ADORE...

If you have ever had an experience that has seemed to take complete control of your life.  An experience that overshadows everything that you do.  Well lately the futbol that I play, the places I go, the people I meet, have not mattered.  I shouldn't say they don't matter, but they don't compare to the word adorar...

As I wrote the blog about Easter, and my mind jumped back and forth between Castellano and English, (Yes, it does do that now,) I realized something.  The word for worship in Spanish is adorar.  It may be obvious where I am going with this, but I am going to go ahead and continue.  Adorar...  Adore...

Sometimes the word worship can lose its meaning.  Many times it gets watered down with chores, or bolstered with a show.    It has been described in a manner that made it felt like something that can be touched.  Worship is not some mystical source or power that exists in some world beyond.  It exists everyday and in every action that we take.  In the simple prayers as we walk down a busy street and in the quiet nights that we spend on our knees.  Do we adore God everyday?  Adore...

A child of three years old can learn phrase and lines of a movie, know the names of the characters, and begin to develop a relationship with them.   He sits and plays with the figures.  He sleeps with these figures, and when he wakes he asks where they are.  He adores them.  As a child is captivated, moved, and thrilled by a movie.  Do we adore God? 

Music starts to play, and a bride walks down the asile.  She is wearing a simple white dress with a veil covering her still innocent face.  The crowd rise to their feet and strain their necks to catch a glimpse of the her beauty and elegance.  She does not have fancy jewerly.  Nothing hangs below her ears.  There is not a large stone upon her hand, nor is there anything that is draped around her neck.  No one notices these small details because she shines.  Radiance echos from her mere presense.  She is adored.  Do we adore God?

Life sends a whole mess of distractions, worries, and even pleasures.  All of these things, while are not bad, take our eyes off God.  Are we the child that when we wakes calls out, “Buuuuzzz!”? Each day as we rise out of bed our first concern is finding God.  Do we treat God as a bride, something that is precious, which does not need to be adorened by fancy jewerly to be seen as valuable?  Every time we see God we pause stand silent, and watch Him work.

I write this on the heels of a ugly week.  A week that I was distracted, worried, stressed, frustrated, and refused to seek God.  I am spending time to right this more to reflect upon what I am learning, then to challenge anyone reading this.  Sadly I don’t live this way.  I think of Grandma Nuñez, which some may know.  I heard a story about her once that to this day I can’t leave forget.  I guess it is what I want to be.  When she was asked, how her day was going, she responded, “Fantastic, today the Lord may come back!”  For me that is profound.  I think of all the little things that effect my attitude and mentality.  Do we adore God?  Do I adore God?


I wrote the latter back around Easter, but I have found the last several days worship, adoration have been on my heart.  I have found myself on my knees and on my face more frequently.  I have found myself shooting the lyrics of "My Jesus" by Todd Agnew.  "I wanna be like my Jesus!"  I have concluded that this song expresses my hopes, desires, and dreams.  I have want to be like Jesus.  I want to fall on my face and cry out, "Woe to me!"  I want to know him intimately and walk beside him upon a journey that takes me through this life.  This journey hurts, but Christ is my strength.  Scripture is my power.  The spirit is with me.   

Argentina Policía and Monotony

Life has a sense of monotony right now.  Days that were once filled with adventure, now seem plain.  Where there was once fear, rests normality.  Walking down the streets, taking the collectivo to the university, and or passing time with friends no longer have the suspense that once existed.  I am acustomed to the culture, to the lifestyle, and to the city.  It is a strange thought looking back in my journal, when every event, every place, every person had a strangeness to them.  There was something that excited my soul and that made me feel as if I was walking upon the edge of life.  Life is good in Argentina.  

If you have regularly followed my blog, you would have seen a gradual change in themes.  I have talked less and less about the things I am doing in Argentina, and more about the things I am learning.  I first realized that something was changing, when I sat in front of a blank screen trying to remember what I did during the week.  All I could think of were the things that have been changing in my life.  I believe this changed has dervired from the fact that life here has become normal.  I am still learning the language and the culture, but even that has been normalized.  The other day I was watching a movie, and the beginning began with a Star Wars like opening.  The background of the film was written in English, but the narrator spoke in Spanish.  I was listening in Spanish, reading in English and did not recognize the difference in language until after the fact.  For me that was a little bit of encouragement that I was oblivious to the fact that Spanish was even present.  

I am able to tell little facts, such as I played a bit of soccer Wednesday, I went out Thursday night with a French student and the grigos, or Friday when I went to the house of Pablo (the boyfriend of Krystal, who is a Grace student that now lives here) and had pizza and a movie.  However, those things don’t have the buzz they once did. 

With that being said, I did take a collectivo home at five in the morning friday night, which was quite an interesting experience with a loud drunk woman behind me, who I was sure, was going to puke.  I was thankful, when she only spit on the floor.  Yea, that is how bad it was.  When she finally got off the bus, I looked at Tyler, who was sitting next to me, and we both shook our heads.  Last night as we drove home from getting something to eat with Lucas, suddenly we saw blue flashing lights and heard a voice over the a loud speaker.  Looking at each other, we asked, “What did he say?”  Lucas shut off the music and the voice spoke again.  Still not understanding the voice, but Lucas pulled over.  Being asked where we were going and for all of our ID’s the police checked the car over.  Then let us go without explaining anything.  

I love the Argentine police!

Four Months and Four Things I Miss

Family

I miss my family.  Such and obvious and cliche thing to say, but I can’t help but include it in my list.  I miss my mommy.  I miss picking on her, when she is trying to be productive.  I miss coming home and finding her watching TV, which the first thing I would do is cuddle up next to her for a moment.  I miss having to scold her when she does things that I was going to do or that she should make me do.  I love my mommy.  I miss my father.  I miss those nights we would sit and discuss soccer until finally he would stop us because my mom would be getting frustrated.  I miss his strong embrace, that he gives me every few days.  I miss seeing him stand over a grill and cook.  I miss seeing is quiet strength that leads and guides our family ever steady and ever true.  I miss my brother.  He is crazy, which is something I love about him.  I miss his ingenuinity and the fact that he is always at the forfront of technology and science.  I miss the the times when we fight and argue, and our dad gets worked up and howlers at us, while we just laugh.  I miss him tremendously, and I will give him a huge hug maybe even a kiss, despite the fact he normally does not appreciate my touchiness.  I miss my family sitting in front of the fire, sharing a meal, or watching a soccer game.  I love my family, and while I have had my doubts if I was adopted or not, I would not change families for anything.  

Grace

Most of the Grace students are excited to leave school and go home for the summer or travel, but I am sitting here missing Grace.  I already know that I am insane, but seriously.  After you have been away for almost five months counting Christmas break you begin to miss the school, when not so much the buildings, but the people.  I miss professors, which I would randomly drop in to see how they are doing and talk about education.  I miss my team, whom I play with every week.  We have sweated, bled, and cried together.  They are like brothers to me.  I miss certain relationships.  Friendships with classmates that I have developed from spending hours studying, working on projects, or simplying chilling.  There are friends that I have had for years that go to Grace, some of the best friends I could ever have.  I miss having to go to chapel and being filled multiple times a week with the truth.  I miss the feeling of sitting in a classroom and being surrounded with Godly men and women who are persuing Christ.  Yes, I would say I miss Grace.

Church 

Community Grace, my church, is a place that I have not realized until leaving how much I missed it.  To be completely honest, I took my church for grantit before I left.  However, as I have spent time in the chruch body here in Argentina it has encouraged me to return and participate even more in Community Grace.  There are so many people that I hardly know in the church that are Godly men and women.  I want to know them better, I want to learn from them, I want to grow with them.  I realized the value of a church body.  I am consistently encouraged here by the Argentine church, and even by Community Grace.  I can truely say that I miss my church and can’t wait to return.  I am not talking about the gym or the old sancutary, but the body of believers that I have been apart from.  

Ceramics

Of late I have missed ceramics.  I have always loved art, but my greatest passion is ceramics.  I love sitting at the wheel and forming a small vase.  I love the feel as the clay spins and centering it.  The clay rests in harmony with the wheel.  There is something almost magical at the moment it finally centers.  After the work is finished, and the glaze has been applied.  There is an excitement as the kiln is opened and the it is seen in its finished form.  The colors have come to live and it shine from the melted silicon.  I have always enjoyed this process, but this year, there is a ceramics club at Grace, which I have missed out on, which only adds to my longing to sit a a wheel.  I have recently began drawling different designs and ideas.  I have designed a series of vases, teapots, and mugs.  I am beginning to fill a small leather notebook with the ideas, which I hope to make.  I miss this art form, which allows me to relax, vent, and be myself.