the white man

It struck me today while i was out walking; Stop lights!!!

So you’re walking, at a good pace, you tap that button and bam up pops the white man and you continue on your way without missing a beat. Other times you get to a light and have to wait a couple seconds – gives you enough time to pause, glance around, ponder a Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman moment with the guy in the fancy car to your left – but before you quit your day job and exchange your cute flip flops for some inappropriate thigh high heels the white man jumps up to save the day and you walk on!

AND THEN! There are those times where you want to pull out your hair as you have been waiting for what feels like an eternity!  It is excruciating!  Every light but yours has gone off at least twice, when did all those turn signals appear?! Its as though the orange hand is mocking you “oh you want to walk? HA!  You cannot for I am the Almighty Orange Hand of Pain!” So you continue to stand..and wait, you cry a little – on the inside of course, and start lusting after ‘the other corner’  "Oh that sweet sweet corner, so lush, so dreamy, I bet the guys are cuter on that corner, probably all single, love Jesus, and have a thing for awkward brunettes enamoured with the Latin culture…” but instead you are stuck on THIS corner where all there is is the button and that guy over there picking his nose…

*this was the moment i burst out giggling on the street

  It reminded me of where I am at right now - yes, the corner next to the nose picker! Even before coming back to Canada it has been a given that God will be sending me somewhere or have me involved in something Latin.  I am not picky (unlike my neighbour over there! haha) I will go or stay wherever and have made myself open to whatever the Lord has for me. I’m just waiting for ‘the white man’ to show up. There have been quicker lights and much much slower ones. One being that I have been accepted and as a missionary by an organization called Latin America Mission, Canada and we are currently in the discernment process of where/when I should go, the opportunities etc. While it is hard to wait at times it is also wonderful being here and I am enjoying the many blessings that are available to me.  I feel like if we were to go back to the light analogy I have 2 options:

1) I can wait for the light to change,
       for the white man to come and to be in the will of the Lord
                                                           OR 
2) I can choose to walk anyway, and risk getting hit or going the wrong way

I believe that God has me on this corner waiting for a purpose, He is preparing and maturing  me and while some days it would be wonderful to just pack up, create a spiritualized “calling” from the Lord and head out. I instead choose to wait for the glorious “beep beep….beep beep” of the white man’s unmistakable theme song! It has seemed like many opportunities have come while I have been waiting but the majority do not seem to pan out.  They dissolve so quickly at times I wonder if they ever truly existed. It can get discouraging not to mention frustrating and then the other day I came across a great passage which encompasses this last season I have been in:

“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights.”

                                               Habakkuk 3:17-19

I have many things to be grateful for and choose to focus on those, one of which is those of you who continue to pray and support  me, Thank you so much!  I am comforted and blessed knowing that I am not alone. As far as current prayer requests these are a few I have right now:

• It would be great if you could pray that if abroad is where I am to go that an opportunity will come, with my name plastered all over it. Lets go for a clear sign from the big Guy, the bright yellow flashing light kind, that would be ideal!
• I am currently commuting about 2-2.5 hours to and from work each day on top of an 8 hour shift, needless to say I am quite exhausted. I would love for something closer which pays well, offers benefits, and allows me to feel more fulfilled than where I am at the moment.
• To be more focused on the spiritual realm and my relationship with God rather than what I see physically. Fear of the future and all the “what ifs'”  is daunting some days, while I know I am secure and that I am in good hands I do get overwhelmed with all the unknowns.

T-Minus 1 week…

well the time has come! In exactly one week from right now I will be returned to one of my very favourite places in the whole entire world! 

Yes it’s true I am going to Costa Rica again! *siiigh  I’m very excited!  Quite a few months back I received an email from Dr. Jim, a dentist who had taken a team down last year.  Medium story short he asked if I would be able to make it down for their trip this year and translate for them.  I am so flattered, it had come out of thin air and completely took me by surprise.  So once I picked my jaw up off the ground I pondered and prayed it over aaand obviously how could I turn it down!?!  When God throws something so amazing  your way you best be throwing on your glove to catch and run with it!

So I leave Friday for 10 blissful days of airports, couch surfing, dental translating, yummy yummy food,  aaand getting my visit on!!!! I’m very grateful for this opportunity and am hopeful as to what this experience will bring!

Finalmente, I would very much appreciate your prayers over safety, health (we know i be catching all sorts of germs be it up north or down south!) and I would be absolutely tickled if you could pray that God would continue to coddle me and prep me for whatever it is that he’s got up his sleeve.  However crazily enough, this trip is NOT about me (insert shocked face accompanied with a gasp!) please please please pray for my lovely friends and family south of the border and that they will feel some serious love from the Man upstairs and that lives will be changed!!!

“feeling tired, sluggish, completely inadequate??? REJOICE!!!

 it is the perfect opportunity to rely on ME in childlike faith” –Jesus

So i must apologize for going off the grid for almost 2 months!  If we’re being honest i have had no motivation to sit down and think about how i am feeling or start pondering big questions.  Not to mention my one month of rest plan (where i would take a month off to recharge and after those 30 days i would be back at 100%) has been failing miserably.  How foolish of me, I should’ve known better, God’s plans always dominate mine!  Needless to say I'm still sick and it’s been very frustrating (i was diagnosed with sinusitis and bronchitis on monday and am now hopped up on drugs, aka watch out phlegm you’re abouts to be evicted!)

Ok moving on – there are much more exciting wonderful things afoot!  I am SO delighted to report that while I have been struggling with depression, frustration, and quite a bit too much fear God has been faithful! huzzah!
This morning i read Isaiah 30.20-21

“Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying “this is the way, walk in it”

One of the hardest things i have been facing is feeling distant from God.  Confused on where to turn, what to do, why sucky things happen, not feeling like i was hearing much, etc.  This passage  immediately filled me with new hope!  Last night, I was offered a job at the dermatology clinic where  i worked before i left for Costa Rica.  Not only that but i got a raise!  say whaat!?!? I KNOW!   The thing about this verse in Isaiah –  it emphasises that I need to make the turn first it’s way easier for God to move something with momentum over something stationary (like saaay someone who lives in her pjs on the couch…).  Sometimes we get caught up in the fear and our feet get stuck and we stand there in the same spot screaming “aah God why have you forsaken me?? where is my direction?! I want a hug!!!”  when reality is we need to first take the steps out  in faith trusting that if we are going the wrong way we will be redirected! 

So right now i am stepping out, taking a job (which is seemingly temporary,who knows what doors will opened).  I am not allowing myself to even consider going out into the field again until I'm completely recharged and healthy – not only physically but spiritually as well.  Picture it this way a watering can is not so productive when empty.  When watering the garden you take your can (full) and shower the soil then once it’s empty you take it back to the tap to be refilled until it is overflowing; so much so that it spills out while you are walking back to the garden.  I want to get back to the place where i am overflowing with the spirits of living water which cannot be contained so that while God is carrying me back to the garden I'm splashing out everywhere!  I do not know where my garden is or when i get to go, but i do know that i am in good hands and it doesn’t matter where the water lands the important part is that there is water to spill!

PRAYER
(ps did i tell you I'm so thankful for people taking the time to pray for me, i feel so special!)

• I want to be heaaalthyyyy!!!  so please pray that the medications work quickly so i can finally drop the illness be congestion-free and have an immune system stronger than Samson!
• For a softened and open heart eager to be taught and alert to the plethora of joy, grace, and learning opportunities each day has to offer.
• For continued grace and peace knowing i am where i am supposed to be right now and that my peeps' to the south are in good hands.

• That each day will bring me into more intimate relationship with God and he will fill me with wisdom, patience, and confidence so i can fearlessly discern  the paths to take.

*cough PFFFFFFFF! *sniffle sniffle blaaaah

gah so I've been meaning to write a wonderful piece about what God’s been teaching me and how I've been coping with the transition back.  However it’s been put on hold because i have death gripe (aka extreme disgust flu) case in point its hard to not be miserable.  It wasn’t so bad last week when it was a minor cold and i could spend my day playing the dance party game my mom has for our Wii.  But sadly, I've been getting worse and each day has come with less energy, less sleep, and more mocus (my friends down south would be ecstatic as they have a weird fascination with picking my nose)…i don’t even know if i would mind that much as it would block the dripage… haha eww tmi

Aaaanyways , Jesus is pretty clear when he calls us to “be joyful always”  _{1 thes 5.16}  so I've been trying to stay positive and not give into the crazy thoughts that tend to pass through and attempt to camp out when trapped on the couch for what seems like endless hours at a time.  Normally what helps me feel better is to remember all the awesome stuff I've been given and compile things that I'm grateful for (and lets face it I've got excess, the big guy has been super generous with me). It’s sadly so easy to focus on the negatives, but if you take like 5 minutes to step back and honestly look at what’s there wooo! one can’t help but find her smile. Lets take a gander at just 3:

number 1: aaah i know this gets out all the time but i am truly blessed with wonderful relationships down south and one of the BEST feelings is picking up my phone or opening my email to find that while i may be out of sight I'm not out of mind... i have been showered NO drenched with messages of encouragement, love, updates, questions, and all the usual antics from my latin familia. I'm very lucky!

number 2: my support system, even when crazy irrational kayla is near there is no fear! Just love, prayers, encouragement, and a huge dose of undeserved compliments.

EEEK number 3!!!: if all else fails I'm SO DELIGHTED that God made platypuses AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE THEM!!!!

*sigh, I'm pretty sure if you could see the gigantic smile that has overtaken my face strictly on looking at this picture alone you’d need to go change your pants because you just pee’d them from laughing so hard.

bahaha that’s enough for now, please pray i get better ASAP love kayla :)!

SORPRESA!!!!!! WAaaaaaaaaaaaaAAA????

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Just an update for the church up north :)

HEY CEDAR GROVE!!!!!!!!

So this is just what i whipped up for Missions Fest 2012.

campa campa campaaaaa!!!!

heyhey happy new year er’body!!! so camp case and point was super prime! It was SO incredibly amazing that i can’t even begin to describe how awesome it truly was.  I love camp so much it provides such a wonderful opportunity it challenges and opens doors that would at times be impossible (or seemingly) back in “the real world” aaah YAY CAMP! I got to co-lead a cabin with Fran (the other coach on the soccer team) filled with girls from the soccer team.  Sooo case in point it was awesome!  As I'm sure many of you have now seen the facebook pictures there was a LOT of mud and activities involving said mud.  Which was a good thing because as one friend pointed out to me if i had not been covered head to toe she probably would have been blinded by my pasty complexion.. haha sad face.  Anyways back to more important things God was seriously at work!  There was a sense of safety and comfort  it was clearly translating to the kids because they were opening up about serious stuff, sharing their thoughts, asking questions and ooooh man the Holy Spirit was hooking some people up!  Legit decisions were being made, we gained a ton of momentum – seeds that had been sewn months, even years, ago were sprouting up!  I just read through my friends Seth and Andrea’s blog and they nailed it to a tee hence you should check it out to get a better summary or how totally prime this Jesus character is!!!

PRAYER: Please pray that these kids don’t fall into doubt, that God reaffirms what he was speaking to them and for them to have courage and strength to stand up for what’s legit and not to fall back into old habits.  Pray for their protection as they are now back in sketchy environments.

I know I've dropped the ball a little bit with videos but don’t worry there will be an aMAzing one coming soon but until then hopefully these fotos will suffice!

just a quick peek at camp VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

proverbs 31

  you eskimoo!!!!! hahahaha! that was for my mom, pretty sure she just peed her pants! (for those of you not coming from my facebook the question was how do you call an eskimo cow?)

      Okay on to business, today started routine, normal bus rides, normal walk.  then i got into work.  i opened the gate and within minutes was rebuked in front of all the girls i was about to lead in a devotional – talk about embarrassing.  Not the ideal way to start out the day BUT God has a purpose for everything.  The girls witnessed my reaction (which was calm and non-confrontational woop woop!).  Once the study started I had their complete attention (que milagro!).  I was so nervous about this study too because historically they don’t give much feedback and tend to just stare at you blankly, it can get awkward.  NOT today!  It was so exciting I had their full attention and I got to talk about the proverbs 31 woman and why she’s so awesome and how i believe that each and everyone of them has the potential to be her!  We talked (because YES they gave me feedback – i asked each of them to share which part stood out to them and why).  AH! It was SO awesome!  Not only did each one contribute but they did so with enthusiasm and they really seemed to embrace what i was trying to get across to them.  I was so encouraged! 

One of the girls, Fabiola, shared that her favourite part was verse 18

“She sees that her trading is profitable,
   and her lamp does not go out at night.”

Out of all the verses this had to be the one that struck me the least, but for her it was encouraging to see that this woman never gives up that she’s always alert.   I have to be honest it had never even crossed my mind when i read it.  That’s what i love about opening up the floor to others, different perspectives!

 

     We had one boy in the group (because our classes are now co-ed!!!! (answer to prayer right there!) Andrew, liked:

  “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
    but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”

     How encouraging!  He went on to explain exactly what the girls needed to hear.  How its better to have someone who’s legit on the inside over some babe with nothing adentro.  It sounds super lame and cheesy but you could just sense the confidence being injected.  The smiles on the girls’ faces ooooh!  I’m sure i probably freaked them out with how zesty and excited i was…well actually probably not, i kind of excite easily haha whatever it was really awesome!

 

     Down here there is a profound oppressive sense of settling for what’s right in front of you or for routine (even if the routine is consistently ineffective , what’s the definition of insanity again?);  aspiring for things but not putting in the time to make a legit effort; not following through; no need to reach farther than your arm stretches, a learned helplessness… it can really wear a girl down.   But i walked, bueno,  more like floated away from the study feeling super pumped!!!

     For awhile now I've been pondering over my future and what I'm supposed to be doing with this delightful blessing of a life…

  what are your motives?  why are you here?   How can you learn from your seemingly endless list of mistakes? where is God leading?…

     I don’t have the answers for all of them but I've pinpointed a few.  My motives i think are pretty clear I want to serve, i want to obey, case and point i want to be in God’s will.  i want to see everyone as head over heels in love with Jesus as i am.   I have no idea what that means as far as a job, missions, or anything really… I'm a disorganized bundle of confusion these days but i do know that as long as i am searching and asking God’s gona hook me up, maybe not how i had hoped or imagined but He’s not going to leave out to dry.  Therefore I'm going to enjoy my last few months as much as possible – i will not shut down even if that means spontaneously tearing up and feeling like my heart is being ripped out becomes a daily occurrence.  I don’t want a safe “cookie cutter” route, sometimes its easy to long for one, for the simplicity, but then reality comes back i cringe and get claustrophobic.  Life is untamed it is unsafe, especially when God’s hitting the gas pedal!  He is not safe – he’s like the antithesis of it actually, his paths would not be described as kiddie trails, however He is good and worth the risk so…“[I] will laugh at the days to come” v25

…muahaha!!  right now its like that scared nervous laugh but I'm trying to grow it into a hearty Santa-esque chuckle….one that comes from the gut!

                   Feliz Navidad!!!

apparently i like doing stuff in the dark…

riding random boats through crazy 50 ft. waves (haha not even close maybe like 2 but they might as well have been 50), trekking through the jungle, sleeping, i guess that's really all i do… hahah

look at me video bloggin….moving up in the world!

oops forgot some stuff…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

		take my picture!!! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

hopefully this works out…i was hoping to be able to caption the pictures but i can’t figure out how.  Anyways the only one that is desperately in need of a caption is the one of the guy in the black shirt…we walk in and he was singing along to english love ballads (with soul) the ENTIRE time he was waiting AND in the boat…it was excellent! His first song was “I Believe I Can Fly” very moving…then he followed up with some Toni Braxton and i think there was also some BSB (backstreet boys heeeyo!!!) oh man just really made the trip!

the other girl is of course Carolyn- she’s excellent, we got up for the sunrise and the picture turned out really cool because you can see the sun rays… all in all it was an eventful and fun trip! I’m a lucky gal!!!

i dare you to relax!

*siiiigh I've just returned from a wonderful three and a half day venture up to Guanacaste.   A friend of mine invited me to go up to the resort where her parents are staying so they could shower me with juice and rest.   How could i say no?! 

So we get there Tuesday night and the next few days are a blur of getting stung by a jelly fish, eaten alive by sand fleas, the beach, the pool, hammocks, pasta, hummus, ice cream, pina coladas, movies, iguanas, crazy costa rican squirrels, vultures, shell hunting, brilliant conversations, get too much sun, frisbee, random locals, nachos, naps and horseback riding at sunset…which brings us to our story…

… so Walter, the guide, and I after trying and failing to take a wonderful picture of me with the sunset find ourselves needing to catch up to the other girls as we were pretty far behind.  Solution:we must gallop, not a big deal, i like running,  next thing i know “Lista?!” (ready)…*gulp “yep!”  Then Walter smacks my horse and we both start off into a run ..fun until my horse decides that we at the Pan American games and he MUST win!  He glances over at Walter’s horse whinnies and books it double time, (let’s remember i am in flip flops..hahah) I wish i could say that i was wicked awesome tucked my head in and jockeyed it up..haha that did not happen…so picture this the other two girls far ahead having a wonderful, calm conversation when all of a sudden they hear a high pitch wail: “WWWWAAAAALLLLLLTEEEEEEEEEEEEEREER!!!!!!!!!” haha as i zoom by… baahahaha oh man it was awesome!

This morning was our departure day and the only bus left at 4.30 IN the morning…eww right?! As we are walking to the stop we watch the bus fly by – we were 10 minutes early too…very un latiny.  So a little panicky as there is only one bus and Audrey has a flight out tomorrow we needed to get back today so we are waiting, praying that it wasn’t actually our bus, and around 4.45 another bus comes – we hail it down and show him our tickets for the original bus he’s like “oh ya that bus is gone” greeeat.  So we ask him where he is going,  he’s going to Nicoya (from there we would have to hunt down another bus and probably have to wait until 9am to catch another bus to San Jose) so we get on his bus (which was like a space ship on the inside with blue lights and everything) as it really was our only option.  I was disappointed because we had already bought the tickets for the first bus

and it just felt like a waste of money. BUT lo and behold we drive along in the space bus for about 20ish minutes (during this whole time the drive had some pretty prime music going on) and who do we see stopped up ahead of us…OUR BUS! so space bus pulls right infront so it can’t leave and we make the switch! Success!!!

 

How is it that i am so lucky to have a God who in the midst of my craziness pulls me away sends me to just reaffirm that He’s got my back and that there’s no need for me to worry or fret or even spend hours pondering about my future.  He was straight up “look kayla you thought you missed your bus, but you kept walking and i hooked you up..YET again” sheesh what a guy!  I don’t know exactly what I am going to do regarding next year, but as long as i continue to devote myself to prayer with an alert mind and thankful heart (col 4.2) God’s gona pull it all together! I mean if he cares about our bus drama how much more does He care about my life drama..i think I'm covered

AHH I’m excited for tomorrow, while i enjoyed my time in the beach i am suuper ready to get back to my peeps in the hood..five days away is too long. EEK tomorrow we will be reunited! AAAND for those of you keeping track 2 weeks, 3 days and 3 hours until me and brotha chan will be reunited!!!! YAY!!!