inside the National Cathedral.  Ah, yes, this still, like the ski resort was a construction of man, but it too had a reflection of the grandeur of God.  How small one feels in a cathedral!  How dwarfed by the ornate beauty of it all.  THIS is man's dwelling place for God almighty!  Although God is much bigger and not confined to our construction, it often helps me to visualize and put into perspective to imagine a cathedral.  You walk in and you are hushed with respect.  Even if you could shout, your voice, like the light inside would be sucked up into the space.  Constantly, your eyes are drawn up to the heavens, to the source of light, to the source of life.  Your thoughts, like the ceilings are automatically higher, and even if you aren't catholic, you want to pray.

One of the domes in the ceiling of the cathedral

And then, yes, I couldn't help but think to the Psalms: 84 (one of my favorites).  Even the maid in the Presidential Palace gets to come to work at the Presidential Palace EVERY DAY!  Even the swallows of this universe, dwarfed by the grandeur of the Cathedral or the Palace can seek refuge in the vastness of such a building, and even we, humans dwarfed by the vastness of the universe, put out our best, ornate our houses of worship with all the riches we can muster and put our best foot forward to enter the house of the most high!  How can you not praise God?  How can you not be humbled?  How can you not lift your eyes and think of every power higher than yourself on the food chain, and last, the one power higher than us all?!?




Pictures: (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2073481&id=1461390133&l=be452cb697)

When Man Seems Out of Place

“I have felt the wind blow, whispering your name, and I have seen your tears fall when I watch the rain…”

There is a great sense of awe for me in traversing the rugged, the steep, or the out of the way.  One reaches perhaps the climax of beauty itself when he finds himself in a location where the stuff of man seems grotesquely out of place, when he can realize that he is no match for the height or grandeur of a snowcapped peak, and that nothing he could possibly contrive out of building materials could look like more than a few popsicle sticks crudely fastened to the side of a behemoth of a peak.

For me, my heart flutters at times like this.  There’s just something that seems so appropriate about the blaring praise music on a car stereo as you ascend into the unknown.  My soul is comforted as my mind reels at the majesty and the grandeur of the forest, the splash of mountain streams, the crisp freshness of high-altitude air, and the appearance of purity as your car nears a snow-capped peak.  It’s as if the car stereo gives voice to the rocks as they cry out, as if the drumbeat is echoing the trees as they clap for joy.

It’s at times like this, however when God reminds me how small I am.  "What are men compared to rocks and mountains?"  Who am I in the scale of a mountain?  As we drove to Petrohué and up part of Osorno volcano this Saturday, I couldn’t help but realize how out of place the stuff of man appeared.  I was not sure if I should laugh at the irony or be depressed that a brightly colored ski resort kept insisting on ruining my pictures.  Here it was, something feeble that the hand of man had created trying to hold fast and to claim even a speck of the beauty of this breathtaking volcano.

I even tried to climb up a path that I saw in the distance so that my grandma could get a picture of me with the snow-capped volcano in it, but even this plan failed miserably.  In the frame, I was just a speck on the hillside next to the one with snow on it, which really couldn’t be seen in the picture as the frame was nowhere near big enough to show both me AND the volcano.

What is man?  Where is his home?  Certainly not here, I thought.  God’s handiwork was more than sufficiently stamped all over this landscape.  If a camera from close to me couldn’t even fit me, an average person in the frame with this mountain, how much bigger and more impressive is our God?  The bright, inviting colors of the ski resort paled in comparison to with the expanse of the Andes Mountains we were standing on, the only thing separating us from Argentina, the way a feeble crayon drawing would pale in comparison to Starry Night.

Man was not meant to live here.  The handiwork of man cannot begin to compare to grandeur and the vastness that is the creation we are merely a part of.  And yet, God cares for every individual part of his creation the way a painter carefully places brush strokes so that his overall picture looks just right from afar. Man was not meant for this world.  He was not meant to live at sea level; he was not made to live too close to the summit of Mt. Everest.  Man was not made to live in a city where commerce and advertising for the works of man dictate even what se sees out his window; man was not made to live in or to admire something of his own creation.  Man, like the rest of the creation he is merely a part of, was made to glorify and to long after his creator.

How much more beautiful than the vastness of a mountain range will it be when man is finally reunited with God?  If it takes me hours, days, or weeks to fully understand the vastness of one volcano by driving, hiking, or biking it, how much longer will it take me to actually grasp the vastness of God?

No, one lifetime on Earth isn’t hardly enough, but for this, He’s given us eternity.




For more volcano pictures: (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2073036&id=1461390133&l=3000840514)

A Little Island Named Chiloé

Palafitos, or stilt houses, in Castro, Chiloé

Remember Anatevka?  Okay, maybe you don't, but maybe you can picture a village, well more like a region, where the people are known far and wide for their specific traditions, food, and their rich history.  Such is the Island of Chiloé.  The people of this island, or Chilotes, are known for their customs,  their rich history as well as their vast mythology, and of course, their food.

Curanto... Pictures just can't do it justice!

Like any maritime region, Chilotes live off of seafood.  Now, if you can remember back to my eating preferences before Chile, (which probably most of you can't, really), you will probably remember that I eat practically everything.  Everything, except shellfish, crabs, and most types of fish that I haven't tried.  Guess what?  Chileans and Chilotes especially, LOVE fish, shellfish, and all of the other words that I didn't really pay attention to when we learned the food market chapter in our Spanish books.

SURPRISE!  I actually eat Shellfish now.  There's something about already being here that has made me even more adventurous, adventurous enough to do things that I even said I HATED.  While we were in Chiloé, I got to try Curanto, a HUGE PLATE of clams, mussels, pork rib, two types of Chilean potatoes, and even chicken.  My dad would have been SO proud.  Of course, that was lunch on day one.  Day two on Chiloé and a change of towns provided it's own new foods.  Food number one caused the most excitement later: RAW OYSTERS.  Paulina said that they were her favorite, so she urged me to try one with Lemon.  I told her that I would eat one if she would eat one, so we each bought one.  WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!  I didn't like it at first because I got shells in my mouth and struggled to get them out before my super strong gag reflex kicked in, but afterwards, I felt so accomplished!  (Make sure you get to see the pictures on facebook, of course (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2072308&id=1461390133&l=a299e81d7c).

Yes, that's a raw oyster!

We also tried one of Erik Lindquist (my adviser from Messiah)'s favorite Chilean dishes: Chupe de Jaiba which was almost like a cheesy crab dip, but it really tasted like avocado dip.  Later on in the day, however, both Mr. Butto and Paulina got sick and had to throw up.  We're not really sure what it was, but they're pointing their fingers at the oysters, even though Mr. Butto has never gotten sick from one before, and they made sure to tell everyone that asked what happened that the "gringa" didn't get sick.  I guess this just proves that I have an iron stomach.

Chupe de Jaiba

Another point of Chiloé that I'd like to highlight were all of the beautiful boats.  You will, of course see these in my pictures, but I have a FASCINATION with the beautiful colors of island and sea towns.  The same thing seems to be happening with windows as a reoccurring theme for me.  Before coming, I read a book that was a collection of poems from Pablo Neruda, a chilean (in English) and pictures by a Chilean photographer called, "Windows that Open Inward."  Now, I've really been taking note of the windows.  Each one is different, specific, and personal, like you could look into the souls of the people who inhabit the house, or as if the beautiful scenery of Chile could use a window to change your soul.  Pay attention to the use of windows in my pictures.

Chiloé is also known of all of its old churches, built in the 18th century.  They are made only out of wood, no nails, even and many are being restored today.  We went to see the large one on the plaza at Castro, and then, as a highlight, we got to attend a church service in another very old church in Ancud.

Part of the Cathedral at Castro

The service was very beautiful and extra special because it included Paulina's cousin's engagement!  In Chile, when a couple decides to get engaged, they have a part in a church service.  Both the man and woman wear an engagement ring, a thin gold band which is worn on the ring finger of you right hand, and switched over to the left with a thicker gold band on their wedding day.  They exchange engagement rings in front of the whole church and promise to their fiancee that they are reserved just for that person.  How beautiful!  I also really enjoyed the pastor's message about the church being the bride of Christ and being pure for him on the day of his return.

A Picture from the Engagement Ceremony

Well, they say that Chiloé there is a lot of mythology and there are many famous characters that get blamed for many mysterious things.  I for one, only have an outsider's view, but I can say that something was afoot while we were in Chiloé.  I'll stick to calling it irony, but while we were anticipating the engagement ceremony, my Aunt Becca (the one that moved to Alaska) was getting engaged herself!  It was a very happy day for both the Chilean family that we're staying with and for us!  It was also really neat, then when we exchanged engagement customs and stories over this Valentine's Day breakfast.