An unposted update from December 16th, 2011:
Five days and counting until I go home!
Yesterday, I had no working itouch or cell phone; I can't get either of my laptops to connect to the internet at the house I'm staying at; I was pretty sure I was doomed to cold showers until I got back to Jerusalem; I've gotten sick with a cold; the house has no central heating and is flooded with mosquitoes; I have several mosquito bites on my face, including my eyelid; I left my Bible at JUC.
Today, I slept in, helped one of the kids here make cupcakes, took a steamy hot shower, killed a few mosquitoes, helped clean the house, and found a way to charge my gameboy DS. It's the little things in life.
We are so spoiled in America. A year ago, I would have told you that I couldn't function without all of my electronics. Hear I am, now, perfectly content without them. I mean, missionaries talk about this kind of stuff all the time, but I always just smiled and nodded in agreement. I knew what they were saying was true, but, until you're really living it, it's hard to fully grasp or appreciate what they're saying. There's something I've heard said by people that live overseas: someone that visits for two weeks think they can fix the world's problems, people that stay for a few months know that it's complicated, and people that stay for a year know it's far beyond their comprehension of solving. It's true.
When I'm at home, I can take a shower whenever I want and I know the water will always be warm; I can eat because I'm bored, I can go to the store and generally know that I'll find what I need. Everyone there basically speaks my language and has the same agenda. Our only hardships are competition for jobs and social drama – which we create for ourselves. But life is so different outside our bubble. There seems to be much less social drama in Palestine because their time and energy has to be devoted to other things like feeding their family, making money, and fighting for freedom. Those kinds of basic things, that we take advantage of, consume their daily lives so that they have very little time for who's dating who or being so unsatisfied with their marriage that they have to buy a new car or spouse. They have to bond together in order to make it through their life.
And all of this is coming from the opinion of someone who was once a “non-comforming conformist”. I still roll my eyes at typical over-spiritualistic evangelists and Christians who only converse in christianese (Words used by Christians that the unsaved masses are unlikely to understand, making Christians seem exclusive. Typically found in youth pastors, I find). I don't want to sound like one of them because I strive so much to be different and I know that people like that can push people from church.
So then, what am I trying to say? What is my point?
I don't actually need all the things that I thought I needed. I'm more thankful for what we have at home, and yet also sickened by how much we have. I'm even more sickened by consumer western ideology than I was before I came to Israel. But, that can't be all I'm trying to say...
I think my point is that when you're where God wants you to be, His will is sufficient for all your needs. Here I am, in a culture that I don't necessarily mesh with or love, absent of a lot of my comforts, but I'm not miserable or depressed or anything. Not to say that any of this is easy for me, but I think I'm so in harmony with God's will for me at this moment that I have the capacity to handle it and find small joys. Just the fact that I took a hot shower today made me happy dance.
What's saddening is that I don't know how I ended up here. I mean, I told God that if He wanted me to stay in Israel, and if He provided me with housing, then I would stay. But I know me well enough to know that this won't happen again. Not like this. It seemed too easy. And I've prayed and responded to prayer like this before, but never felt this much peace about it. I already feel like this is what I'll be chasing after forever, but only achieve it 1/10 of the time. Like, making a recipe once right and never quite remembering how you did it so well that one time. And every time you make it, it's still never quite right. Then you finally get it right again, but you don't know what you did differently. How did I do this and how do I make it happen every time?
I am constantly reminded of Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
In retrospect of all this, I shared this with a friend while I was in the states and he said that maybe this time was different because I was doing it for God instead of myself. I didn't want to stay in Bethlehem. I was so homesick and so tired of the poor social situation at JUC that I was ready to come home and change my major, even if it meant staying in school an extra semester. But, when God provided me housing, I couldn't tell Him no. And so, I was there for God. In no way for myself. But how do I replicate that every time?
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