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epiphanies in a mozambique marketplace
One of my favorite things about being in dark, rainy Mozambique last July was days where my ministry was to cook.
I mean that makes sense right? I love to cook. But cooking in Mozambique was no joke. To cook in Mozi meant spending 2 hours at the market haggling, bartering, trying not to smell all the meat, then coming back and chopping vegetables for more hours then I would like to admit. Then cooking for 19 people on a coal fire.
To cook in Mozambique made me feel super accomplished.
But that’s not why I loved it.
It was the trekking to the market normally in mud, sometimes in rain and buying from the same women I bought from every 3 or 4 days. It was just a moment to smile with them, talk in broken Portuguese/Spanish and try to find out how their day was going.
It was always a highlight to me. Something that always brought me joy.
And as I look back on my life in missions and of course just life in general it’s the talking to and encouraging of women that has been a streamline in my life. From women’s bible studies in Mexico when I was in high school, to talking to moms daily tn the preschool and church where I worked, to walking alongside my friends each day.
(four of the women I did life with this year and the ways God rocked and changed them)There’s something in me that’s always had a heart, even as a high school student for story, for hearing dreams, for seeing what people wanted to do with their lives. When I look at my circle of friends I’m amazed by the strong women that with whom God has surrounded me. My best friend Jess is a nurse and a mom of three. My forever roommate Leah works daily with autistic kids to better their lives. Kaytie and Lisa sit and hear stories of people who are hurting and help them through life as therapists. The list could go on.
I’ve always wondered what my place was within those strong women. What I was meant to do. How I fit. I worked as a preschool teacher for five years so I thought maybe what I was meant to do was enrich the lives of kiddos in that way. But then I realized something:
I wanted more.
This past year I spent time in 11 different countries doing life and doing ministry. But some of my sweetest times were those moments sitting across tables from women on my squad and hearing their story, hearing their life, hearing what God would have for them. I remember sitting across the table from my friend Chelsey at a coffee shop in Brasov, Romania as she told me her dreams and her call to move.
(Jo, Abby Tiff and I. 3 women who move and call me to move)I want to be apart of that. I want to forever be apart of others call to move.
While in South Africa last year, discussing dreams and heart story my squad coach Betsy asked me a question. Did I want to be in the classroom or build the school and run it.
(Fuji, Kacie and Jesse. 3 more women of movement that I team lead with in Swaziland)There are so many answers to that question. One being YES I love being in the classroom. I love literally being apart of the story that God is writing.
But I want to help YOU be in there. On the ground floor. Realizing what you want to do, where your story is and how you want to move.
We all have things in our stories that need to be heard. We all have hurts and pains and joys and happiness. All of these things combined are what makes us who we are. What leads us to move.
Maybe you are a full time mom who wants to group together other moms and have bible study or do yoga together.
Maybe you are single working female who just needs a community and want to find a way to make it intentional.
Maybe you just need someone to talk too.
That’s what Hope is a Verb is about. Empowering women. Realizing truth in story. A call to movement.
(Emily. A women I sat across many tables from all year)And that is why I am going to Spain.
To be equipped. To help people to movement.
To help myself to movement.
I may have sat across tables from so many different types of women, with different stories, with different hurts and different dreams. (All of the women pictures have changed my life. And the all have their own call to move)
And I’m finally realizing mine.
(Cassie and I were together every day last year. She’s going to change Uganda and the world)But I also know that I have parts of my story, parts of my heart I need to fully realize more. I need to place myself in an environment where that is possible.
And that is where G42 comes in.
A place to heal, to learn, to grow, to be surround by a community of people who are in their stories, with passions and hearts to move in the ways God is calling them.
I’d love for you to join me in this journey.
Here are a few ways:
- Subscribe to my blog and follow my heart. I try to post about once a week (hopefully more while I am in Spain). It’s a place where I lay down what I am learning, what I am going through. ( you can find my blog here: https://awindlikethis.wordpress.com )
- Join me in prayer. If I’ve learned ANYTHING from time on the mission field and just life in general it’s that we need to support one another in prayer. We need to rally behind one another and lift each other up.
- Last year in the midst of rainy Africa as I trailed around our host for the month, walking miles each day to visit widows, God spoke pretty clearly to me again about the fact that I truly needed to trust Him. That I wouldn’t be done raising support. I kind of hated that. But I tried to get out of it. But he didn’t relent. So I bow my head ask if you would consider joining me in the ground level of Hope is A Verb by contributing to my time in Spain. I have to raise 6300 for 6 months at G42 (covers all the things except a plane ticket which is already covered for me). If you have 10 dollars or 100 dollars every bit counts. Click here to donate to my support account.
- Ask me any question you want! Contact me below.
Thank you for reading and stopping into to my little space on the Internet. Thank you for blessing me and coming alongside in all of the things God has done, is doing and will continue to do in my life. Thank you for helping me apart of God’s call on my life to live nothing normal and everything Christ.
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sit down and open your mouth.
(this is just a glimpse into apart of my story that got me talking, a part of my story that showed me there is more out there. It’s a small piece in the puzzle of “hope is a verb” and my call to spain and to movement)
I’ll never forget the first time I sat in the little waiting room at my counselors office. We’d talk on the phone twice and he’d emailed me intake forms that I’d filled out the night before.
Needless to say I was scared.
Scared to sit in a tiny room with this man I didn’t know.
Scared to reveal the fact that I was falling apart. Scared to cry (which I didn’t do for weeks)
Scared to show my weakness.
I was scared to have someone I saw a semi regular basis (he was a preschool parent) see me. Like really see me.
It was scary to sit on the couch in this windowless office and answer questions no one had ever thought to ask me.
Questions about hurt, pain, joy, happiness.
I’d like to tell you it got easier with time.
I mean I guess it did.
But for me, talking about myself wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.
Can’t I just listen to your stuff?
Your problems?
I am so good at that.
I remember one week, a month or so into this therapy journey looking him straight in the face and telling him that I hated talking about myself. And that I felt that therapy was causing me to only talk about myself/think about myself.
And I detested it.
I remember him recrossing his legs and taking a moment. I’ll never forget the look on his face.
He then told me he thought I probably only thought about myself 10 or 20% of the time.
Yah, right.
I talked about myself ALL the time.
But of course as I went into that next week I noticed that he was right.
And it’s so funny. Because I could WRITE about myself so easily.
But I had no idea how to talk about myself, or what I was going through or how I felt. I was the purveyor of the “I don’t know” or the “I’m ok”
And now, 5 years to the week that I sat in that therapy office for the first time, I’ve gotten better. I’ve sat in more hours of therapy than I might like to admit, I went on this crazy, spiritual journey that demanded I be open and vulnerable.
I can talk about myself now. How I’m feeling.
But what I’ve noticed is sadly; I’m in the minority.
There are a lot of people who don’t even know where to start. We live in this short hand society where a sad face emoticon is put in place to mean 50 different emotions.
I’m not saying everyone needs to go to therapy and talk about their issues for 50 minutes a week but what I am saying is (to quote my friend Catherine Rosseli) we need to commit to opening up our mouths.
We need a person, a group, maybe even, yes a therapist, where we start to talk. Where we open our mouths and let our story flow.
I think we’d be amazing at what kind of people we could be come.
What kind of friendships we could have. What kind of relationships we could be in.
What kind of kids we could raise
If we only took time to find out what sad is, what happy is, what mad is, what excited is, what hurt is.
Like I said: It’s been 5 years since the first time I walked into that therapy room. (February 25th 2009 because I’m good with dates like that).
And yes, It never got completely easy to walk into that office. There were some months I only went once, others where I went every week.
I went and saw him after I came back from the race. And even after a year away it was still a little hard to sit on the couch. But that’s ok. I don’t think it will ever be completely easy to sit and talk about hurt or pain.
Because it is hurt and it is pain.
But if we can’t recognize the things that hurt us how are we supposed to recognize the places where we are truly happy?
(Because not everything can be solved with one of these 🙂 or one of these 😦 )
Step away from the shorthand and emoticons even for the moment. Sit down across from a friend at a coffee shop, pull up skype and call a friend across the country or even yes, sit on a couch in a therapist office.
Because, my friends, it’s so good for your soul.
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the one in which my heart goes “whoosh”
I just said probably one of the most ridiculous things via text that I had ever said in my life.
I said I wish I had taken less risk.
Meaning:
Maybe I should have just stayed a preschool teacher.
Not gone on the race.
I’d have more of career, maybe more stability, less dreams, more foundations.
I could be right now sitting in my apartment in Orange County.
Maybe having just gone shopping or something, anything that was Saturday normal.
But instead, I’m sitting outside on my old trampoline at my parents house.
Reading and also staring at my journal because if I’m being honest?
I’m kind of afraid to pour my thoughts into at the moment.
Because I’m terrified.
I’m scared of what people will think when I tell them.
I’m not ready to settle down and get a job.
God’s plans aren’t that for me right now.
I’ve actually been sitting on my hands for about a week out of terror.
Because I know what’s next.
I know that God has put a plan, a vision in my heart and a way to get there.
And it’s terrifying.
Because it doesn’t involve getting a “real job” right now.
It doesn’t involve staying in the states.
It doesn’t involve anything emotionally easy.
It involves more learning, more growing, more being stretched and torn apart.
It involves raising money
It involves pouring my heart out to try to help people understand the why.
It involves going to Spain for 6 month and being apart of a leadership community called G42.
Whoosh.
I remember that sound.
It’s the sound I made when I finally came out about the World Race last year.
It’s the sound of a release of emotions bottled up inside for so long that I honestly didn’t know what to do with them.
It’s a sound that holds my dreams and visions for getting and grasping onto the tools that will empowering me to help remind others that hope is a verb.
It’s the sound of someone who is choosing to allow herself to be launched without much to grasp on herself.
It the sound of someone who is choosing to not be afraid anymore of what others say.
And the sound of someone who can’t believe she even for a second regretted the one thing that changed her life for the good.
I’ll be talking more about G42 soon.
If you have questions, comments or want to learn ways you can partner with me, please let me know.
I just had to get this out there. Not be held down by fear or confusion, but choose to walk in the peace of mind that God has given me.
And for my friends, for those I love and cherish that I haven’t told about this: Please forgive me for letting the few naysayers and pessimistic people I have told get in the way of telling you, the ones who have always supported me and stood by me.
(and HERE is a video a short video with a glimpse into the heart of G42)
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Hope is a what?
I’ve been sitting on writing this blog for a few days.
I’ve actually been sitting on a lot of things for the past few days.
It’s amazing how a single email can stop you in your tracks and cause you to cower under your covers in a ball.
it wasn’t even a bad email
it was a GOOD email.
amazing actually.
But I’m not ready to talk about THAT yet.
Maybe Monday.
Moving along:
Last week in itself was HELL.
It was really hard.
It all started on last (not super bowl) Sunday night at my Grandma’s old house.
My Grandma passed away in February while I was in Peru on the race.
And it was really hard. I had to grieve in a whole new way that was unknown to me.
But now being back each time going over there (my uncle lives there now) is EXTREMELY hard.
I say holla, walk through the house, and go straight out the back door in to the orchards and cry. It’s the only time I really cry since being home.
So that’s how that week started.
And it kept getting darker and darker. Reentry is no joke my friends. Coming back from the most life-changing, horribly hard, joyful, best year of my life is like living constantly like the breath has just been knocked out of me.
I just wanted some happy. Something good.
Some hope.
And on then near the end of the week, I went to my new favorite coffee shop and sat to journal. And as I looked back on some sermon notes on grace I remembered when my teammate Lauren had me look up the word hope in the dictionary back in our tents in Cambodia. And I remember looking it up for her on my computer dictionary and reading it out loud. But I didn’t remember the definition. So I decided to look it up again.
Hope:
verb.
1.To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment
2. To have confidence; trust.
3. To look forward to with confidence or expectation.
Wait?
Hope is a VERB?
It’s an action word.
It’s a call to MOVE.
Mind blown.
seriously.
I don’t know why that hit me so hard.
Here I am with this dream in life to give others hope.
And it’s a verb.
And it was like all of sudden a bunch of things clicked into place.
I want to hear story.
I want to listen.
Help declare truth.
Help declare HOPE.
Help create movement.
Because we all need someone to listen, to speak life into us, to declare that the things we are hearing are not the truth and to cover those lies with truth. We need someone, anyone, besides to tell us that our dream, our lives and our hearts are worth pursuing
We need someone to remind of us hope.
To show us the reason to move forward.
And that’s my dream, my life and my heart.
To remind YOU of these things.
To walk by you as you go about whatever it is God has given you.
To battle with you, stand with you and remind you that HE is also there with you.
With us.
To remind you to keep moving.
I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I don’t know exactly how I am going to get there. (wherever that “there” is)
I don’t know if anyone even wants or needs that person who instills truth and helps instill movement to hope.
I think I might have found a place to do that and I am excited at the prospect of it (and also terrified.)
So yes, I am still having a hard time. I still need help finding joy, creating hope movement and making my happy. I still feel like I will be/am all alone in this desire.
But from what I’ve learned, when you feel as if you are standing alone in something
You’re not.
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if I’m being honest….(part 2)
I’d like to start this off with saying I’m not putting all the things out there that I discussed I would in part 1. I’m realizing the line between vulnerability and sacredness.
I think I’ve been putting off writing the second part of this blog because no doubt it’s a heck of lot more vulnerable and real than I think I really want to be.
But I do.
I want to be.
I want to put this ridiculous notion that is in my head on paper and then hopefully let it die.
In part one I mentioned a conversation with Catherine. My team leader, the person with whom I always ended up in a car with day one of ministry in a new country in a situation that could probably be clarified as stranger danger.
And above all, Catherine is an amazing friend of mine.
I wish I could remember where we had the conversation, what country, what month…a lot of me wants to assume it as in Romania…
(This is all just me procrastinating actually writing about the conversation)
Anyways…I made an offhand remark about not getting married, not wanting to have kids etc.
I put my wall up and leaned on it like I always do.
Cat took a sledgehammer from the other side, put a wall and peeked over.
She wondered if I didn’t want kids because I didn’t think I’d ever get married.
Gosh thanks Catherine.
If I’m being honest…yes that is probably a part of it. I am fearful I am never going to get married.
Never going to be wanted in that way.
deep breath
And it’s not just me.
I’m never the girl people assume is going to get married.
No one ever assumes that I WANT to get married.
No one ever set me up (or attempts too)
I’m rarely told “you’re man is coming”
And yes, it could be how I look.
It could be that I have a nasally voice.
It could be that I’m shy.
I don’t know why I’m stuck in this category for a lot of people.
My hands are shaking as I write out the hurt I felt each time this situations popped up. Because each time my name wasn’t brought into a conversation about future weddings and husbands and kids…
Ugh.
And I’m not blaming, I’m not accusing.
I’m just saying it hurt.
And at the time I didn’t have the words or the emotional capability to form the sentences to say that it hurt.
I look at life a little different now and I can see it hurt and it probably ingrained itself deep into me.
And yes, there are probably multiple defensives etc. that I put out that cause people to think
“oh that girl just doesn’t want to get married”
And maybe it’s because I don’t.
And maybe it’s because I don’t think I’m good enough.
Maybe it’s because marriage isn’t in my DNA.
I don’t really know.
And that’s ok.
So this isn’t a huge revelation or something that comes from Jesus.
But it’s me.
Recognizing hurt, hearing my heart, choosing not to get
caught up in something that I might not ever want to get
caught up and also making the decision
to keep things sacred in my heart.
Thanks for reading.
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If I’m being honest..(Part one)
OR
The more aptly named:
I am almost out of my twenties and I have NEVER written a blog on marriage (part one)
I’m actually insanely proud of myself.
I went through the entire World Race without ever writing a blog on singleness, relationships or marriage. (Also: Team Leader, I didn’t break your rule…)
Not that it surprises me at all.
I don’t know if I have ever written a blog on any of those topics.
Not saying that I don’t enjoy reading them or get something out of them. I’ve read a few this week and of course that’s why the subject is in my head.
I just wanted to finally come out and say it.
I don’t know if I want to get married.
There
It’s a weird sentence to type knowing that I am going to publish it online for all the world (or at least the 5 people that subscribe to my blog thus far) to read.
I know what you’re going to say:
Of course you want to get married.
You’re just saying that because you haven’t
found the right guy.
You must just be bitter.
There’s a guy out there for everyone.
Or
(and I cringe)
Maybe singleness is what God has called you too.
Oh lord.
Or if you’re my friend Catherine you call me OUT on the statement.
But Catherine’s not here right now.
So I want to explain.
I think as a child, I probably played wedding once or twice, forcing the little boy across the street to marry me in my grandma’s front yard while I held a bouquet of fall leaves and marched down the perfect sidewalk aisle.
But I don’t think I’ve ever planned MY wedding.
Yes, pinterest gives me grand ideas that I think are cute.
Yes I have a wedding board.
Yes, I’ve been in, planned and coordinator more weddings then I care to admit.
Yes I always just say I am going to elope.
But do I know FOR SURE that I want to get married?
I just don’t know.
There are so many reasons that float in my brain as to WHY I think I might not want to get married.
I remember a moment a couple years ago, I was discussing potential ideas for ministries, for things I wanted to do. And I the thought crossed my brain…oh I need to get married for that. It caused me to stop in my tracks…
I don’t need to wait. I can just do.
I don’t need marriage to live my life for Christ.
I’m actually thankful that I’m not saying I don’t want to get married out of spite of marriage.
Most of my FAVORITE people in life are married couples (I’m looking at you Peck’s, Garmon’s, Sherman’s, Wayman’s,…and SO MANY OTHERS).
I love these kingdom people so much. I respect their relationships and what they do together for God.
But I just don’t know right now if that is what God has for me.
It’s not something burning passion inside of me that my friends have. I don’t pray for my husband regularly.
Yes, I have a somewhat list of things I might want in a husband. I’ve met men who fill some of those characteristics.
But nothing pushing me to press in or step in to that season in life.
And I don’t want to pretend or waste energy on heart space that I might need for something else.
It might be a trust thing (you can read about that here)
It might be that I just haven’t met the one.
But until God put’s it on my heart and mind, we’re just going to leave it alone.
Like I said, I just don’t know if I want to get married.
And that’s ok.
(and yes…this says part one. I’m basically setting the stage right now. Part 2: Catherine’s smack down, the one guy I thought I could have married and the topic of children.)
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Clean slate to dream
Whenever we came back for the second semester in college my friend Hosanna and I loved to go Target to get new school supplies. There was something gratifying in setting the scene for a new year. And it was better then the first semester because the target aisles weren’t filled with kids whining about going BACK to school. January was a bit more quiet and normally a Starbucks holiday drink could still be purchased for the shopping excursion.
And yes, we were kind of dorky. (we were also English Majors)
But I, without fail, always got the planner that our school bookstore sold because it had September to May (and in my head that made so much more sense). So when the new year came I didn’t need a new planner. Though, I must say, I love new planners. I really can’t get behind the whole technology planner thing. I need to actually pencil things in, cross them out, feel accomplished as I moved to a new week.
My planners in college were straight up crazy.
So even though I didn’t have a new planner when that semester started I had fresh notebooks, new books, new classes.
I had a clean slate.
And each year AFTER college seemed to be filled with more darkness then the one before and all I wanted was new. All I wanted was a fresh start. And when the year 2013 came around I got it.
I went on an adventure around the world. I held babies on 4 continents, heard stories of widows living in shacks in Mozambique, talked with women selling themselves on behalf of their family in the red light districts of Bangkok. I went on an adventure and found so much more of the joy in my life amidst the pain and hurt.
So now, once again, it’s a new year. And on new years day over a cup of coffee my friend Jolene’s roommate Sarah told me about “a clean slate to dream”. That the new year is a time to wipe the muck and grime off of the white board and start new. Start with a new dream. Believe in a new dream.
What a wonderful whimsical beginning to a year.
This year I have a new start in so many ways. I’m a new person with a new heart. New passion, new relationship with Christ. I have seen so many things, heard stories, felt stories and realized what actually is the heart of my story.
I’m writing the next part of my story. And I am going to write it here. A new page. A blank screen.
I have a clean slate to dream and a new desire to show up to my life.
Let’s see what happens.
To check out my adventures from 2013 click here
To find out more about me (or send me a message) click here
And to read more about a wind like this check this out
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she writes on sundays 