This is me.

Well hello there.  It’s been a while.  

I am living in NYC (Brooklyn) now, and there are so may things to say.  It’s like a different country up here and the differences deserve hi-lighting.  So here’s my list of observations, rants and just general tidbits of advice. 

1.  Food delivery.  Any food, anytime, anywhere.  Seriously.  ANYWHERE.

2.  Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.  Just don’t.  It’s about as logical as stopping your car in the middle of the highway.  

3.  Advance planning.  Decide your whole day and pack accordingly because you won’t be returning home until time for bed.  (Oh, and you’ll be carrying it all in your bag.  All day long). 

4. Fashion Shmashion.  Unless you’re in the fashion industry,  you’re likely mostly concerned about getting from point A to point B in the most comfortable shoes/outfit possible.  (Think formal wear and tennis shoes.  For reals.)

5.  You can easily spend 50% of your paycheck on food.  Really.     

6.  Iceless water.  Why is ice so hard to come by in these parts?  

7. The subway station.  It’s hella hot in the summertime and sometimes your train doesn’t come for 30 minutes and the back sweat just keeps accumulating. 

8.  Earbuds.  You haven’t arrived as a New Yorker until you have your earbuds.

9.  Tote bags.  And no, I’m not talking about the cute ones you buy at the department store.  I’m talking about the ones that come as a gift (remember, you also got that cheap water bottle?) for that 5k you ran [ahem, walked] in.  Yes, those.  They’re everywhere, and they’re in.  So get one.  

10.  Outsourcing.  You can hire someone to do just about anything.  I mean it.  ANYTHING.  (I’ve heard of people hiring someone just to come wash their dishes.)  

I’m certain there are more incredibly insightful observations to come as I continue this life in the Big Apple. 

This week I heard or read words like...

“Lord, I know you love me, but I feel like you don’t.”

“Help me to have a clean heart.”  

“The man I could never forgive (with an arrow pointing to a picture of Dad)...But Lord help me to forgive him.”  

“I have about a million yucky things in my life.”  

“Lord, I love you.  Please help me be nice to my little sister.”  

I’ve been talking to my students about getting real with God.  Since he already knows what’s in your heart, why not just talk to him about it, right?  {These are words I need to internalize myself, honestly.}  But man, have I been blessed in reading and/or hearing them be real and honest before God.  And they have let me in to their struggles.  

And I am in awe.  

I am amazed at how God moves in and speaks to their little hearts, and beyond blessed to be a part of it.  

This week I got together with a friend who said, “I feel like I am just now letting out some stuff that I have suppressed for the last 15 years.”  

What if, just what if we could teach kids to not do that?  What if we could teach kids to take their struggles to God, to really press in to him and cry out to him, and allow him to heal their hearts, piece by piece?

So I’ve been on Facebook lately and a hashtag keeps popping up.  #mycupoverflows or #cupoverfloweth or something of the like.  And it’s usually associated with “good” things.  A baby.  An engagement.  A new job.   

This weekend, my cup did overflow.  But with sadness.  Sadness over some news I got from Honduras.  (Those pesky boys just won’t leave my heart alone!)  Sadness over a few unfulfilled longings that I’ve been battling with the Lord about.  

And it’s got me wondering something.  Can our cup overflow with suffering?  And can this be blessing?  

i think so.  

See, I was sad, but it was sweet.  I paced the floor.  I prayed.  That suffering caused me to press in to the Lord, to recognize that my truest need and deepest longing is for Him.  I still feel that sadness.  He doesn’t take it  away.  But he comforts and cares for me, and is ever so present in the midst of it.  And honestly I wouldn’t trade it.  

This past weekend, I met a new sister in Christ at Mandy’s wedding in Orlando.  (Mandy was in Honduras with me and took over the Peter Project after I left.)  

Abby and I spoke about being a missionary and how hard the re-entry process is.  And how ironic it is that the most difficult part isn’t leaving your home country but coming back.  

She said something profound, and I couldn’t agree more.  She said, “Missions will ruin you.”  See, you make yourself a home in this new country.  You adopt their cultural norms and learn to do life their way.  But it never completely feels like home.  And then you come “home” to a place you really don’t seem to fit into anymore.  There are cultural norms you are familiar with, but you are forever changed by your experiences abroad and you just can’t seem to do things the way you used to.  So, this place doesn’t completely feel like home either.

And I think, in a way, you kinda stay that way.  Stuck between worlds.  

It can be a beautiful thing.  A beautiful picture of how this world really isn’t our home anyway.  We were designed for eternity, right?  

UPDATE on Kelvin and Rosa:  (Read previous post for backstory)

After almost three days in labor, Rosa finally delivered she and Kelvin’s precious baby boy.  The Peter Project paid for a tiny coffin and a plot at the cemetery.  Kelvin was handed his stillborn baby boy yesterday afternoon, and Roberto drove them all to the cemetery to have a little ceremony.  Roberto said it was extremely sad and Kelvin was very emotional.  I haven’t talked to Kelvin since the ceremony, but hope to talk to him soon.  I am uncertain at this point of Rosa’s emotional or physical condition.  

Please join me in praying for Kelvin and Rosa.  Rosa does not know the Lord, so pray for her salvation through this.  Pray for Kelvin, that his intimacy with the Lord would be deepened and strengthened as he goes through a time of such suffering.  Join me in thanking the Lord for Roberto.  Kelvin is so close to my heart, so you can imagine the peace it brings me to know that Roberto is at his side and plans to walk through this suffering with him.  He can do a far better job at understanding what he is going through than I ever could.  

My baby came to us so full of anger I thought he may burst at the seams.  His mouth spewed out curse words and insults, yet his heart so clearly longed to be loved.  He just didn’t know any other way to express himself.   

And he stole my heart.

Then he came to believe in the only One who could save Him.  He wrote to me, “Kati, I believe.”  And I knew what he meant.  

He was never the same after that.  His anger began to diminish and his countenance changed entirely.  The change in him increased all our faith, as we couldn’t belive the words we were hearing and the actions we were seeing.  For truly the greatest miracle God does is to change the human heart.  

One day, he said to me, “Kati, I’m angry that God has taken away my anger.”  My heart giggles at the memory of those words.

I’d often come into the project and find him reading his bible, desperately clinging to the Words that he knew were the only ones that bring him life.   

A year later, despite our pleadings, he chose to get “married” at age 15 (not alltogether uncommon in the squatter community he lives in).  And, inevitably, Rosa got pregnant.  

And now, three years later, my baby has lost his baby.  And his heart is breaking.  My heart breaks right alongside him.  

“Kelvin, can I pray for you?” I say.  “Yes, but please pray that when they get my baby out, that he’s alive.  I am choosing to believe he’s alive.”  (The doctors have confirmed that the baby is dead.)  I tell him God can do anything and that of course I will pray that.  But I remind him that whatever happens, God loves him, Rosa and the baby. 

I pray for him.  I pray for his heart, for Rosa’s health, for the baby and for him to have a peace that surpasses all understanding.  I make him promise to call me later tonight.  

We hang up, and I weep.  

.:{I will update this post as I get more details}:. 

UPDATE:  (6/24/15)

After almost three days in labor, Rosa finally delivered she and Kelvin’s precious baby boy.  The Peter Project paid for a tiny coffin and a plot at the cemetery.  Kelvin was handed his stillborn baby boy yesterday afternoon, and Roberto drove them all to the cemetery to have a little ceremony.  Roberto said it was extremely sad and Kelvin was very emotional.  I haven’t talked to Kelvin since the ceremony, but hope to talk to him soon.  I am uncertain at this point of Rosa’s emotional or physical condition.  

I want to be a detective.  

I want to solve crimes and bring justice to families and wrap it all up nicely in an hour and I may go home with emotional baggage but it’s ok because I am all healed up by the next day and ready to tackle the next serial killer or bank robber.

The following scenarios are likely to make single ladies feel very, well, single.  Read with caution.  

(Disclaimer:  This post is meant to be funny and light-hearted.  I recognize that the Lord has called me to singleness and most days I am able to rejoice in that, but I would be a complete liar if I said there aren’t days when I am just tired of it.  So there you go.  Also, these may or may not be true events in my life.  Just sayin.)

1.  When you’re driving and you’re listening to a Nicholas Sparks audiobook (aka, porn for women) and you know it’s totally Hollywood but you still find yourself believing that the book is a look into your romantic future but then you look around and realize you are all alone in the car.  

2.  When you’re riding in the backseat of the car with your aging parents and at first it’s kind of nice because it feels like childhood but then you remember you’re 37 years old.  

3.  When your Dad keeps telling you (jokingly, but not really) that he’s getting tired of being his own son-in-law.  

4.  When you’re at IKEA and you want to buy some bookshelves but they are just too heavy, so you flag down an old man who comes to help you put them in your car and you are thanking him profusely and then he asks you where your husband is.  

5.  When you are moving into a new classroom and you have lots of furniture to move and you just don’t have the muscles so you ask some friends and/or brothers-in-law and they are willing to help you but it’s really hard with schedules and so you end up asking your Dad (who is still his own son-in-law) and you feel really guilty because he’s getting old and what if he pulls out his back or something and then you’d feel really really guilty.  

6.  When you really want to go to Sloss Fest but your friends all have kids and can’t go with you so you don’t go because you have no one to go with.  (plus you have no money, which I recognize is not exclusively a single lady problem) 

7.  When your washing machine breaks and you wish you could just say, “Honey, the washer’s broken.  Could you take care of it?”  Instead, you find yourself weeks later with a still-broken washer.  

Detective Dawson: "Hey O, if you could start over knowing what you know now, would your career be any different?

Detective Olinsky: "Well, if I could start over I'd just end up making different mistakes than the ones I made the first time."

A year ago today we scooped this little guy up off the streets and brought him to the project. It’s always a waiting game to see if they’ll return the next day and the next. To see if they’ll decide to join our little family. I was surprised when he did! He is still coming today and I now get the privilege to be his sponsor. I cannot describe how much I miss him and am so thankful to the Lord for putting in his heart the longing for something different than the life he has always known. I lub you foreber, Derik!

{This is a respost from a blog I wrote while in Honduras, on August 24, 2014.}  

And can I add that it’s usually worse than what you thought?

From the beginning, the Lord has given me the vision to invest deeply and profoundly in a small number of kids.  It has been almost three years and I feel like for many of them I am just beginning to scratch the surface.  

D has been with us for some time.  We thought he was just an all-around awesome kid who just needed resources.  He is so well-behaved and respectful that we could only assume that his mother loves him well at home.  We have just recently found out that he has been living with his Dad for three months because his mother tells him he is not her son, she wishes he would leave and it would be better if he was dead.  Whaaat?  We were shocked.  He is only sharing this with us because he trusts us.  (He actually first shared it with our awesome intern Lyssa Melonakos.  Lyssa, please stay forever)

[The deeper you go, the more you know.  And it’s usually worse than what you thought.]

We have recently learned that our precious C tried to get his girl to have sex with him.  Thankfully, she said no.  (shocker!)  This kid is the last one we would ever think is even thinking such things.  My heart breaks at the thought that he felt the pressure and that it was time he take that step.  This is something we wouldn’t know if we weren’t making such an effort to invest deeply.  

[Again, the deeper you go, the more you know.  And it’s usually worse than you thought.]

The most recent and most heavy on my heart has been all that is happening with my precious K.  K has decided he wants to be a grown-up.  He has decided that he is going to “take in” a girl (which is basically like marrying her) and provide for her.  He has confided in Roberto the details of their relationship and it is truly heartbreaking.  My baby is growing up.  But really, he is still a child.  I am afraid we are going to have to watch him fall on his face in order for him to learn that he is not ready to provide for anyone.  We are paying for his schooling (thankfully, he is committed to school), but when he comes to us asking for money to feed his girl, we have to say no.  He needs to see the commitment he has made and if he wants to be a man, we must let him.  And it’s hard.  We want him to see that he is in no way able to support anyone in an effort to perhaps pull him back from a life that none of us want for him.  And let’s not even mention how much I love this child.  This must be just a glimpse of what it feels like to be a mother of a wayward child.  

[The deeper you go, the more you know.  

The more you know, the deeper you love.  

The deeper you love, the more you put your heart on the line.

The more you put your heart on the line, the more it hurts.]