I'm being lame at the moment

This is not really an update on Mexico so much as a way for me to feel better, so if you aren't interested in the technical details of my sin/frustration with life/whining then you may not want to read this. That is A-OK.
I don't really know what happened. I try really hard to not think of my time as "my" time. Mejor en español, no?
Mi tiempo no es mío es de Dios
No sé por qué lo quiero como mío, porque no lo uso bien.
No me puedo controlar a veces. Me pongo celosísima con algunas cosas y de repente me siento muy humillada, avergonzada, por haber sido tan egoísta y tonta. Me quejé demasiado en frente de la banda, y no habría hecho eso. tampoco habría querido toda la atención. Es un equipo, una banda, no puedo cambiarlo en una cosa de mí mí mí...

Quizás es porque quiero más tiempo con Keila, quiero ser su amiga, quiero cantar con ella quiero compartir música con ella, todo eso, y cuando ella misma reconoce que soy pésima me desespero, porque si ella no cree en mi talento, me siento tomada por vencida. Pero no es así - Dios sí cree en mi talento, él me lo dio.

Tengo una conección con ella muy fuerte y profunda y cuando me siento que ella me falla, me pongo como deprimidísima...qué onda con eso? Me choca mucho esta actitud que tengo pero a la vez no quiero dormirme sin reparar las cosas entre nosotras.

Por favor, Dios, ayúdame en estas situaciones que me desesperan. Me choca esta actitud y depresión que tengo y no quiero ser así. La música me toca muy fuertemente y no quiero ser así. Jesús, por favor, ayúdame, yo creo que canté hoy mejor que nunca. Por favor Jesucristo que mañana cante mejor que hoy.

Dios, bendícelos a todos de la banda. Ayúdanos ensayar bien, y aprender uno del otro. Te adoro Dios mío, y te quiero seguir en todo. Amén.


Hola MaryBeth - te quiero :)

Pues, ya, me cansé de hablarme a mí y Dios me oye dondequiera que vaya, entonces voy a hablar con mi amigo y luego llamarle a Keila, para pedirle perdón por mis acciones tontas y que ella todavía siga mi amiguita.

Dios te amaré y te seguiré para siempre!

 

VIDEO 1


VIDEO 2

June? Already? Wow!

Hey lovelies :)
Pat and I are doing well. We are in México still, hanging out mostly. Pat has gotten the hang of the bus system all by himself, which is a great thing! He comes over to the house where I live every day at around 10ish, and we hang out all day. He's getting better at Spanish. The other day (Monday) he spent all day making lists of verbs and stuff, and I think he really enjoyed it actually, haha. He's been working on math as well, which as fascinating as it seems, is really boring in my opinion, so I've been doing other things when he does that (like play facebook games or read).
I have looked into some of the Grad School programs that I wanted to check out (they're in my spreadsheet) and so I have narrowed down some options. I need to e-mail some of the professors I have at Eastern to ask them what programs I should look into, because they would actually know who the good people are. I want to study immigration/migration Sociology and though the best place ever would be Princeton (yay Doug Massey!!) I might be well off at UC Berkley or at University of Chicago, or something like that as well, I just need to make sure I find out from the right people. Pat and I need to take the GREs when we get back, and I already told my friend Sara that we could study for them together once we're back home. I am a little nervous about them, but at the same time, I know that God is going to work with what we've got and Pat and I are really putting our best into our academics so that we can get into the schools we want. I'm sure that we will get in somewhere, you know?
For anyone wondering, the plan is to get into the same grad school, or grad schools very close to each other, but if only Pat gets into the great school, then we'll go wherever that is. We still haven't figured out what might happen if the opposite is true, but we're discussing it. My education is subordinate to his, because I can be happy doing ministry (which doesn't require a Ph.D) and then once he's got his Professorship going then I can try and go back to school, even if just for a master's degree. This is all the back-up plan, though.
In other news, I started a small group for musicians where we're going to talk about Christian music and why Christians should be musicians and what the Bible says about music, and the history of Christian music, and stuff like that. I'm pretty excited about it, we're going to meet tomorrow evening and then have 2 more meetings talking about the contemporary Christian music and then the future of Christian music. I'm psyched to get to hear the opinions of some of the college students down here as far as music is concerned. There are some really amazing musicians here :)
Also, Pat and I are going to go to a worship night tonight led by some college kids that we know, and we're pretty pumped about that too. I'm seeing the network of ministries and how they sort of flow into each other, and that's how it's supposed to be, right? I think it's pretty cool.
Pat and I cooked all day on Tuesday for the youth group/college group (the ministry that I am an intern for) because we give free dinner for the meetings. We made sincronizadas (sync-cron-ee-SAH-dahs)which are two tortillas with mozzarella cheese and ham inside that you cook in a frying pan with butter. Served with them were pico de gallo (what we think of as salsa) and sour cream, it was really good. We also baked 60+ soft pretzels with cinnamon sugar on them, they were pretty fantastic if I do say so myself. The people were pretty impressed with them :D Even the culinary students that were helping us cook thought the pretzels were great :) :D That made me feel awesome haha. Pat did a wonderful job helping me, and even though we got frustrated a little bit, it was still really good (and who isn't going to get frustrated if they're cooking for 9 hours in a single hot kitchen?).

Well, I feel like that's the end of my update, Saturday night we have youth group, Friday night we have the small group, tonight we have the worship night. Sunday we have church in the morning and will (crosses fingers) spend the day with the Pastor's family because that's the only day they have time, and we love them, they're my Mexican family. Also, Pat seems to get along pretty darn well with them, so that's awesome :D - Really, everyone loves Pat, which is expected :)

During the day we are usually online for at least a little while, so should anyone need to talk to us, that would be a good time. I am usually on skype :)

Please be praying for us, that the ministry opportunities would keep presenting themselves and that we would be able to worship God with our actions and glorify him in all that we're doing here! Also pray that Pat gets better at Spanish :)

Love,
Nora

Day 9 - Mexico Take II

Hey all,
I don't know if any of you will actually be reading this, since it's summertime and everyone has something else to do, but I figured I would keep anyone up to date if they were interested.

It's day 9 here in Cholula. I got here on the 11th at 9pm. I took the Estrella Roja from Mexico City to Puebla. It wasn't too bad, although I had slept so much on the planes that I didn't really get to sleep on the bus. I got to see Liz that night (she left the next morning really early). That night I slept about 12 hours, it was insane. I was tired!!! Then the next morning I saw my friend Pedro, which was awesome! We ate breakfast (4 tacos for 10 pesos = less than 1 dollar) and got some juice at the new burrito place, which was fantastic. The juice doesn't have sugar in it! yay! And it's the best juice ever!! Strawberry Orange! It's so good! Half a liter for 14 pesos, which is a little more than a dollar! I love Mexico! Can you tell?

I've been doing pretty well on my diet so far, just eating meals and hardly ever snacking! I'm proud of myself, because I think I've actually lost weight, which is a very different outcome from the last time I was here (hi +12, I don't like you).

Anyway, basically when I got here it was the week of rest for the staff that I joined because the semester had JUST finished and pretty much all the students cleared off the campus. Next week (Monday) classes start again for summer school, and it varies from 5 to 7 weeks of classes. (Although it's funny, a bunch of people decided not to do summer classes because it would be during the world cup and they didn't want to have to choose schoolwork over soccer - gotta love mexico, right?) Anyway, so a bunch of people will be returning to campus this weekend, but since last weekend it has been a ghost town, like seriously, it's hilarious! I have been able to go to church and see my friends and pastor and everyone, which has been truly wonderful! I also had the opportunity to spend more time than ever with the staff of the ministry I am interning at. This is also great.

This past week and a half has just been really awesome for me because I have gotten to sit down and actually to think about everything that has happened over the past 6 months. There are a lot of unresolved issues that I have been trying to cope with and understand, and so this time has been really helpful to me so that I can actually do that. It also is so wonderful to have people around with whom I can talk and communicate (I'm mostly referring to the Americans who are around all the time with me - the ones I work for, but Mexicans too, although a lot of my friends are gone for now).

Something that has been a real blessing to me is to see how a ministry works. As many years as I have been in ministry I have never been so blessed by a ministry that lives what they believe. The people at El pozo (elpozopuebla.org or for English speakers www.cmf.org - campus ministries) really know what they believe and strive to live it! I have not been part of a ministry that really wanted me to read my Bible everyday and if I didn't then I should not be ministering. I know that that sounds horrible, but I'm serious. This is really how it should be, and I'm so glad to have found somewhere where that's actually true. Same thing with my church here. I know how tired my pastor and his family are, but they read their Bibles and do their devotions regardless. Because they know in the morning when they get up they won't have anything to give unless they have been given their daily portion.

I am re-learning to be a Christian here, and to be a minister of the gospel. There have been multiple days where it's just been like, I feel like Becca - getting so excited about the gospel that I'm almost giggly and giddy all day long! I got so excited about the book of Mark the other day that Courtney (staff member) was just sort of confused on how to respond to me, like, that's cool, but wow, why'd you turn into such a girl?

I have been really, quite, blessed so far by this time to relax, do some reading, chill in the beautiful 80 degree weather, etc. It's just absolutely wonderful to see God like this everyday in everyone!

Thanks so much for supporting me, and praying for me!

I pray God's blessings upon all of you!!!

Love and God Bless,

Nora