7.12.2011

Home by Any Other Name

I’m sorry my posts are so patchwork.  I try to make them flow, but life happens and doesn’t stop to consider my audience… K.

The streets here are becoming more familiar.  I can get to and from the church by myself, and to the school by myself.  Coming home from school is another story altogether because every time it seems we take a different bus and get off at a different spot!  Ay.

A little about my weekend:
I swam in the Mediterannean Sea.
I went to a museum dedicated to the art of Falla making.  (giant sculpturey things that they judge and then burn the best one in and interesting ceremony)
I saw sharks, belugas, dolphins, penguins, and got a temporary tattoo at the Oceanographic Aquarium. (best dolphin show I have ever seen.  EVER.)
I shopped in Valencia and practiced lisping my imbedded ‘s’s.
I got a very Spanish pair of shoes in an effort to look a bit less Americana…
I ate Spanishized Chinese food and heard our Asian waitress speak Spanish… weird culture crossovers.
I went to a concert in the city of Ibi and acquired a new little brother, whose name, ironically enough, is Carlos.

I have been struck by my lack of homesickness.  For those of you who know me well, you know that homesickness is to me and coughing is to a smoker.  A day away from home is a week, a week is a month, and a month or more, unfathomable.  I have always struggled with separation; some of my earliest and most poingent memories are of the searing pain of hopelessness and bereftment that I felt upon being left in the nursery at church.  I remember calling my parents during a one night sleep-over across the street, and crying silently in my bunk at prairie camp Jr. ResiTour.  Unfortunately, it only grew stronger with age and this I attribute to losing my brother.  Separation feels like loss, and loss induces panic.  For me, homesickness is not a mild longing for familiar surroundings.  Homesickness is an illness that grips  me and reminds me of mortality and the possibility of never seeing loved ones again.  It is debilitating and consuming.  Thus, my biggest fear concerning this trip and my future trip to la Repulica Dominicana was my ability to function in spite of inevitable homesickness.  Praise be to Him who is able to do more than I could ever ask or imagine.  I miss home.  But I can breathe.  I want to hug Mama and Daddy but I do not find my days darkened by depression.  No feeling of panic greets me in the mornings.  This miracle I can only attribute to Jesus and to you, my intercesors.   Alcoy is not Indiana, but they speak the language of my heart here.  I am not surrounded by my family, but God has added to me my Alcoyana family that loves and cares for me.  Spain is not Home, but it has become a home.

3 comments:

  1. Always good to hear you are well. Much love and prayer for you! P.s. The word I have to type in to verify it's me, and not a robot, is 'tooses'. Hehe, this made me giggle :)

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  2. This is an exciting post! While it seemed to us that you were handling the separation well, it is double, nay...triple good to see you express it thus! We love you.

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  3. Isn't it amazing that God knows exactly what we need and provides it? I get stuck in this thought pattern that God can only provide for our physical well-being, but clearly he cares about our emotional well-being too. I'm so glad you aren't overwhelmed with homesickness. Praise be to God!!

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