Identity: Daughter of Christ

So I have been putting off writing this next blog for a couple days now.... because it is difficult for me to make myself this vulnerable. However, what I have been struggling with lately is something that I feel is part of being a missionary and I feel that the people supporting me should know what i am dealing with.

These past couple weeks have been extremely hard.
There. I said it.

I´ve been really lonely. Not because I don´t have people here that care about me, because I do. Viv has become like a sister to me and we can talk to each other about anything. I´ve made so many new friendships that I thank God for... but...

Christmas is a time that a person spends with their family, their friends. And while I am spending time with family and friends, it feels like I´m an intruder. Almost like I am invading into someone else´s life. But let me make something very clear before I move on- it isn´t because of anyone here or not feeling welcome.

It is because I´m not in a place that is familiar to me. I can´t run up and jump on my sisters or wrestle around with my brothers or hug my parents. It is almost a severe case of being homesick.

It has become so severe, however, that I am questioning who I am. I know who I used to be, but who am I now?

It was easy to reach out and love people back home because I had my support system close to me. My family, my church, my friends. I feel like I´ve been thrown into a whole other world now. The last couple weeks I´ve let myself curl into this insecure shell, and I don´t know myself.

The Allison I used to know wasn´t scared or insecure, she reached out to others without any hesitation, she was a leader, she was strong.

Lately... I don´t know where she went.
And I´ve been avoiding admitting this because I put the weight of the whole world on my shoulders. I told myself I had to be stronger because people back home were depending on me. I had to be the perfect example, there was no room to stumble. I HAD to know who I was. The truth is that I don´t know right now.

So I started praying, asking God who I am. His response has been simple:

YOU ARE MINE.

I hear it over and over again.

YOU ARE MINE... AND MINE ALONE.

He has taken me away from everything I know and put me in place where it is difficult for me to speak the language and is hard to be independent, all so He could tell me I am His? I already knew that.
But I knew it in my mind and not in my heart. He has stripped me until I have nothing left, so that I may find my identity in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.
I have nothing else to fall back on.

I feel like He brought me to this cliff to jump off of into the water below. I´ve jumped off cliffs with Him before, but there were always harnesses and lifejackets and lifeguards making sure everything is safe.
This time He brought me to the cliff alone, no ropes, no lifejackets.... just me and Him. And He tells me to jump off. So I did, I took my leap to Colombia. But then halfway through the jump my mind started panicking, saying that it wasn´t safe, that I maybe I should´ve waited, that I´m not equipped to do such a jump.
So my prayer now is that God will quiet my heart.
That He will give me peace and my identity will be found in Him and Him alone.
He told me to jump. He wants me here, this I am sure of.
When things around me aren´t secure, He always is. Theses are some lyrics from the group Barlow Girl:
¨I cried out with no reply
And I can´t feel you by my side
So I´ll hold tight to what I know
You´re here and I´m never alone¨

It is time for me to stop pretending I can do anything on my own. I can´t.
Thankfully He can do all things.
Please keep me in your prayers as I find my identity in Christ.

¨Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.¨ Hebrews 12:1-3

This verse has become really important to me. It says to consider Him who endured, so that we don´t become weary.
It has been hard for me lately, yes. But He went through so much more than I ever will. And how to I expect to run this race with the weight of the world on my shoulders? He says to throw it off, it is not needed.
We need to fix our eyes on Jesus, not on the saftey nets we try to keep beside us. He is our focus, and we need to run to Him with perseverance.
I was born with a purpose in mind, and the race has been marked out for me. My path is different than your path, but we both are running this race. May our focus, our Savior, spur us on.

Casa Buena

They dared me to go down the pole so, of course, I did.

So Casa Buena has been the main ministry i have been consistantly involved in.
I have grown to really love these kids. It is a day care for kids that normally would be left alone all day while their parents work. Casa Buena is a place where they can do homework, play games, and have fun in a safe environment. I strongly believe that Casa Buena is changing these kids lives for the better. They also are told Bible stories and encouraged to strive for a life of excellence rather than lives of compromise. These kids are so full of life and love and I pray that their joy would never be taken from them. Because of the poor neighborhood they live in, the realities of life hit them hard. I pray that they are learning to trust God with their lives turning everything over to Him. They are precious children of God and have the possibility of changing their entire neighborhood.

This is the kids Christmas party. We took them to this ranch owned by a family at ECA and they spent the day playing on the HUGE playground, playing soccer, picking flowers, and going down the zipline.

The kids were all given Christmas presents. Our church had lots of different people all pick one child to get a gift so all the cildren would have presents. They started handing out gifts and all kids kids applauded for each one given and awaited for their own. The smiles on their faces from just a simple gift was heart warming.

The girls picked flowers and we wore them in our hair

This a woman that works with the kids full time and cooks all their meals. She has 2 boys in the program and loves all the kids as if they were her own

I tend to be used as a human jungle gym, but I dont mind

This is a little girl who had lice really badly, so her mom had to shave her head. She sometimes gets teased by the other kids and usually wears a hat to hide it.

The kids LOVED the zipline, they had never done anything like it! it was so fun to watch them get nervous and excited!

Ciudad Bolivar

Cuidad Bolivar is about an hour out of Bogota. A church has started ministries in this poor neighborhood to share Christ through child care. I went with a group from ECA who has been partnering with them consistantly.

The kids were all given presents for Christmas and fed.

There were also clowns to enyertain the kids who also shared about Christ and taught christian songs to the kids.

What I find most consistantly when working with kids is they just want to be noticed. To be told they are special. To be loved.

My biggest prayer is that I can be an accurate representation of Christ´s love. That they would thirst after Him and not the world. That they can follow Him from a young age being completely satisfied in Him.

We played several group games where I had to follow along trying to pick out intructions from the spanish.

This is a puppy the kids tried to give to me because it is a stray. It was so hard not to take him with me!!

A different kind of Christmas

So I have to say that is was extremely weird for me to be looking at Christmas lights with no snow. We went around Bogota looking at different Christmas decorations, and I quickly found out that Colombia really outdoes itself with lights. They were gorgeous!



So one of things I did around Christmas was help with a dinner for the parents of the kids I work with at Casa buena. It was a dinner to bless the families and share Christ´s love with them. The Christmas back home. I said singing silent night with candles. He quickly learned how to play silent night on the guitar and I sang it to the parents in English with lights off candles lit. It took everything in me not to cry. I was able to share with these poor families a peice of who I was, a peice of my home.

This is what Christmas shopping in el centro looks like. TONS of people and TONS of things to buy. I was truly amazed that I found anything is this mess!

So we spent Christmas with the Afandor´s family. We ate, talked, laughed and celebrated. It was a humble gathering but I enjoyed it completely.

This is the llama that I rode on in the midst of shopping. It was... an experience;)
There were also people dressed as Indians doing tribal dances. Not a usual holiday ritual for me.

Overall Christmas was amazing. I really missed my family, but I spent Christmas in a new way. I know that God puts me through hard times for a reason. I think this Christmas is preparing me for other times that I won´t be able to be with my family. It scares me but I know His plans are better than mine. I can´t wait to be home with my family but I know God has His purposes for me here now. I´ve been learning how to find little joys in life. I always wonder why some people are able to leave joy out of their life and still feel satisfied. I think it is scary for us to admit the joy that we long for. It hurts to realize we can´t always have that joy. But why can´t we? Why can´t we have eternal joy? The truth is we can . By living our life in a way that mirrors Gods second biggest gift to us we can have joy. Joy is a choice not a feeling. Although there will be times that life just feels empty or their are situations thats are difficult if we choose joy we are showing appreciation for the fact that we are alive. We are meant to love that fact that we can live. Its gift that has been given to us.

Joy can be ours. We just have to first make ourselves vulnerable by admitting that we want it.

¨The joy of the Lord is your strength¨Nehemiah 8:10