an attempt at roping the last few weeks into something coherent...

I've discovered that bullet points are the way to go when there's entirely too much to express and entirely too much time to cover. so:

* I like church. Union Cristiana is a lovely fellowship of believers that I have been going to on Sundays and they have a youth/college worship/Bible study thing on Friday nights as well. I spent the first half of my time here running away from the church, most of the time without even realizing it. but I was. And I think part of me needed to do that. I learned a lot during that time. I learned how to see God in everything, not just in words on a screen. I learned how to be alone. I learned how God seeks me. But now that I am actively in the Body again, I am learning too. I had forgotten how wonderfully sweet it is to be surrounded by people who love Jesus, how it feels when the whole room swells in unison when everybody's favorite part in the praise song comes, how beautiful it is to be taught, how precious new sisters can be. and it is good.
* I only have about 2 months left...and I'm kinda not ok with it. I feel like there's so much I want to do, people I wish I had been building relationships with, places I want to travel to, beautiful days I wasted...but I know when the time comes, I will be ready. I will be ready for Texas August heat, my Pandora stations, dogs that I can pet and love on without getting funny looks,
and MY family, not a pretend one that mostly just gives me food.
* I am going to miss speaking Spanish...weird.
* That post I made about Joy still rings true. I haven't lost her yet and I don't plan on it. and it's making life so much fuller.
* I have a cold again. Even though I don't believe what all the Chileans say about not wearing shoes or socks and having wet hair and going outside without a scarf and their direct corellation to colds, I think maybe the virus has started to believe it and function as such. "When in Rome" I suppose...
* I am in love with The Weepies
* Catie and I are looking for somewhere to go serve(not be tourists) the last half of July after my family leaves and before we come home. I emailed a Canadian missionary family in Bolivia that has an awesome ministry digging wells in super rural areas and other development things to see if we could come chill with them and see their life and help with some of their well projects. But if that doesn't work we might go to Peru and maybe meet up with our friend Kim who will be in the Andes somewhere with her team from IMB(International Mission Board) for a bit...basically we have no idea, we just know that we need to take advantage of that time to go somewhere and do something of worth. so we're just praying in faith that God in his goodness and wisdom will take us somewhere awesome. you can join us in that prayer if you like. also pray for our dear Kim as she just arrived in Peru yesterday and will be there for the next 10 weeks hanging out and talking about Jesus in rural villages.
* One of the first Chileanisms that I learned was the term "pololo" which means boyfriend(Polola for girlfriend), but which translates literally to bumblebee. The gerund form for dating, "pololeando," means to be bumblebeeing. adorable, right? well I learned the history of this lovely idiom the other day from some new firefighter friends: In the first fire house in Santiago way back when, the firemen had all these pins and medals and stuff on their uniforms, one of which was a little bee. When the firemen whould go away to Europe to study law or medicine, as was the custom, they would leave their girlfriends with this "pololo" pin so that she and everyone would know she was off limits and was dating a fireman. kinda the same concept as "getting pinned" in the 50's in the sates. fun, right?
* all firefighters in Chile are volunteers except the drivers of the firetruck. crazy.
* I can't seem to think af anything else at the moment and this is long enough, but hopefully I will be posting slightly more regularly and with more substance...