Where?! Down in my heart!
Where?! Down in my heart! Down in my heart to staaaay!
And if the Devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack. OUCH!!!
Sit on a tack. OUCH!!! Sit on a tack.
And if the Devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack! Sit on a tack today!!
Oh I'm so happy, so very happy!!!!
Happy belated Easter!!! Oh man i don't know but these past 3 days have just been super delightful! Actually I've had a wonderful week we just had Semana Santa (aka holy week, aka a week long holiday). Ah Easter…thanks to my experience here last year i already knew it was going to be pretty chill, as no one wants to be confused with the scandalous *shudder Catholics so they don’t celebrate anything except the joy of having a week long vacation – my friends Jesus loving mom didn’t even remember what day Easter was confusing it for Palm Sunday. Basically what I'm getting at here is that Easter is a big deal… ….mmm not!
Okay so you’re probably asking yourself “kayla what DID you do during your time off?!” Well let me tell you i did lots! So my friends Susi and Sarita were heading to the beach and needed a super responsible, extremely friendly and giggly Canadian to watch their
house and puppies – who aren’t actually puppies but judging from the size of Chippies you might think that he is expecting a litter!!! heehee he’s so fat, he waddles everywhere.
So Monday to Friday i guarded the house, cooked up a storm, got some rest, was able to fix my nasty back tan, and wrote the maid of honour speech for my best friends wedding in 2 weeks!!!!! Which i am super pumped for! I get to go to Florida and see my best friends, my parents, stuff my face full of ice cream,candy, and yummy Filipino cuisine. YAY! ooh its going to be so fun!!!!
Then Tuesday and Wednesday i was holy sick …not just regular sick as it wasn’t a regular week! Before you panic and worry about how often i am sick let me share my new theory. It seems that each time i get sick the duration is a little bit shorter (excellent i like where she’s going with this…). SO I'm thinking that my body is building up some sort of sick fighting antibody and soon I'll just sneeze and that will be my illness! I’m going to be seriously delighted if this hypothesis turns out to be legit but if not oh well, being sick is not the end of the world.
Thursday came rolling around, Susi and Sarita came home, i stayed an extra night because Friday there was a professional skateboarder coming into Carpio and i wanted to go. Good Friday there are no buses, but fortunately Susi also wanted to go too so she could drive us! Apparently a while back it was unheard of that people should drive on Good Friday - you only went places you could walk to otherwise you were a heathen (from a Catholic’s viewpoint). Before Susi and I ventured out into the empty streets on Friday we thoroughly enjoyed our Thursday night which consisted of puzzling, playing upwards, and a new game i learned called bananagrams – which is excellent. It was so wonderful, i have been missing my prime time people (aka the seniors group at Cedar Grove, my home church) and Susi and Sarita would fit in there seamlessly so i got my seniors fix. All i needed was a couple stories about so and so’s grandson and how he was single…and so was i (in case i forgot haha) and it would’ve been just like home!
Saturday i was back home, and i think my host mom missed me – she called me twice in one day- just to say hi. So you can imagine when i got home we had some serious catching up to do! And catch up we did!
Then came Easter Sunday!!! and golly it was such a treat. I got to go to an English speaking sunrise service – it was old school Baptist, the music leader came up “okay we’re going to start off with a lively song” haha he then proceeded to sing a medium tempo hymn (piano and guitar). Grandma Chan would’ve loved it! After service we went to Denny’s (which to be honest i don’t really like at home when its super cheap and here its like a fancy pants restaurant – the food is the same its just ridiculously expensive so it’s not high on my list of places I'd like to go) BUT i went and shared a plate with a friend and was extremely ecstatic because I got to eat real bacon!!! Oh bacon how i love thee!!! Afterwards i went into Carpio and attended that church service – we watched a movie on the resurrection. After service i went to my friend Carmen’s house and started a fire in her backyard – but not before changing (because i was wearing a pretty dress) into an ensemble her sons pulled together - case in point i was very stylish in my snug athletic shorts, fancy shirt which was much to big and rubber flip flops. So we built our fire cooked up a ton a meat. While we were waiting for the meat to cook i learned the tango, participated in a weight lifting competitions with a dumbbell we found in the backyard – i didn’t win but gained some street cred when they saw the gun show and realized I'm packing some heat. Later, when i was back home another Easter surprise! I got to Skype with my wonderful friends in Minnesota AND my host mom made arroz con leche (its kind of like a rice pudding – but of course much better) with raisins!!! Good raisins too not the yucky shrively ones (haha yes I'm aware that all raisins have some shrivel but I'm talking about the juicy shrivelly ones not the yucky ones with no squish). Ah God is good!
So pretty much this past week was a huge blessing, it provided the perfect opportunity for me to take a step back a really press into God without any time constrictions. I have been struggling with discouragement for the past little while. It’s hard to watch people you love so much trail blaze down destructive paths and witness people who claim to be followers of the Lord set horrible examples everything all together was really taking it’s toll, my heart was breaking. It was becoming more and more tempting to harden my heart a little in order to protect it from the pain. But Jesus didn’t build me to have a hard heart, actually he gave me a really sensitive one. So i asked myself am i living a life as one who believes in the truth? was hardening my heart showing that i trusted God to keep me safe and protected…mm NO! How could Jesus fulfill his promise to fill me with joy if i didn’t have a big open heart waiting for him?! Silly silly kayla!
Living in a fallen world means that things aren’t always going to go smoothly but I'm choosing to throw out my welcome mat invite Jesus over for some tea and biscuits and allow him to fill me with joy in his presence! (psalm 16.11).
