Being Useful

Sometimes I feel a little weird about parts of my life.  Like I'm looking at them through a glass.  Or on TV.  I kind of felt that way today.  We've been coming to Nicaragua for a couple years now, and so being here isn't odd.  It feels like home.  Like normal.  It's always felt that way because South American culture is just part of who I am.  But today Shea was speaking to 400 women that are recently come out of prostitution, and I translated for her.  When I say I translated, can I just tell you that I literally just sat here trying to remember how to say that in English.  My brain is on Spanish autopilot.

(BTW, this has nothing to do with anything, but I'm sitting on the kitchen counter in our inn, because there is a massive cockroach on the floor staring at me, but the internet connects better here than in the rooms.  That roach is about to meet it's maker, and I'm not convinced that my Jesus made them.  I think they come from the other place.)

Anyway, so the worship today was really good.  And it helped me to focus.  Center.  Pray.  When we were introduced, and were standing up at the front with 400 faces looking at us, turns out the microphones weren't working cuz we'd lost power.  For those of you that know me, you know that "loud" or "easily makes herself heard in a crowded room", are not things that describe this girl.  So Shea and I begin to shout it out, and Huzzah!!  The microphones start working.  God blessed Shea with a great message on the trap of shame, and how God wants to free us from the guilt in our past so that we look forward and to him, and not backward and to sin.  God blessed me with only two times that I had to be creative in explaining because I couldn't remember the right word.

Here's the part that blows my mind.  God gives us gifts to be useful. Never in one hundred million years would I have thought in my youth that one day I'd be useful to communicate to prostitutes and ex prostitutes about the love of Jesus.  That is pretty darn cool.  I am pretty darn blessed.

And lemme tell you.  Worshiping God with women who have been rescued from abuse and despair and addiction is an amazing and powerful thing.  How great is our God.

How GREAT is our God.

Leetle Prayer Request

Hi friends! 

So tomorrow Shea is speaking and I am translating for her.  We'll be talking to about 400-500 ex and current prostitutes.  Pls pray for us that we would communicate clearly and effectively the message of redemption and healing that God wants to share through us.  I've done translation work pretty frequently here, but not in front of such a large group yet. 

Thanks and smooches!

The Skin Under My Skin

Is brown. 

I feel it pushing forward. 
Frontward. 
When I cross that invisible boundary
between busy and wealthy to
slow and less. 
I feel it in the breeze through palm fronds.
I taste it in the kiss of my berry brown skinned babies
& the juice of a papaya/pineapple/mandarin. 
Dusty roads where sun slices through green 
crowded streets where contests are held to see how many can fit on a bus
they have their own visual music. 
I say it in the rhythm of words
that trip off the tongue in cant and flow
like water through stones. 

I shed my skin
like snow melting to reveal the earth beneath. 
Earth that stretches and rises
under these tropical suns. 
Rises to life. 
To breath. 
To peace. 
To growth. 

The skin under my skin is brown.