An unexpected gift.

Whew! It's been a while since I've written! I've been a little out of touch but I thought I would write to share with you how the holidays were for me!

My birthday and Christmas this year were unlike any other year... and not just because it was my first time spending them without my family. This was the first year in my life that I didn't receive any gifts. Material gifts, anyways.

I have a friend who lives in a town nearby and she has the same birthday as me, so the weekend of the 14th I went to spend with her and her family to celebrate. I ended up staying with them for SIXTEEN days! Ha! The family that I live with needed to go to Tucson and I didn't want to go so I stayed with my friend and her family. It was only supposed to be for a week, but ended up being a little over two. 

During my time with this family, I noticed something start to stir in my heart. At first I wasn't sure what it was. I was missing my family a lot, so I thought maybe I was just unsettled about not being able to see them for Christmas. But then, on the morning of my birthday, I realized that God had given me a new family. These people had taken me in as their own. They treated me like I was their own daughter/sister. They showed me so much love while I was in their house. It was such an amazing experience that I wish I could fully put into words. 

One thing that I can tell you though, is that they are the best gift I have ever received. My heart felt so full just being in their presence every day. Sure, they are a lot different than my family, but that was the most beautiful part! I got to adopt new customs, learn more Spanish, and be embraced by a new family. I gained a new set of parents, two new brothers and a new sister. God is so good and I feel so blessed to have a family here that I can call my own.

Before I left their house, the mom gave me a big hug and said, "Te quiero mucho, Shelbi. Mucho, como mi hija." Which means, "I love you so much, Shelbi. So much, like my own daughter."

Some exciting news! My mom is on her way here! It has been quite the ordeal. Her flight was delayed, then cancelled, she had to get a hotel and now her flight is finally scheduled to leave tonight! She is going to have to take the bus through Mexico alone so that should be interesting. Prayers are apprecitaed!

I hope the holidays treated you well and you were able to spend some time with family and friends. God bless you all and have a happy new year!

Me and Eunice on our birthday! 

Me and Robert on Christmas!

Me, Eunice and Pa on Christmas!

FOUR

Four months.

Technically 18 weeks.

Technically 127 days.

Four months since I've driven a car where there are street lights.

Four months since I've seen a familiar face.

Four months since I've worshipped communally in English.

Four months since I've gone more than a day without eating tortillas.

Four months since I've hugged my nephew.

Four months since I stepped onto that plane and my life changed forever.

Four months since I've drank water from a faucet.

Four months that God has been growing me more than I ever thought possible.

Four months that I've gotten to live life with a new family that will be family forever.

Four months that I've been blessed to make new friends.

Four months that I've been learning a different language.

Four months that have brought new challenges everyday.

Four months that I have gotten to watch friendships strengthen from afar.

Four months that I have seen so much change in myself, it's amazing.

It seems like I got here yesterday...

But at the same time...

It feels like I've been here for a year...

So deeply grateful for every single second of this journey.

On a lighter note, I spent the anniversary of my four months in Hermosillo, the capital of the state we live in. It was so fun! Daisy and I went to see "Catching Fire" VIP! I swear, I was like a little kid in an amusement park! Leather recliners, waiters who come take your order... It felt like we were the only ones there! And VIP seats were the same price as regular seats in the States! 

We walked around downtown and looked at different shops. There was one called "Cuidado con el Perro" which means "beware of the dog". It was so funny because all the manikins were DOGS!!! I had to take a pic, obviously. 

I saw some interesting stores at the mall. One was called "Aerocrombie". They can't use the same names as the stores in the US so they just decided to combine two names I guess, haha! Also, I needed a new iPhone charger so we went to what is like an Apple Store, but it's actually a reseller called iShop. It was cool being in a mall that was so different! 

Being from Washington, I had to make a stop at Starbucks! I bought a Mexico mug as a souvenir and got to drink from a holiday cup! I didn't think I would get to this year! It's the little things! ;) Kinda funny how I went from living in the state that Starbucks originated in, to living in a state that only has three in its entirety. 

I want to say thank you again to everyone who has supported me financially and prayerfully thoughout this journey. I can feel the love everyday and I am eternally grateful. None of this would be possible without you guys. 

I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving!

A silly little dream.

It being the holiday season, I find myself missing home just a little bit more. I am a little anxious about missing Thanksgiving and Christmas, neither of which are celebrated here, and having my first birthday away from home. Luckily, my mom gets to visit just two days after Christmas!

Anyways, last night I had a dream about one of my favorite holiday traditions... the Life Center Annual Carol Sing! I haven't missed one of these since I was six or seven years old. If you've ever been to this event, you know that it is tradition to sing The Twelve Days of Christmas. The whole church participates in taking turns acting out each number as it is sang. So, one section of the church acts out the partridge in a pear tree, another section acts out the two turtle doves, and so on.  The Jr. High, High School and College students are always the five golden rings! Therefore, I have been a five golden ring for the last ten years! Pastor Joe always calls twelve people up on stage to lead each section in their number. There are a few people who go up every year, but others that are picked at random by our pastor, Joe Wittwer. I have ALWAYS wanted to be chosen to lead the five golden rings!

So, last night I had a dream that I came home solely for the carol sing at Life Center. In my dream, I was holding a baby, probably about 6 months old. I didn't know whose baby it was or even how I ended up holding it. The time came to sing The Twelve Days of Christmas and I was ecstatic. Even more so when Pastor Joe called my name to lead the five golden rings! But I still had this baby in my arms and I didn't know where the mother was... so I just took the baby up with me! I didn't know what else to do!

So there I was! Ready to go! When all of the sudden, I  started smelling poop... then I realized that there was poop on my arm! Baby poop! I was disgusted! I started dry heaving as if I was going to throw up! Apparently, Pastor Joe was just as disgusted! He asked me to exit the stage to clean everything up and go to the bathroom in case I was going to actually vomit.

NOOOOOOO! Just as quickly as my dream was given to me, it was ripped out of my arms! I was devastated! I hope that this dream never comes true! Well, at least not the baby part! :)

Aren't dreams so weird sometimes?!

I wanna talk about thankfulness.

Around this time every year people start counting their blessings. I'm sure your Facebook news feed is full of your friends sharing what they are thankful for. It is the season of thanksgiving.

Everyone is posting about how they are thankful for family, friends, God, church, jobs, a house, even daylight savings for crying out loud. I'm not particularly fond of posting different things everyday, but this weekend I experienced something that made me grateful for things that I don't usually think of thanking God for. 

I stayed with a family from our church who live about twenty minutes away in a town called Bacerac.  It is a husband, wife, daughter and son. Their kids are fourteen and seven. The fourteen year old daughter, Eunice, speaks English very well, which made the weekend a lot easier, haha. They all share one bedroom with three beds, so when I stayed with them, I just stayed in the same room. 

We were playing cards on Friday night and I was looking around the kitchen and realized they didn't have a sink. I said, "Wait... You guys don't have a sink?" They said no and I asked how they wash dishes. They told me that they use big bowls and get water from outside. I thought, "Huh, well thats different, but ok."

We kept chatting and playing games and before bed I went to wash my face, brush my teeth, etc. Eunice came in and told me that she had to bring water in from outside for me to use. This is when I realized that not only did they not have a sink, but they didn't have running water in their entire house. They get all of their water from a hose outside and for showers they heat it up on their wood stove that you literally have to light a fire to use. To brush their teeth they put water in a cup and use it little by little.  To flush the toilet they have to dump a big bucket of water down the toilet so the pressure will make it go down. They pretty much only flush the toilet when they go number two so they don't have to keep getting water all the time. Oh, and you don't put toilet paper in the toilet... it goes in the trash can next to the toilet. No matter what. You may think that sounds disgusting, but to them its just normal life.

These are everyday things that I don't even think twice about doing, and it made me think... Do I ever stop to be thankful for things like this? For the ability to have a hot shower whenever I want? That I can flush the toilet without having to go outside in the sometimes freezing cold weather to get water? That I don't have to take the time to make a fire whenever I want to cook and keep checking back to make sure it is still lit? That I don't have to share my room with anyone, let alone three other people? I don't think I have ever thanked God for anything like this. Until now.

This weekend was such a great experience. It made me reevaluate my view of thankfulness and what I should be thankful for. I'm not saying we shouldn't be thankful for an extra hour of sleep, but shouldn't we also be thankful for our bed? Our pillow? Our blankets? 

Here are a few photos to give you a better idea...

The bedroom where the entire family sleeps. 

Heating water above the wood stove.

Me and Eunice before we went to a Quiceñera for one of her friends.

What a humbling experience it was. I hope this thanksgiving season opens your eyes to the things you may be taking for granted and that God teaches you new things to be thankful for. There are people all over the world who live on way less than most of us.

Happy holidays, friends!

Chosen.

Do you ever feel like you're not enough?
Like you are running in a circle searching for your purpose?
Like you thought you were in God's will but you feel like you've let people down?

If I am completely honest....
This could describe me lately.

I have been living in Mexico for a little over three months now (crazy, right?) and sometimes I feel as though I have accomplished nothing. Sometimes I don't feel like a missionary. What is the definition of a missionary, anyways? Sometimes I feel like maybe more was expected of me, and I turned out to be this mistake.

We've all felt like this before, right?
Maybe for you it has happened at work. You had a huge task to accomplish and the results just didn't turn out how you thought they would.
Maybe it was with your family. You said something wrong to a spouse, child, or sibling and the rest is history.
Maybe it was in your ministry. You thought God was leading you in a certain direction and all of a sudden things seemed to be spinning out of control.

There are so many different situations, but they all have one thing in common... they leave us feeling worthless.

I was talking to a friend today who has been having similar feelings. The Holy Spirit nudged me to go read a blog that I usually keep up on, but haven't recently. The entry is titled, "When you're pretty sure you are a dissapointment." It is written by Kari Patterson. In it, she explained having had feelings like these and I thought, "Wow! This perfectly describes how I have been feeling!"

As I kept reading, Kari went on to explain that these feelings that we have, these painful, raw, and very real feelings, make it so that we see the gospel. The ravaging love that revolutionizes our souls, she says.

The gospel doesn't tell us that we are worthless, purposeless, and a mistake. In fact, it tells us the exact opposite! It tells us that we are CHOSEN!

Matthew 22:14

"For many are called, but few are chosen."

Romans 8:29

"For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them..."

1 Thessalonians 1:4

"For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you..."

2 Thessalonians 2:13

"...because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth."

These are just a few of many verses in the bible that talk about how God has chosen us. What a beautiful thing that is! And if God, the creator of the universe and everything in it, decided to chose me, should I feel anything less than enamored? In awe? Grateful? Confident? Intentional?

I think not.

Now, I know that realistically I will feel down and out sometime again in my life, but I hope that in those times, God brings me back to this place. A place of remembrance and peace. Because, friends, what he did on the cross is what defines us. Remember and find peace in that. 

You are worth loving. You are enough. You are loved.

You are chosen.

If you want to read the blog by Kari Patterson, you can do so by visiting www.karipatterson.com.

Time.

James 4:14

"What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."

I read this passage during my PBJ (prayer, bible, journal) time on October 1st. Although this isn't what I journaled on that day, I felt prompted to just write it down. 

Over the last few weeks my brain has been flooded with thoughts on this concept of time.

What is time? 

I have been living in Mexico for three months now. When I think about it, that sounds like quite a while, but at the same time, it feels like I just got here yesterday. Lately, I have been struck with the thought of how soon I am leaving. I still have quite a bit of time left here, but I know that it is going to fly by. The first three months went by so incredibly fast, so I know the next few will be the same, especially with the holidays approaching.

In the past two weeks God has continually brought this reality to my attention... you are a mist. When we are driving down the road, the thought pops into my head. When I am teaching my students, walking to the store, going to bed at night, playing with the kids I live with, reading my bible... you are a mist. 

Time is so precious. I would be lying if I said I haven't taken some of my time here for granted. We all do it. I think it's a part of our human nature. We can all think back to certain memories that we wish would last forever. There are special moments in our lives that we never want to end. There are also moments in our lives that we wish we could forget forever. Things we would do anything to take back. It is all a part of time. 

The bible talks about time in Ecclesiastes 3. Verse one says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven." It goes on to say that there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to seek and a time to lose, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, etc, etc. 

There is a time for everything. The good and the bad. The happy and the sad. The fun and the boring. The exciting and the dull. The joy and the pain. EVERYTHING. Knowing this reality, you'd think we ought to make the most of all of our time here on this earth. 

In the grand scheme of things, our lives really are a mist. We are only on this earth for such a short time. I think that God has put all of this on my heart to show me that these next few months are precious. Every single moment of them. And I can't take them for granted. I need to thank God for every moment that I have left here, no matter what it brings. 

What times are you taking for granted? I encourage you to pray and ask God to reveal to you how you value this crazy concept of time. I also encourage you to savor every single second of life, because before we know it, it will all be over. 

My last thought...
How cool is it that for those of us who have our hope in Christ, time will never end. We are living for eternity. And someday that time will be perfect. Forever and always.

A different kind of brokenness.

Those of us who go to church have definitely heard the song Hosanna. The bridge of it says, "Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your kingdom's cause." I don't know if my heart has every truly been broken by the things that break the heart of God until yesterday. This isn't a story of sad brokenness or mourning, but one of the kind of brokenness we experience when we are so overjoyed and humbled that our only reaction is to become completely undone before our Father.

A little background. When I was here last April I connected with one family in particular. We connected on a level that I didn't know was possible after only knowing someone for a week and not even speaking the same language. Their names are Carlos and Yaneli, and they have a two year old son named Carlitos (little Carlos). They are in their mid-twenties and have been Christians for about a year.

Last Friday we had a church service in San Miguel, a town about 45 minutes from Huachinera. This is where Carlos and Yaneli live. After the service, Yaneli asked me if I wanted to come to her house. I was a little confused because it was out of nowhere and I didn't know why she wanted me to come over. We all ride in a large van to the services in other cities, so I was also wondering how I would get home. She said I could stay until Sunday and ride back after church. Now I was wondering why she wanted me to come for three days! In the U.S. we don't just invite someone to stay at our house for three days when they have a house of their own. I asked Heidi about it and she said it is custom here. When a missionary visits it is common for some people to invite them to stay with them. It might be because they want prayer or an encouraging word, or because they want to serve you by letting you stay under their roof. After finding this out, I told Yaneli that I would love to stay. We agreed that she would talk to her husband and we would figure out a time that works for us!

Last night we had church in Bavispe, a town about 35 minutes from Huachinera. Carlos and Yaneli were there. After the service I asked Yaneli when I should plan on staying for the weekend. It wasn't even a second after I asked the question that I saw tears begin to form in her eyes. I was so confused! I thought, "Why is she crying? Wasn't she the one who asked me to stay? Does she not want me to anymore?" I asked her what was wrong and she told me that they only have one bedroom at their house with one bed. After that, she was crying so much that I could't understand what she was saying. She asked if we could find Heidi to translate what she wanted to say. My heart was surely not prepared for what happened next.

In tears, she told Heidi what she wanted to say to me. She said that they only have one bedroom with one bed, but that they borrowed a bed from someone so that I could stay with them. She told Heidi that the house that they live in is not theirs, that someone is loaning it to them because they can't afford a house right now. She was crying because she was so embarrassed about all of it but at the end she said, "But we want you to come because we love you and our home is your home."

Emotions flooded my heart and soul. I was completely broken. I was broken by the fact that they would borrow a bed for me. That is so far out of their way. I was broken by the transparency in her words. I was broken by the fact that she would look beyond her embarrassment and invite me into her home, which she said was my home too. I told her that I don't care what the condition of her house is, that I am so incredibly honored to even be invited to stay with them.

I began crying as well. Why? Because I have never experienced anything like this. I don't know her or her family very well at all, but the amount of love in my heart for them is indescribable. I didn't know that it was possible to feel this way. I'm sitting here in tears just writing about it.

I imagine that this is how Jesus felt about Yaneli in that moment. I imagine him to be overjoyed that she would set aside her own worries and cares to invite a sister in Christ into her home. I bet he had the biggest smile on his face when he heard her say that her home is my home. I imagine him to feel completely undone at the sight of her love for him.

I don't know if this whole thing makes any sense at all... maybe it is something you can only understand if you have experienced it. I'm not sure. All I know is that I am beyond grateful for each day here and for all the God is revealing to me through his body of believers in Mexico.

A photo taken of me with Carlos, Yaneli and Carlitos a few weeks ago. I cannot wait to spend a weekend with this family!