June 13, 2006

As I have begun pondering my reasons for embarking on this journey, a rush of emotions, questions and excitement is taking me over. This journey has been a long time coming, I am ready…I have been ready. There are many reasons as to why I choose to leave the physical, intellectual, and emotional comforts of everything I once knew; my home. The very idea, that this ‘home,’ this way of life is all I know, and knowing there is so much more to life hidden deep within the secrets of this world and its people. There is so much more to life than our belief in the ‘American Dream,’ material possession, and our selfish ambitions and vein conceit. Our vanity has swallowed us whole; who and what will pull us out if we do not begin to crawl on our own?

When did we start believing everything we heard and take it as truth? Moreover, I ask you to understand that by claiming “we” I include myself. Why is it that, we believe we are “blessed” to live in America, that we are the elite of this world, because our money and heritage claims our stake? Then I beg to challenge our notion of “blessings.” Why is that we put a tag on our wealth in money, material possession, access to education and healthcare, that states “Blessing from God.” A journey back, to the context of why some have our definition of “wealth” and others do not, would have roots solely planted in the dirt of injustice that begins and ends in privilege, power and difference. Have not we then trapped God in a box and slapped on an ignorant statement of God’s character. Do we really believe God intentionally denies access to the bare necessities of life to the multitude yet grants a surplus to others, because of His undying favor for those in power? Do not misunderstand me! I am not condemning persons but rather the capitalistic system in which we live and are entrapped in, for who am I to judge? Have I not bound myself in its chains, the very chains I am struggling to crawl out of?

Oh how ignorance is both our bliss and our destruction. These very thoughts eat me alive and all I am left to plead is …forgive us Father, for we know not what we do…for we are lost.

I choose to leave as I choose to take up this journey into a world that allows me to question absolutes. By leaving, I am choosing to take off the chains that bind me to this complex society, and liberate my soul into a world where life appears to be simple and concrete. I leave to seek truth. I want to live the life I no longer have to take for granted, to see, hear, taste and smell the richness and extent of God’s creation and beauty. To seek, search and find a part of His character that He left dwelling within a people and their lives. Whether these beliefs are apart of the baggage, that follows me into lands unknown, or a mere stepping-stone in my journey to seek truth, we will soon find out.

I have once experienced the life and love found on the streets of Guatemala. Why Guatemala you ask, well the story begins in my childhood dreams and passions. In the year of 1995, fifth grade began. It was this year that Arizona curriculum placed the study of the Ancient Mayan Civilizations, and it was then that I feel in love with their architecture, their lives and their story. It had been my dream to one-day venture off the discovered paths of Mayan Temples, Plazas and Great Ball Courts, in search of discovering more of who the Mayans were. For their Civilization fell and no one really knows the truth in what had happened to a people group who were so highly advanced in Astronomy, Mathematics and Science then the rest of the world. For I somehow had the staggering belief that very few Mayans remained on this world. I recall fearing that by the time I grew up, and was able to venture into the jungles of the Yucatan, the people would all be gone and their secrets in turn all discovered. Little did I know that God would later send me to a place where over sixty percent of the population is of Indigenous Mayan ancestry, with twenty two Indigenous tribes speaking twenty two Indigenous languages, with twenty two ways of life. Little did I know that God would send me, to learn about their life today, their struggles and triumphs of fighting against a Colonized world that continues to oppress and strangle their traditions. Little did I know that my dreams and passions as a child foreshadowed all that I am today.

Last year, God sent me to Guatemala, through Azusa Pacific University’s Office of World Mission’s Focus International Team. I applied for the team in the fall of 2004, looking back on the steps of faith that I took that year I still wonder how I managed. Let me explain, I went to Biola my Freshman year of College, something about it did not seem to fit, for my previous major and many other reasons I decided to leave, in search of what God had for me. That fall of 2004, I decided to get an apartment in Fullerton with an amazing friend who also decided to leave, and we attended Fullerton College, lived on our own that semester, not having any idea if we would be accepted to APU. It was an amazing time that semester, for the road was full of twists and turns, but through them, I grew. It was during that semester that my friend and I accidentally made it into the Office of World Missions, we marveled at every option and country they had to offer. Guatemala did not stand out to me, I wonder if it should have, if I was blind to the idea. Both she and I applied to teams; Guatemala was on each of our lists, but certainly not on the top of mine. We had no desire to go together, for we each knew that this would be when we would be able to make friends in a new place. It just so happened that when I had my interview for Guatemala; I knew the man that would lead the team, we had met during a Mexico Outreach trip to Cuernevaca last spring, he had been apart of my journey in trying to transfer. We had an amazing time talking in that interview, and it was then that I felt a glimpse of my passion for these people, not only the Latin Americans, the people of Guatemala but the Mayans. The only team I was accepted to was Team Guatemala, my friend even managed to end up on the team as well. At this point, I still had not received my letter of acceptance for APU, but I already had the whole semester planned. I soon received the call of good news from my Admissions Advisor and the journey began. Last year the trip ended up being an amazing adventure, it is where God started making me question things. The trip left me with new ideas to wrestle over, but in the end when I left Guatemala, in no way did I ever intend or think for a minute that I would ever return.

Little did I know, God had something very drastically different planned for me. In the fall of 2005, I began the year working in the Office of World Missions. It was on September 5th that I dealt with a lot of my anxieties about the trip last year, it was then that my mind would not stop thinking of new ideas for the trip next year, as our prior trip was nicknamed ‘the guinea pig.’ I would get so excited about the trip and what could be done with it, but after I would let my mind run off, I would have to come back to the realization that I was not going back to Guatemala, I had not even wanted to. My desire was to run off to some exotic country in Africa or even to India, so I could add to my list of places I have been. I came to realize what a selfish ambition this was. I sat at my desk in the office one day, and the idea of my co-leading the team with an old team member was brought up. I remember being scared half to death to admit that I was thinking about it. If I said it aloud, it meant I had to follow through but somehow, I mustered up the courage to tell them truth. This was the beginning of another rocky and long road God had me on, but it was how I got to where I am today, Guatemala.

In Guatemala, they have faces that have captured what it is to love and be in true relationship, seen by their smiles. I want to be with and learn from those who have built this into their spirit, or ‘sea’ in their being. It is for this that I return. To throw every expectation to the wind, to try and have an open heart and mind as to what God has for me. For in giving up our hopes, dreams and expectations is where true life is lived, and truth is found for those who care to seek.

How can I feel nervous or scared to venture off from a place where I do not feel I belong? How is it that the recollection of Guatemala feels like home, where I am supposed to be, to live, to learn and to love? The only things that it seems Guatemala is missing is my family and friends, neither of whom, I will venture to state; feel the extent of my passions. I will miss their company dearly, but will always know that they are found in my heart and I in theirs, despite the different paths our lives take. I have always feared, that if I ventured off on my own for too long into a land far away, that I would fall in love and never return. It is still my fear that I will not return in September for school. However, I believe I must… I have recently learned the importance of education, even in the midst of the Third World, and how shocking this was, for it went against all my prior beliefs. But even then, how refreshing, that not only am I graduating in one years time, but that I have not wasted the last three years of studies, of which have only secretly encouraged my knowledge in the areas related to my passion.

As I embark on this journey in the midst of only myself, contradicting emotions engulf me. For I know that I will never truly be alone, for God is with me, while physically it is only me that travels ahead. I am eager to find out how I will react, when the team thirteen, that I am leading leaves on June 11th. Being alone is something new to me, something I have never done, but all the more reason to venture off into the unknown. I have this small addiction to taking my fears and anxiety and using them as a foothold to climb into everything that scares me, to conquer my fears. Antigua is a beautiful colonial city, with many travelers passing through, and to where God takes me after, rural Guatemala is home to some of the friendliest and welcoming Christ Followers. I only fear they will misinterpret why I have come. However, I know that the
people of the Guatemalan Church, which is where I will go, to get a foot in the door with the children and the men and women of Guatemala.