This is home

I know that my posts are becoming farther apart. I want to thank all of you for your patience and understanding in this time of transition especially in communication. I have had to let go a bit with my relationships back home in order to live more fully in communion with those here. A missionary friend once told me, "I'll see you in the Eucharist." I never truly understood this until living here. I truly, by the grace of God, believe this and when I stare at Him in our chapel I meditate on each on our your faces.

Many people have asked me if I feel like I have adjusted. The answer is yes. On a daily basis I still feel the emotional ups and downs, for example, "Why Lord do you have a white gringa, who isn't bilingual and who doesn't fully understand the culture here in the middle of Latin America with these children? Don't you have anyone better? And other days I just feel so great that I just had a whole conversation that made sense and was more than just about food or activities.  Beneath the emotional waves of the surface God has blessed me with the current of joy in my vocation as a missionary. Though I have always felt this underlying current, my turning point was December 23rd. 2 other missionaries and I had just attended Posadas in the outside neighborhood and were mediating on how grateful we were to be apart of it. We came back to find the rest of the missionary family all hands on deck with American Christmas music blaring from the library, and a sea of present for the kids. We joined them and as I looked around, meditating on how different this Christmas was, the first time in my life unable to share it with my family, knowing that we wouldn't be going to bed anytime soon but we would be up early in the morning, God gave the grace to smile and inside I knew a peace. The peace of embracing my vocation as a missionary. I have a new missionary family, and as we shared chocolate and cookies sent my someone's parents (thank you!) and organized and wrapped present while listening to Bing's White Christmas in Honduras, I realized how privileged I am to come to know these 10 people in a way that most people never know their friends. These people will become my family and they will see the good and bad inside of me We will share my joys, laughs, sorrows, frustrations, bad and good habits :) And hopefully we will come out loving each other in the end:) This is what it means to be family.