...you're not finished with me yet, and I am so excited about that... Growth is challenging and beautiful.
I have learned countless lessons here, and I haven't yet had time to process them all. My world has been turned upside down and inside out. It was scary at first, and now I think it is kinda fun, and totally refreshing. My priorities in life have been shaken up and put before me to reorganize. I think that many people are in need of an opportunity to press pause, and reorganize. In America our lives move at such a pace, that we rarely stop and check our priorities. If we did, I think we would realize that we overvalue the things in life that have no real return, and we undervalue the things that would truly make us happy.
I heard an interesting sermon on my podcast today. The pastor said that our days are upside down. We give everything we have to our day: our jobs, our errands, our to-do lists. Then we we come home, we keep running around at the same pace until, eventually, we collapse. His suggestion was a simple change of focus. If your day started with the evening; with your family, with your reading, with your downtime, with rest....how much better would you feel? Imagine if our priorities shifted. Lets give everything we have to our families, human relationships, and our time in the Word. The returns will be immense. Feeling refreshed we can then be more efficient at work, completing our jobs and going home to begin our evenings with our loved ones. The question that struck me.. "Nearly every one plans out their day, but how many of you plan out your evenings? How many of you prioritize your family and loved ones in your evening time?" We get fast food, and then go numb in front of the television screen. We can't let go of the stress of our daytime jobs. And we wonder why we are so tired and stressed all the time.
Those are just thoughts and reflections on something I heard this week relating to priorities. I think, as a culture, we are seriously turned around. We are over-worked, and we are giving all we have in the wrong portion of our lives. Kids need more attention, they are craving it. Families need more unity. Our society needs more real time. real compassion. more investment in the part that really matters. Our souls need that investment. That is my Rx for a better society. It starts in the heart. It starts at home. It starts with priorities.
ANYWAYS. soak it up people :) Chelsea's random and semi-edited blog rants. If you're still with me...
I love my life. Completely. I feel blessed every single day. Now, that does not mean that everything is hunkey-dorey (as my mom would say) at all moments of the day, but I am learning to go with the flow. I turned in my first grant proposal this week. Grant writing is the most challenging thing I have done, outside of my language adaptation. I tried to start early, but somehow I was still up until 2am the night before it was due with a large pot of coffee. I had a strange feeling that I was back in college working on a very important position paper for Model UN. Thank you MUN for teaching me to think clearly and organize convincing arguments at 2am. Hopefully all of that hard work pays off. If I don't win the grant, I will find the funding elsewhere, but it would be a huge blessing if I did.
My host family has a dog. He is black, so they named him Blacky. Blacky broke into my room two nights ago to sleep in the corner next to my guitar. Any time I am up late, he comes to lay next to my chair. He is my "vigilante" (security guard). My host my she was going to charge me an extra $5 for security. :) She was joking of course. I love that woman.
Update: I tried to lock him out last night, but he broke in again. I think I will just leave my door open from now on.
I fell down today. It has been raining for 4 days, and everything is wet. After months of the people in my community telling me "Cuidado Chelsea, está liso!" (Careful Chelsea, it's slippery!) I finally took a dive. I fell down the stairs in fron of my house, hitting my head on the pavement andtwisting my back and neck. I was really sore and went and laid down. Two hours later I woke up and my lower back really hurt. I overheard my host mom telling the story to the neighbor ladies, and they thought it was hysterical. So I am glad that my gringa antics can provide some entertainment for them. Later, my host mom came back from wandering around and told me that Don Tonio (neighbor) fell down too. He was holding his one year old and a bag of cheese he had just bought. His child went flying and he sat on the cheese. (Sidenote: the child is fine. So that story trumped mine. Afterall, I didn't sit on a pound of cheese. :)
I went to Nicaragua for a week. It was beautiful. I will never hike another volcano. And I had never been happier to see the El Salvador border, and come home. Ojo! (Alert): Rats in Nicaragua know how to open zippers on backpacks and steal clif bars. They will find them wherever they are. That is one thing I don't have in my house in El Salvador. After the rat-filled hostels in Nica, I was happy to be home with my toads.
A man was macheteed (?) on my bus two weeks ago. (Calm down, he is fine.) Everyone, of course was talking about the story for a few days. It turns out he was a random drunk from a few towns over and the guy who attacked him was either a gang member or had mental problems (still up in the air, but if he was both it wouldn't surprise me). I told my neighbor that I was worried that Chalatenango was getting more dangerous, to which he responded. "No Chelsea, el es bolo, fue personal, todo regular." I live in a country that if you are a drunk, and some one wants to cut you with a machete on a public bus, it is totally normal. HA. and I shouldn't worry.
Okay. Finishing up. I am coming home to visit! Yay! A nice thing about being placed in a semi-developed Central American country is that I can come home for Christmas. A big shout out to my mom, my dad, and my aunt Lydie for helping me with my ticket. I expect to see everyone. I expect to eat everything. And I will be taking very long, hot showers every day. The dates are Dec. 20 - Jan. 3rd. So schedule your time now, I have to submit the visitation proposals to my family for approval (joke). Also I don't have a vehicle and I am scared to drive after 11 months of not, so you people will be driving me around. :) Love you!
keep smiling and spread the love around.
chelsita
0 comments:
Post a Comment