"Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead..."

What a crazy week this has been! Let me start off by telling you a few funny stories.

Before coming here, I never quite understood the importance of accent marks in Spanish. I thought they were more hassle than necessary. However, last week I learned why they are so incredibly important! All of my Spanish career I have always said “mama” (mom) and “papa” (dad). Last week I used both of those words in class and my teacher quickly stopped me and asked me to repeat what I had said. After doing so she informed me that mom is actually “mamá” and dad is actually “papá”. Without accentuating the accents they mean completely different words. Papa, instead of papá, means potato and mama instead of mamá means…. Breast!!! All of my life I have been saying breast when I thought I was saying mom!! How embarrassing is that!? My teacher informed me that pronunciation is the thing I need to work on the most at this moment (and rightly so!).

Next embarrassing story: the Spanish words for games, “juegos”, and eggs, “huevos”, sound very similar. Let me share with you a conversation that I had with my host dad, but first let me preference by saying that I have a very difficult time understanding him. He was a smoker for most of his life (I believe he is now in his 50-60’s) so his raspy smokers voice coupled with his very rapid speech makes him difficult to follow sometimes! We were at my host brother’s birthday party and Willy said to me (I’ll just write this in English)
Willie: “Do you want to help the kids with the “juegos” (games)?”
Me (I thought he said huevos so I assumed I must have heard the question wrong…): “Umm, no, I don’t want to eat eggs…”
Willy (at this point he must have thought that I said juegos instead of huevos): “Why not?!”
Me: “Umm… because I’m not hungry… and besides, I don’t even see any eggs…”

Willy: “NO Juegos, not huevos! Do you want to help the kids with the juegos?”

Me: “Hahaha…. Oh yeah… sure!”

Now on to embarrassing story number 3 (my blondness seems to only be worse in Spanish!)… I was sitting in my room working on homework when Willy called up the stairs to me. I wasn’t fully listening since I was in the middle of doing homework. When I didn’t respond he came up to my room and repeated himself. For some reason, I still could not understand what he was saying. I knew he was asking me a question and I heard something about going somewhere. So I assumed that he was asking me if I wanted to go somewhere with him and Celsy. So I asked him, “¿Donde vamos?” (where are we going?) to which he spouted something very quickly and then asked “¿Vas?” (are you going?). So I said - sure! He then went down the stairs and said “Ok, bueno. Voy a decir Celsy” (Ok, good I will go tell Celsy). So I put my homework away, packed up my purse, put some shoes on and headed downstairs – ready to go. I get downstairs and he says: “¿Oh, vas a ahora? (oh, you are going now?). And at this point I’m very confused, which he could obviously tell as he said: what, you don’t understand?
Me: No… where are we going?.
Willy: I don’t know.
So then he heads outside and I follow him – even more confused. He starts unlocking the gate and then motions for me to go out. Celsy and her neighbor were standing there as well.
Celsy says: Oh, where are you going?
Me: Ummm… I don’t know. Where are you guys going?.
Them: Are you going with your friends tonight?
Me: umm… I’m not going anywhere…. I’m going with you guys??
At this point I have NO IDEA what is going on!
Then Willy finally realized what was going on and they all started laughing hysterically. Willy then explained that earlier he had asked me if I was going anywhere, because if I were, then he would leave the gates unlocked. I thought he had asked if I wanted to go with them to who-knows-where. What a big misunderstanding! And now I was standing in front of them all ready to go nowhere – and they (including the neighbor) where laughing hysterically and saying: “¡Pobracita!” (poor thing!) Over and over… I was pretty humiliated, but so much so that I just started laughing with them. It was a pretty funny situation! Later I heard them come back into the house and they were still talking about it. Once blond, always blond I guess!

I am four days into week number three and already God has been showing me so much. The beginning of the week started out pretty rough. Sunday I went to my host brother’s birthday party. Although it was fun, it was almost an all day event, which meant lots of Spanish! I came home emotionally exhausted, which triggered a meltdown. I had hit my wall. I didn’t want to hear another word in Spanish – all I wanted to do was quit. I was sick of everything. All the things that I found intriguing the first few weeks suddenly became a source of pain and annoyance and a reminder of how much I missed my life before coming here. Absolutely nothing was the same anymore and I was so tired of the change. I was sick of poodles and parrots that make noise all night, not being able to flush toilet paper, strange food, only being able to go outside alone when necessary, not being able to run outside, strange men, the list goes on! Basically, I was allowing myself to wallow in self-pity and doing a very good job of it! This continued through the next day. On Monday I was very emotional – fighting back tears all day. The loneliness and ache of missing my family and everything that I was accustomed to seemed to physically hurt. The realization that this was not some three-week mission trip but was in fact the beginning of a six-month journey made me feel sick. Why was I here? How did I get here? I don’t even know for sure what I am doing with my life and if/how I will use Spanish – a fact that the devil has constantly been using to discourage me. And the worst part was that despite my hours spent praying and in the word – I felt far from God. I know that our relationship with God is not based on feelings. Sometimes we don’t feel close to God – but that doesn’t always mean that He isn’t with us or that we are any less close to Him. All day I kept an ongoing conversation with God, claiming the truths in His word and surrendering all of the negative feelings that I was having.

God’s mercies truly are new every morning because Tuesday I woke-up feeling like a new person and that the world was a much brighter place. That morning I went to chapel and the message was exactly what I needed to hear! A missionary from Peru is here all week for what is called “Spiritual Emphasis Week”. That morning He spoke about Philippians 3 and this is the part that stood out to me the most:

Philippians 3:12-4:1
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

“…Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…” – I needed to let go of all the things I was holding onto. I was making comparisons between the way things are here versus the way I miss them being in the U.S. I suddenly accepted the fact that my life is a journey and what is in the past stays in the past! Right now, God has me here in Costa Rica learning Spanish. And the Goal is the upper call in Christ Jesus. Everything that I do should glorify God. Right now, God has given me the task of learning Spanish. Somehow, this is going to bring glory to Him. That’s my reason for being here – that’s my reason for doing this. No, I don’t know how He is going to use it someday. All I need to know for today is that this is what He has called me to for right now and I need to do it for His glory. Sometimes I wish that I could just have a “normal life”. In the past several years I’ve gone through several trails with my family. Even now there are many things about my life that are different than what I always expected them to be. I can sometimes resent the circumstances and tasks that God has given me. His word says:

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

If our lives here on earth are actually spiritual races and we only have one chance – I don’t want to be disqualified. Do I want to live a comfortable life, or do I want to win the prize – to get to heaven someday and hear God say to me “Well done my good and faithful servant”? I want to win the prize! Since Tuesday when God gave me these reminders, I have loved it here! I know that more days of discouragement are likely on my calendar, but when they come, I’ll just cling even harder to God’s promises and continue to trust in Him and to choose joy. I’m so thankful that when I don’t have all the answers (which is pretty much always) God does! He is taking care of my life and I just get to enjoy each day! Pura Vida amigos!