on being challenged

This weekend was beautiful. Ometepe & volcanoes & beaches & sunshine & laughing until we cried & really sweet sunsets & riding ridiculous Nicaraguan buses & visiting Casa Bernabe & getting tears in my eyes to see Erlinda still wearing the friendship bracelet I made her & so many other things I could blog about for pages but won't. (you can simply enjoy the pictures on my previous blog post :) )

Today I am antsy. Not only because I am leaving on thursday and feel no where close to ready for that, but because...well, I don't know. Just feeling unsettled and challenged and unsure and lots of things I can't identify. Maybe this is some sort of mid-college crisis. Nicaragua has ripped me apart in what is probably a great way, but is also very hard to figure out.

Being here makes me feel like I could do anything with my life. I feel like I could spend myself loving on people in poverty for the rest of forever and be ridiculously happy. But then I think about all the constraints of the world and about going home and college and I wonder how I'm going to figure out where it is that I should place my passions. How is what I'm studying preparing me for what I'm supposed to do? How am I best equipping myself to serve people? What skills do I have and in what areas do I excel? What things should I investigate in terms of a future career/job? I have seriously no clue. But I've met so many incredible people here who have worked hard and pursued their passions and now live lives fully dedicated just to loving people. That's what I want to do - just love people really really really well the way the Lord loves them. But I'm not sure how that will materialize or what I do to get there. Is it simply alright for me to study English because I love it, and to trust that God will somehow use that in me? I don't know.

A new friend and fellow Wahoo, Jackson, was here with us for a week doing research on the role of faith in NGO's. We had a couple cool conversations just about service work and about viewing poverty with biblical eyes rather than with our own perspectives. It's challenged me a lot just to think of things like that while I've been here, and to have other people confront me with such concerns. I've been thinking about things like freedom and what that looks like for someone who lives in Chureca versus someone who lives in America. I've been thinking about Isaiah 58 and the definition of restoration and how I fit into that. I've been thinking about language and the ways that service and love expand beyond it. Gosh, I've been thinking a lot of things apparently!

Sorry this is the most rambling, nonsensical blog post ever. But the point is - I'm being challenged. I'm being shaped into something new. I'm not sure how all these things will pan out and transform me (maybe I'll never know the extent of it), but I'm sure that they will. And as I start looking ahead to going home, I know I have a lot of processing to do that will extend far past my time here. Maybe a little bit of this antsy feeling is more like excitement, because I sort of feel like the Lord is building me up for huge things. We'll see :)