Daily Life

Hi friends...Aileen here. I feel compelled to write to you with a few of my menial thoughts, in part to get over my fears of blogging. But also, this is for all of you who we were not able to talk to in person this holiday season. Mike and I miss you all and love you. Our thoughts are with you, although we are not. For me, with the holidays seemed to come a very perceptible loneliness. It was a time of new and very different experiences, and with that was a longing for the old familiar ones. But even withstanding the Christmas season, I have learned that this loneliness, a loneliness that I think we all have felt, comes not from being thousands of miles from family or in a culture different from my own, but because the daily mission in front of me has become more important than my time with the One who sent me. I see now that my daily life can not revolve around conquering my surroundings, however unfamiliar they are, but to go back to the One who does not change and who has put a divine order to my life, an order that is not dictated by what I can and cannot find at the market or if snow flies on December the 25th. He is with me and when I stop to give Him my attention rather than the Spanish words I hope to have in my vocabulary tomorrow, the loneliness disappears. It's amazing, and it works...it really works. This is an old habit of mine that some of my oldest friends might recognize, but I wish to leave you with a song. If you can find this song by Mercy Me (the song is called Crazy) and listen to it, I do recommend it. Or maybe there is a way to put it as a link on here, but, until then I will share with you a small portion:

"As I live this daily life
I trust You for everything.
I will only take a step
when I feel You leading me... Isn't that crazy.

I have not been called to the wisdom of this world
But to a God who's calling out to me.
And even though the world may think I'm losing touch with reality,
It would be crazy to choose this world over eternity."

Bolivian Bichos

I kid you not, this ant was 1 inch long. You know a bug is big when when the locals start taking pictures with their cell phones.