Christianity isn't a responsibility. It's a response.

Playing in Mgwayi!

Our daily morning devotions in Malawi

Walking in Mgwayi Village

My last wednesday in Malawi

I was so excited I found this clip. I know it's delayed, but I've been feeling super nostalgic recently.

España (click for blog)

I'm leaving to study abroad in Spain in a week. Honestly, I don't want to go. I don't know why God said yes this time. And to be completely honest, I chose to go to Spain for shallow reasons, the cobblestone paved roads, the floral decorated houses, the beautiful architecture, tapas and wine, siesta, the idea of me being in a beautiful foreign country. I guess they're not completely shallow because all those are part of Spain's culture. But, having relived Malawi through recent photos, I'm almost disgusted, repelled by my reasons for going to Spain. I could have chosen any other country. Peru, Portugal, somewhere in South America, India, or Africa. Somewhere where I know help is needed and I'll be there to help.

But then I realized. Isn't it so much easier to serve and help others when they want to be helped? Isn't it so much easier to love a bunch of poor adorable orphans than it is people who validate their worth on so much of the world? Children have this trusting innocence and will let you in immediately. But as you grow older, and especially if you live a lifestyle of brokenness, you're bound to build walls upon walls. How do you get through that?

Is that why I don't want to go? Will it be too difficult for me to love these people because they bring up so much of my past?

Or is it because I'm a person who's vastly interested in different cultures and I easily adapt and connect with others because I'm not afraid to do as they do? To eat their food, speak their language, walk in their shoes, breathe their air, and live their lifestyles. Am I afraid that I'll be influenced not because I want to fit in, but because I feel that to truly connect with people is to experience what they experience?

Am I afraid that I won't grow, that instead I'll backtrack? That I won't heal, instead, I'll hurt? That I won't have a purpose?

I think it's a little of 'all the above'.

I know God has a plan for me. And I'm trusting all I can trust right now. I know for sure there's something he wants me to learn, many things. I guess I shouldn't anticipate, it'll drive me nuts!

When I think of me going to Spain. I am reminded of the story of Jonah. I wonder why Jonah didn't want to go. The Bible never really explains. Maybe he was worried about the exact same things, who knows? But there is no way running away from God, don't want to be swallowed by a fish now ahah bad joke. (Interesting and ironic fact. The place that Jonah tried to run away to was actually somewhere south of Spain, and that's where I'm headed! Shows that there is brokenness everywhere.)But there's one verse in Jonah that really resonated with me.

Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.

Jonah 2:8

As long as I remember that His grace is enough, I think I'll be okay :)

I hope heaven's a place where you can do your boyish things

A couple days ago, I heard that Vanessa had passed away due to malaria complications. It's such a weird feeling, knowing that someone was once there, and not anymore. Just last summer, I was playing with her, holding her. Watching her climb trees and do all the boyish things. She and her twin brother, Chifuniro, have both made such an impact on me. I hoped to come back and see them, all grown up. And even if I couldn't physically see her, my mind could rest assured, imagining and calculating how big she would be and what a beautiful girl she would become.

I was looking through the new interns' photos of Malawi. I felt like a worried mother, clicking through picture after picture, looking for the familiar faces, MY familiar faces. And to be honest, I think subconsciously, I was looking more to see if they were alive. Is that too candid? Because usually when you look through pictures, you look at peoples' smiles, poses, silly faces, you don't look for evidence of their existence because that is assumed; you don't take a breath of relief when you see them and you certainly don't think "oh good, he/she is alive". But I've gone a full year without any contact, pictures, updates, about these kids; you can imagine my anticipation/anxiety for these pictures. But more importantly, it really IS a matter of life and death for them.

I just can't grasp how such a preventable and treatable disease here is claiming so many lives, SOO many childrens' lives, in countries like Malawi. It makes me angry. It makes me feel helpless. It makes me sad. It makes me afraid for my kids. It makes me selfish. It makes me wonder if God makes reservations in heaven for kids like her. It makes me hope.

It's the beginning of summer

but it feels like the end of so many things...

YouTube - funniest kid in the world

YouTube - funniest kid in the world

I don't know what it is about little kids that make me laugh so much

reminiscing

so rich

"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
²²Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

²³"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
²⁴"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
²⁵Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Luke 6:20-25

I'm reading this book called City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre. It depicts life in the slums of Calcutta, amongst the leperers, the pariahs of the pariahs. As I'm reading it, I'm amazed at how much love, joy, compassion, and hope these people have. It seemed like the poorer they were, the more they were willing to give and give up. It reminds me of my time in Africa. So poor in the material, but so full in the spirit. I go downtown to talk to the homeless. Again, you see people holding onto and being thankful for what they have, even if it's something as small as laughter. And compare it to our culture. Sometimes the more we have, the less we're willing to give. And then it dawned on me:

When people have absolutely nothing, they focus on (and are thankful for) what little they do have. But when people have everything, they focus on what they don't have.

This is apparent in our rich culture. We have everything, but why aren't we happy? Why can't we find joy? We're looking, but we're looking in the wrong place. We buy things that we think will make us happy, we wear clothes that we think will make us look good, we do things we do so we can create this image of what we want people to see. But, that's never enough...and it will never be enough. If we keep doing those things, we will never truly find joy. We're mistakenly filling our emptiness with material things when what we really need is in the spiritual.

I'm not saying that we need to be poor to be happy, but we need to open our eyes and try to see how blessed we are. We need to shift our attention from what we don't have, to what we do have. And by doing so, we realize how much excess stuff we have that we don't need. Ultimately, we realize that we only need God. Having realized that gives us strength to give up what we don't need. It allows us to be free from worldly riches. We become, in a sense, poor, yet, so rich. "Blessed are those who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven"

Renew your mind

As a psychology major, I've come to realize how complex and powerful the mind really is, and that's an understatement. I guess the whole reason I was attracted to this field was because of my own experiences with my mind, my thoughts. I'm fascinated by sensations which alter perceptions, cognitions that evoke feelings and emotions, emotions that cause behaviors and actions. I think everyone should be a psych major, or at least take a couple psychology courses.

Anyways, I guess all of last year, I was really battling my mind. Questioning not only my thoughts, but also why I thought those things. Where did those mindsets and ways of thinking stem from? Did something happen to me that caused me to think this way? And because I thought this way, it caused me to feel a certain way, and act a certain way, which made me who I was, who I am. All of last year, I was trying to figure out what was normal, but what was normal? To understand normality, you have to try to understand abnormality (and my 2 abnormal psychology classes really helped me, especially with self-diagnosing..ahah) Why wasn't I "happy"? Why was joy so hard to come by? There must be something in me that's not right. Then realizing that it's all in my mind and in the way I perceived my world.

So I set a goal out to try to combat my way of thinking. I caught myself being cynical, skeptical, having major trust issues, over-thinking, dwelling on the negative, beating myself over dumb things, over-regulating, monitoring my every action, being super self-aware. I felt like a scientist, but I was dissecting my own brain. It was a very internal struggle. And from the outside, I must have seemed so awkward and inhibited. But internally, I was trying to break my usual mold of thinking. It's like waking up one day and realizing that all you're life, you've been thinking one way, when it's actually the other way. It's so hard to break that pattern, and even if you break that pattern, you have to adopt a new way of thinking. Everything is trial and error. To be self-aware is to be able to emotionally put yourself out there. To be able to have the courage to get hurt because you know you will heal.

This year, after having learned so much about my mind, I'm still figuring things out. Something I learned (it's so simple, yet so hard to do): to focus on the positive. To be grateful for what you have. To not focus on suffering and pain. I think in Christianity, there's so much focus on suffering, pain, endurement. But when the focus turns into what we're losing, what we're sacrificing, we lose sight of what we have. Plus, wouldn't suffering be so much easier if you're unaware of it. From personal experience, suffering is magnified by 100 times if you're focused and conscious of it. Then it becomes this self-pity sort of thing and it's you against the world. Sooner or later, you fall into a negative way of attributing situations. Everything is taken personal, everything becomes you're fault, hope seems to fade, joy becomes distant.

I can see how people with everything can still fall into depression, while people who have absolutely nothing can still find joy. I remember what the homeless man said to me: "When you're where I'm at, you just have to laugh". He had nothing but laughter, and he held onto that. It got him through 18 years of homelessness, and it's still getting him through.

Everyday, I fill my head with positive thoughts, no matter how dumb it is. I try to mentally compliment every person that walks by, no matter how lame or cheesy, it works. You really have to train your mind to think this way, an exhaustive step by step. You have to be able to catch yourself falling into that familiar trend of wrong thinking, and combat it with the right way of thinking. With a positive scheme of thinking, comes positive perceptions, emotions, behaviors, and actions. By letting God renew your mind, you will be able to find that joy and hope that He has promised.

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

2 Corinthians 5:10

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

Romans 12:2

Recommended reading: Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyers

Just smile

Went downtown yesterday for Love the Homeless. I came across a homeless man lodging under the "no illegal lodging sign". Despite his situation, he seemed so chipper, so full of joy. He was cracking jokes left and right, and I commented on how joyful he was. What he said next will never leave me. "When you're where I am, you just have to laugh". He has been homeless for 18 years.

As we walk back to our cars, I was just struck with awe. I have everything. I really do. Yet sometimes, I can't even manage to force a smile. Why is that? Our society has everything, yet it's so empty. You truly have to be willing to lose everything you have to be able to just laugh. It takes having nothing, to smile, because you have nothing to lose. This was something I found in Malawi. Absolutely nothing in the physical, but so full of something in the metaphysical. That something: love, joy, hope.

Maybe there's something in my life I'm not willing to give up. Something that I'm holding onto so tightly. I don't know what it is, but I have a feeling I'll find out soon. The funny thing is that I thought I had let go already. Let go of something I would never have the strength to let go. But I'm realizing now that I'll always going to be called to give up things, things that are the hardest for me to give up. Something that's not physical, but mental.

Maybe it really takes willing to lose everything to be able to smile again.