One month later

Wow.

One month here.

Really, have I been here a month ALREADY?

or

It feels like I have been here for YEARS.

The past few days I had feelings of tiredness, unpreparedness, heat exhaustion, sickness, insect frustrations, desire for community, longings for wisdom, and oh so many questions.  I kept thinking "Is there any word that has greater meaning than being overwhelmed?? Beyondwhelmed? I need that word right now."

There is something that seems so romantic, beautiful, and awesomely adventurous about moving to the middle of the jungle.  The last few days have shown me just how messy and difficult this world I live in can be.  There is conflict, there is exhaustion, there is sickness, there is loneliness, there is lack of wisdom, and there is hardship.  And it has just been a month.  We are humans in the jungle.  Life here is just as imperfect as it is out of the jungle.  I am in constant need of the Lord and His peace.  Today, I listened to the melodious and beautiful voices of David Crowder Band literally singing about the deepest feelings of my being:


"Oh great God give us rest
We're all worn thin from all of this
At the end of our hope with nothing left
Oh great God give us rest"


God then gave me this:


"Sing for joy to God our strength; shout aloud to the God of Jacob!  Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre.  Sound the ram's horn at the New Moon, and when the moon is full, on the day of our Feast; this is a decree for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.  He established it as a statute for Joseph when he went out against Egypt, where we heard a language we did not understand.  He says, "I removed the burden from their shoulders; their hands were set free from the basket.  In your distress you called and I rescued you, I answered you out of a thundercloud; I tested you at the waters of Meribah..."
Psalm 81:1-7


Wow.

Talk about awesome and perfect words.

God is HERE.  He brings me peace.  How often do I forget that He does that? How often do I forget WHO He is?  How often do I forget that He created the Universe? How often do I forget that He died on the cross for me? How often do I forget that He is with me through all of these jungle troubles? How often do I forget that I NEED His help? He is HERE when the jungle is an adventurous or breathtakingly mystical place.  And He is HERE when the jungle is overwhelming, scary, hot, or just plain unpleasant.  And I thank God that He gives me those scary and hectic days, because those days are the ones that I depend on Him the most.   I realize on those days His greatness and my smallness.  I realize on those days that He is always present in my life.

Some days are just a great pandemonium trying to control 15 crazy kindergartners who REALLY do not like to sit down.  Chairs a flying.  Blocks a tumbling.  Kids a squealing.

Other days are frustrating jumbles as heat exhaustion and sickness make walking around seem like an impossible task.

One day might be a funny adventure crossing the beach trying to save a 5 year from what looks like an angry monkey on a mission to take a child's ice cream.  At that moment, I am pretty sure I looked exactly like Bruce Willis in one of the Die Hard films.  No lie.  If Hans Grubber had a tail and liked bananas, he still would have had no chance against my quick reflexes.  Child life saved.

Another day might be joyful to the max as you see little kids learning things.  No circles, squares, or triangles will defeat my little team.

Some days I struggle to think I have the ability to tell this community who God is and other days I struggle to love and serve this community like Jesus.  Am I doing all that He wants?

BUT- Everyday I get just a glimpse of God's wonderful creativity- plants with crazy leafish flowers, trees that look like skyscrapers, bugs that look like dinosaurs, beautiful girls that love to play princesses, wonderful boys that seek adventure in everything, monkeys that act like 3-year olds playing on the beach, and sunsets that look like they could sing with color.

Everyday I wake up and I AM HIS.  And that is awesome.

Love and crazy monkeys to you all,
Keri
Colossians 3:14-15

PS.  I promise to try to keep this blog updated weeklyish.  The hecticness has been hard to master, and I am trying to balance my need to be present here.  I thank you so much for your understanding!!

PPS. I also promise to start giving a little blurb about each kids here.  I will post pictures of their adorable and beautiful faces soon.

JUNGLE UPDATE :)

A bit of my reading in the WORD today:

9 'Thus hath the LORD of hosts spoken, saying: Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother; 10 and oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart."

-Zechariah 7:9-10

Hello wonderful people,

I just want to start off and apologize for the lack of blog posts.  After arriving in the jungle, our site was without internet for a little over a week.  Also, I have been crazy busy trying to get situated here in the jungle and meet everyone  :) When the internet did come on, I was most concerned with telling people I was alive and safe and then my blog posts for some reason did not load!  I just now figured out the problem-  so huge apologies to you all!

SO here is the update of the woman in the Amazon:

The adjustment here has been crazy, I think it takes a while for my body to get accustomed to drastic change.  My cabin place I will be living in is not complete yet, so I have been living with the Davalos family in their house (which has been pretty wonderful).  For those of you I have not told, it is a bit like a scene from the Cheaper by the Dozen movie- a lot of fun and lots of mouths to feed :).  The family consists of Roberto and Charmai Davalos and then 9 kidlets (6 they have adopted) ranging from ages 3-15.  Roberto and Charmai are truly inspirational in their abilities to love and be patient here.  I do not know how they do it all with all of the work they are doing with the school as well! I love being with the kids (we have had some crazy fun dance parties and YES- I brought the Move your Body dance moves here).  Please pray for the family and our little community here we have on site!  The Studebakers, another missionary family, are also here in a separate cabin.  They are amazing! Amy Studebaker made some absolutely fabulous cornbread the other night.  It reminded me of GOOD 'OL SOUTHERN COOKIN! God has been very good with providing especially on days when I miss home :)

The only extreme hardships so far have been getting accustomed to the heat and the insane bugs.  I have to constantly remind myself to just keep drinking that H2O.  The bugs (the little boogers) for some reason like my blood, I am ATTACHED to my anti-itch cream and Deet.

Last week, I was told what all I will be teaching: kindergarten and 1st grade English and 5th and 7th grade science (whewee a lot of planning since we start tomorrow, but I am pumped).  Please keep the school in your prayers!  We are in great need of a bus/way to transport kids from town to the school.  If you would support the kids in this way please click here!

I am excited, but definitely swamped with work to do (and very few quiet places to work since I don't have a cabin yet). I am going to try to trek down each morning to the river so I can just sit with God in the mornings and make sure I have quiet time and peace.  I struggled with making sure to rest in the States, and I know that is going to be something I NEED to do here too.  Please, pray for that as well!

Funny jungle events- for those of you who have seen my facebook page- we were getting bananas for a mid-morning snack only to be interrupted by a BOA CONSTRICTOR! It was a baby- thank goodness :)
Also, last night I had a BIG collision with a cockroach the size of my foot.  I laid my head on my pillow to get some slumber, when the creature then decided to creep from the locks of my hair ONTO MY FACE. Yes, I did jump 10 feet into the air.  Yes, I now sleep with weapons to attack said monster.

We had an awesome church service last week where just our cabins got together- we went through Exodus with the story of the people grumbling to Moses when they wanted water from God. The Israelites seemed to have forgotten everything God had just done and provided for them--and they actually asked to go back to Egypt (including slavery!).  They disliked the desert where they were hot and uncomfortable. Kinda seemed a lot like what we are/might experience HERE in the jungle. We started talking about our "Egypt" and the ways we may be tempted to grumble like the Israelites as the difficulties of life here come up.  I know that I need to constantly remember that God has clearly called me here. It was perfect and something I definitely needed to hear.

Wow. That is a lot but I feel like it doesn't tell you half of what all has been going on!!  I promise to try to keep this thing updated even if the internet gets moody :)

Also, Bit of bad news…. I cannot get mail or packages. BUT- there are various church teams who come to nearby areas and when they come they offer to bring down stuff from the states to the missionaries. I can let you know when that happens if you have any letters or delicious stuff (like Peanut M&Ms) ;) and you can mail it to their address in the states.  Other than that, contacting me is just email and facebook!

Sorry for the book. (The Jungle Book..hehehehehe) Wow. Hope you Disney lovers got that. 

Love and monkeys,

Keri