shinning HIS light.

I didn’t know what darkness was until I got here.

We are called to be the light of the world. By following Christ and living for Him, we are able to be an example to the world, and because of that other are able to see Him.

He shines through us, and penetrates the darkness.

I always understood the concept, but it was never real.

Like as a Christian you have head knowledge but must also have the heart knowledge.

That’s what I knew about that passage. I knew the facts, that it was important, but had never experienced the comparison that Jesus used to make His example real and applicable, because I grew up with electricity.

Here, a lot of the time the electricity is out, or goes out for a while.

There has not been a week yet that we have had electricity for the whole week.

Thankfully we have a generator, so when work needs to get done, we can use it.

But it’s not always on.

One time we had just sat down to dinner. And it starts getting dark at about 6-ish. So since we were eating late, it was already dark outside.

Well, that’s when it happened. The power went out.

Totally darkness.

I can’t even explain it.

For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to be in the darkness.

I looked around, strained my eyes. 

To see anything or anyone.

Someone’s face, next to me, only a foot away.

An electronic device of some kind.

Moon light or any other light outside, but there was nothing.

I was seeking for the light and couldn’t find it.

Thankfully there is always a light in the darkness because God is always present in any situation.

Many times since then I have been able to see the different that one candle makes in a room drenched in darkness.

I'm so grateful that I'm not alone in this darkness and that Jesus rescued me from it, so that I don’t have to be apart of it or be afraid of it anymore!

Mother Teresa

I want to be the next Mother Teresa.

Here’s why.

So yesterday was an adventure.

I went with my friend Corey to visit a Christian High school where our friend teaches English.

Of course the whole time we were trying to figure out how to leave at some point to go on an adventure to this awesome swimming hole with a place to cliff jump, or just go wandering. But then still be back in time to catch the bus back home with the kids so that we didn’t have to pay to take the other bus.

So…

Once we were pointed in the right direction, we took off.

After finding a pulperia and buying banana soda, cause the chick gave us that instead of what we wanted, we headed down through the village. EVERY village has a soccer field somewhere, even if is dirt, or slanted, or has a ton of rocks.

So we came to the town soccer field, that turned out to be one of the nicer ones, and surprisingly it had benches on one end.

And that’s when it happened.

One by one, as we were drinking our banana soda in baggies with a straw, kids started coming over to us.

Corey was being his weird self, and started throwing things at the little boys, after he searched his backpack for enough gum for all of them.

Eventually it turned into showing them every trick he knew with leaves, rocks, bottle caps, or even an empty Pepsi bottle we found.

So when he killed that, I intervened with my awesome Spanish skills and saved them with a game of tag.

And if you know kids, then that quickly turns into several different games at once. Tag, picking up kids and spinning them, piggy back rides, and some soccer.

While we were playing I got to talk to a girl named Lillian. She was about 11 years old, and knew a tad bit of English.

When we had to leave, she asked if we could take a picture so that I would remember her.

I didn’t think I could make a impact like that on a girl in less than a hour. It made me think about what I'm doing with my time. Am I using it wisely and are my conversations wholesome and what God would have me say.

So back to Mother Teresa.

I have this dream of backpacking the world and loving on kids and telling them about Christ’s love and the sacrifice He made for them, so that they could have life and have it abundantly.

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life. Because it was a taste of that. I was able to go on a walk/hike, if you want to call it that, and then I was spontaneously able to love on kids I didn’t even know. I had no one telling me what to do, where to go, like if I was in a group.

I was living life, and got to share my life with others by loving on them.

When your job is just to live life and share it with others, nothing can be better.