A Recipe for a Friend

A Recipe for a Friend

Two ears to listen
Two scoops quirks for fun
The biggest heart you can find for love
Three cups humor for laughs
One brain for smarts
One million megawatts for smile
Endless taste for shopping buds
Two arms for hugs
One teaspoon sass
Four cups compassion for understanding
One amazing soul

Blend well for many days, easy, tough and long until completely inseparable. Bake 1 year in Bancroft Hall at 400 degrees stress and fun. Garnish with cuteness. Live forever as best pals!

- Kat

Save me, I feel old!

Oh yes, as I blew my running nose in a desperate attempt to clear all fluids for the zillionth try, a group of young singers walked past. I mumbled to myself that they were probably too young and I was too old. For those of you who, like me, have forgotten how old I am – a ripe 21. I, for all of ten seconds, considered following them to watch the local concert and see the night crowd. (I hardly go to town at night because it can be dangerous traveling to/from my house in the village) And so, instead I went to the market, gathered my vegetables and got myself home before dark.

Strangely, until this day I had yet to miss the social life of a young twenty something year old. You would think that being surrounded by kids of all ages would keep a soul young carefree… but being responsible for these children changes everything. When one of my students fails a test, I feel like I have failed them. When one of my babies turns into a little bully, I feel like I have failed to hug him enough. When one of my students refuses to obey, I feel as if I have failed to be strict enough. When one of my babies dies, I feel like I have failed to love and pray enough for them. God has given me this awesome responsibility of taking care of some of His precious children. What an honor, that I strive to live up to. What a comfort to know that He only gives what He has enabled me to handle and He’ll take care of the rest.

So as to my lack of a social life, well there will be time in the future but the carefree young twenty something blanket will from now on be threaded with the knowledge of my responsibilities to those around me.

(day at a theme park – on my list of things to do when I get back…can’t wait to be twenty something again)

Arts & Crafts

Yesterday we did arts and crafts in P-3….your’s truly being the art teacher. First we made cards with construction paper then had a mini-writing lesson and learned how to write a letter. Once the cards were finished, we attacked the coloring books my mom sent. Each student received a little restaurant style box of four crayons (thank you federal railroad). They were so ecstatic when they realized they get to keep their box of crayons. They screamed their thankyous and had to be told by a neighboring classroom to shush.

Answered Prayer

Two minutes after I posted that last entry, I checked my email. God answers prayer - I got back in. So overwhelmed, I need to go call my mom. Will write more tomorrow....look out Naval Academy, I am coming back!

Terrified

The last received communication from the academy stated, "The Readmission Academic Board will not be held in Feb due to conflicts on the Supe's calendar. I was not given a new date for the Board." Recently I was asked why in the past few weeks I didn't seem frantic over my re-acceptance into the Naval Academy. I hesitated then proclaimed that of course God is in control of it.

Days later, the question continued to bounce around in my head. This year began ith anxious prayers, begging God to re-open the doors to the Academy. Every other thought was a plead to God...and then one day the urgency, the anxiety left. I told myself that God had given me a peace in knowing that no matter the outcome it would be His will for me.

This past week, I realized the truth. After being told enough times, 'of course you'll get back in' I bought into it. I stopped thinking that God was in control and I needed His help. Yesterday, I read that it is easier to talk about faith than it is to live it, how true for my life. It is so easy for me to say that I know God is in control, I trust Him, want to do His will whatever that may be. But let me be gut wrenching honest with you- I am terrified.

Frightened that God's will is not for me to return to the place I have worked my whole young life for. Scared to even consider plan B and where that might take me. Distressed to think of never returning to a place and way of life that I have grown to love. Afraid of letting down my family and friends. Fearful of the unknown.

It is so easy to say that I have faith in God's plan for my life but how often I forget that my plans are not always God's plans. So I ask you to pray for me, not that I get back into the Academy but that my heart will once again desire to do His will no matter where it takes me. That I will consider it all joy, when I encounter trails, knowing that it is the testing of my faith in God. Pray that my heart will be filled with a true sense of peace and not rued by fear and doubt.

God's Handiwork

I was promptly put in my place yesterday as I read an email from my wonderful aunt. I had written sharing about the beauty of this place that has so quickly captured my heart. She recalled earlier reading about my struggle to find spiritual fellowship and growth in a foreign world where I attempt to maintain a grasp on the language. How easy it is to feel spiritually comfortable around our church, songs we know, and friends who walk with us. And yet as my aunt wrote, “you don’t have to be, as it surrounds you in the beauty of where you are”. The handiwork of God is seen all around without having to look in the normal places –church, hymns, people we know. We can see it in the pure nature that surrounds us everyday and know that He is near.
This brought me to my knees with a heart full of wonderment. I have been inwardly battling with a situation here for the past two weeks. I have let it control my thoughts, my words, and my heart. I felt as if a leech was rapidly draining my focus and my passion for God and the work here. Instead of turning to God with a quiet heart, I wrapped the problem around me like a cocoon and just laid in it. How silly. And so I escaped for two days because it seemed the easiest thing to do. And this is what God showed me…His hands in control of every sunrise, every wave upon the sand, and certainly in control of every detail in my life.
While this realization does not make the situation disappear like some magic trick. It does give me strength to carry on every day with a smile on my face – KNOWING that the man upstairs is writing every word in my life’s book.

Different or Just Plain Wrong

I was once told that when approaching another culture to apply the saying, “it’s not wrong, just different”. It’s hard to adapt your mindset when engrained in your DNA is the voice of society saying, “don’t eat with your hands, call before visiting, bathe at least 3 times a week, don’t stare”. A guilty conscience signals that you have veered off the straight and narrow…so in what situations do we hit the snooze button on our conscience?

Upon arrival, I found that the local American families use hired house help. This of course set me on edge, are Americans so lazy that they can not do what ladies here have been doing daily all their lives. We are willing to dive into the culture and way of life as long as we don’t have to get sweaty or do the nitty gritty. When I approached these Americans, I was blasted with excuses such as, “we don’t have time, we don’t know how, we don’t want too, they need the work so why not”. I walked away feeling scorned as they mumbled about my naïveté to the culture. And so, I did what any good soldier does – marched to the back of the line and fell in with the rest of them.

Some of the suffocating guilt was relieved by the claim that it provides these women with an income. But the second twinge of shame struck as I found out the amount we pay for their labor-intensive eight hour day…$3. *gasp- robbery* I was about to jump outta the boat when I was assured by the Americans that this truly is a lot of money. It hit me that their thoughts were along these lines: it is ok for these women (husbandless) to provide for their families on $20 a week but Americans living in the same place could hardly be expected to survive on such.

So how do I quiet my screaming guilty conscience that feels assaulted on so many levels? My womanhood howls as I watch another woman scrub my dishes, wash my clothes, mop my floors. Each week my ears burn red as I hand this woman a meager $10. I ache to shower her with love and friendship; and yet, there is always an employer/employee barrier I feel radiating from her smile. How do I bite my tongue as I watch these women serve us Americans who seem to have forgotten that we came to serve these women in Christ and not the other way around? How do I cross this culture barrier that seems as wrong as it seems different?