Friday, October 28, 2011

Lists

Wow...it's been almost 3 weeks since I posted! A lot has happened in those 3 weeks--midterms, break with my mom and aunt and a tough week back in San Jose.

I know this is a departure from my usual pictures and week summary, but I just wanted to share what's actually going on in my life. While break was just that--an awesome, refreshing time--it made it hard to come back here to San Jose. Due to a scheduling mix-up, I wound up having to leave Guanacaste a day before my mom and aunt, which upset me more than it probably should have. Being with my mom made it seem like I should be going home with her. Facing 6 more weeks of being away was hard. Even back in San Jose with my super sweet host family, I was feeling very alone. This week on the whole has been tough--we've had long field trips, long lectures and cold food (because the field trips went too long). I got sick on Thursday and felt under the weather today. Even being back together with my friends from the program, I've been feeling alone. The problem with living in the city without transportation is that it's hard to get together with friends--public transport is only safe until a certain hour, it's a bummer to go out in the rain and taxis can be expensive.

God's been using this alone time and hard week to teach me things though. At the beginning of the week, when i was really missing home and Duke, I read a post from my friend Bethany, who's in Ecuador.. You can check it out here if you want: Live In Joy. She's been having a rough semester too, but she decided to make lists of reasons to be joyful. I stole that idea and this week have been keeping a list of things that God says I am, based on what I read every morning. I just read through them tonight and went back to her blog post. So I thought I'd copy not only her title, but also make a few lists of my own.

Things I'm thankful for
1. Friends who are vulnerable and thus encouraging
2. My relationship with my mom--I'm privileged to have her as a a friend.
3. Great friends here who take care of me when I'm feeling under the weather.
4. A very sweet host mom who made me tea and fed me saltines last night.
5. Skype, gchat and itunes that let me talk to friends back home and keep up on Summit sermons.

God says I am:
1. Redeemed because of His great love (Ephesians 2:4)
2. Forgiven for His name's sake (1 John 2:12)
3. His child (1 John 3:1)
4. Heard by the Most High (Psalm 77)
5. The recipiennt of an imperishable undefiled and unfading inheritance (1 Peter 1)

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