Where has time gone?

That is a good question. Where has time gone? It's been over a month since I returned to Michigan abruptly. I feel I've come up for air once and a while. Actually I am very much enjoying being home where honestly life is quite a bit easier. I have the luxury of a car and smooth sailing high ways so I cruise them almost daily to go see friends in close by cities. Let's be honest. Shouldn't I just live in Grand Rapids? Maybe someday I will again. Who knows? So I spend most mornings teaching exiting 3rd graders at summer school and then I spend Monday evenings playing soccer on a women's league and other evenings playing frisbee, riding bikes, rollerblading, comedy club, visiting with friends, and movies. I love life!

It is a little ironic that I have two homes and in ways two lives. I feel like I have split personality disorder or something. I live in two different countries. I am able to speak another language that I really don't think my family members have actually heard me have a conversation in. I have friends that many of my loved ones on both ends will never meet each other. But I love my life. Disconnected at times...yes. Not understand by some....yes. I love it. I try not to love one more than another and that's difficult. Yes many things are easier here. Things are just so different in Honduras and I think that's what makes it so exciting.

I'll enjoy a car at my disposal, being able to cheaply communicate via cellphone for now, use a vacuum once and a while, enjoy traveling with ease, having my independence and enjoying my invisibility by others for now, and enjoy having some friends and family close by. :) I'm thankful.

On a side note, while I'm here state side, I wanted to share something with you all that I was struck by while in Honduras. Have you ever been a foreigner before? Have you ever left the United States before, gone to place where you were different, didn't understand everything, and maybe were looked at differently because people didn't understand what you were saying and assumed you were talking about them or thought you just plain looked or dressed differently. It can be uncomfortable. At times in Honduras, I face this daily. There, I'm a gringa (white girl). I get hollered at on the streets, sometimes treated like I'm an idiot and don't understand things, and many times try to get taken advantage of financially because I'm white. However, those experiences make me appreciate the flip side so much more. There are so many people who have befriended me from school, church, and dance and many people who have opened their homes to me, invited me to dinner, and wanted to go to great extremes to make sure I'm comfortable. This is an experience to learn from. I do not present this in a pointing-finger attitude. I invite you to do self-reflection as to whether you can learn from this verse as I know I have. Learning to comfort others while in foreign lands or comforting those who are foreigners here in my home land of the USA. Do I take the stance toward Latinos of saying build a wall and keep them out or do I remember that Christ died for them too and loves them also?

Reflect on this verse with me:
“When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the stranger. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you. You shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:33-34)

Unless you are Native American, we all came over from foreign land at some point in history. What are we doing to make our strangers here not feel so estranged? Are we helping the problem or causing the problem? Think about putting yourself in their shoes especially if you never have before.