¡chao chao chile! ¡nos vemos!

Viña del Mar, the place i've called home for the last five months. i took this picture this afternoon. it shows the canal that runs through the middle of town and goes out into the ocean and is taken from a bridge only about two blocks from the beach. beautiful, i know. now you know why it's hard for me to leave.
i don't really know why i'm writing at three o'clock in the morning instead of sleeping (except that i figure it's better that i'm a little tired tomorrow, b/c then maybe i'll actually sleep on the plane), but i kinda wanted to keep my loyal blog readers posted as this journey comes to an end.

the last few days have been kinda rough, slightly depressing, but today i think i finally starting to come around, thanks to a conversation with my mom and some divine revelation. see the thing is that for the last two years of my life, every semester has been radically, drastically different, this semester obviously being the most different of them all, and now i face yet another jolting change. and while i really do love the change, and i've learned so much from it about where my dependence should be (in the Lord) and not on people and things and places- because those are always changing and coming and going- sometimes i'd just like to be able to have do the same thing for more than just 4 or 5 months... and this has been such a sweet time of my life, probably my favorite thus far, it's even harder to leave it and move onto something that i know will be so drastically different. but, at this point in my life, i'm being called to live a life where the seasons are constantly changing, at times ridiculously drastically and rapidly (like winter to summer in less than a day...). but then i've always like the changes in seasons. the Lord shows us a different part of Himself in each of them, and i have complete confidence that He'll do the same in this change. so i've committed myself to not just go where i know He's leading me, back home that is, but to delight in the journey He's sent me on instead of grumbling about having to leave this place that i love so much. and i leave with every intention in the world of coming back some day, hopefully not too far in the future.

sooo, this concludes the posts from chile (tear...). geez, i can't believe it's over. it's been so good... words just don't quite do... thank you all for supporting me while i've been here! i think i'll probably keep up this blog, at least for a bit to document the readjustment process, and maybe longer... we'll see.... well, nos vemos pronto (we'll be seeing each other soon!).

from winter to summer in < 24 hours

trying not to freak out. fighting back tears. trying to keep my mind off of it. in denial that people are leaving. cuz i leave in three days. three days... and i don't know if i've ever had such conflicted feelings. i'm so excited to go home sometimes. i miss people and places and things so much. i know that it would be wrong for me to be here longer. i know that the Lord's faithfulness will follow me, b/c it never ends. but i still hate that i'm leaving. i hate that i will soon be thousands of miles from people i love, from these cities that i love. that a new student will soon be moving in with my family (although i'm happy for them at the same time... just jealous...). that even my gringo friends will be far from me. i'm about to leave everything i have grown to know and love in the last five months. and it absolutely breaks my heart.

mia, one of my best gringo friends, left today. i've been in complete denial about her leaving. i think it's because she's just going to the states for two and a half weeks and then she's coming back to chile for the second semester. so for some reason, since her goodbyes with everyone in chile aren't final, i feel like our goodbye isn't either. that i too will be coming back too, that we'll see each other in a few weeks after going home for a bit. but no. i'm not coming back. and it's ok. but still......

so i made cookies today. lots of cookies. to keep myself busy. take my mind off of leaving. it was pretty fun. pipe hung out with me while i was making them. he helped quite a bit and we got to talk too. geez i'm gonna me having big brothers. i'm gonna miss my big brothers. pipe keeps telling me i should stay... but i can't... i think they're pretty nervous about having a new student move in soon too. i was there first exchange student, so it's going to be an interesting transition for them too.

but as much as leaving is killing me, i'd rather it hurt that be dying to go home. b/c the fact that it hurts is a testament to how wonderful this experience has been. geez it's been a blessed experience. so i'm just going to have to learn to praise the Lord for this beautiful season of my life that He's given me, and accept the changes in the seasons, b/c they're always changing. i just kinda with that there was a spring between this winter and summer. i have a feeling that the change is going to be quite the shock. but the Lord will provide even in unnatural season changes. He will always provide. so i rest in that. until i see you all. which will be oh soo soon!

las despedidas

the goodbyes have started... well i guess the goodbyes actually started at the end of last week, but today i had to say goodbye to three of the people who have been some of my best friends here. and it was really weird. really sad. these are all people who have been a huge blessing to my life here, who i've spent alot of times with, shared a ton of laughs with, maybe even a couple of tears with, and who have just been with me in this awesome experience. and now we all go in our separate ways. maybe our paths will cross again, but then maybe they won't, and if they do it's doubtable that is will be in this city, and it will never be with all of us together. sometime this friendship thing that we do seems so weird... how we make these close friends, share our lives, maybe little pieces of our hearts with them, and then after weeks, months, with luck years, our lives take us in different directions and the relationship comes to a close, never to be the same, even if they do hang on by a few thin strings of communication. at times i've asked myself why we do it. why we're friendly with people we know we will only have such a short time with, in some cases just hours or days (like the people you talk to on a plane or when you're traveling). but i always come to the conclusion that it's worth it. no matter how short the time, or how painful the goodbyes, investing in the life of another human being is always worth it. it's worth it b/c every person i meet and the moments i get to share with them, change me just a little bit. add to who i am, what i know, how i see the things around me, and how i relate to everyone else. i know this may seems completely simple and probably cliché, but sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the importance of these relationships that seem to always be coming and going. plus i'm left with so many memories that will always make me smile. thanks friends... words just don't do justice to explain what a blessing it's been to have you in my life! so here's to my gringo friends! ¡les quiero muchisimo!

juanito (o aaron) y lianna

barrett y la mia, they're debating whether to let me into barrett's house as they gaze out the window at the top of his stairsme y lianna :)

the sad part is that this is just the beginning of the goodbyes, and the most difficult ones are still to come. but i've know that this would all have to come to an end at some point, so i think in a way i've kinda been preparing myself for it all along. so i'll deal with these goodbyes as they come, and try and not let the knowledge that they're coming put a damper on my last two weeks, or really less that two weeks, that i have here. plus, as the day of departure draws nearer, i find myself getting more and more excited about coming home and all that awaits me stateside. the Lord's preparing my heart for the next season He has in store for me. well, that's about all for now! i love you all and would love to hear how life's going. and mark your calendars for july 15th, cuz that's when i get back!

i'm lacking inspiration for a title...

3 weeks from this very moment i will be home. i can't even bring myself to count the number of days that is. one, b/c i'm really excited about it, and two because the fact that i'm leaving breaks my heart a little bit every time i think about it. alot of my gringo friend leave either for home or for travels in a week, which i'm hoping won't make my last two weeks here fome (boring), but i think it will be a really good opportunity to spend some good quality time w/ my family and chilean friend before i leave the southern hemisphere.

well, the last week, or really weeks, have been pretty eventful. the trip to the isla de pascua was very enjoyable, albeit short. it was so good to see my feet after the months they've spent hidden under two pairs of socks (my feet were soo happy in my chacos, this cold weather and lack of being free just isn't good for them!) and just to be warm all over for once! the isla's also beautiful and definitely has something mysterious about it. i wish i could have stayed longer, but the four days i was there were definitely enjoyable!

since when i got back late tuesday night until now i've been really busy working on end of the semester projects, attending cenas de despedidas (goodbye dinners), and having other adventures in valparaíso. in the last couple weeks i've spent alot more time w/ some of the gringo friends i've made, sometimes b/c of projects and stuff we have to do together for our classes, but often just because i've come to realize that i really enjoy the company of alot of them. i've been amazed at the form our friendships have taken, b/c all of us our so completely different, but yet we have the coolest relationships. completely different from the friendships i've always had in the past, but really good at the same time. they've made me think so much about how i look at the world and the people in it and they've also really challenged me in my faith, even though that definitely hasn't been there intentions. it's been really good although at times really uncomfortable stepping outside of my naive, sheltered bubble that i've kept myself in for so long. and it's also been an incredible challenge to do this while still remaining true to who i am and what and who i believe. but through the grace of God and His abounding provision, i feel like my experiences have been all good. and the Lord has been using me and teaching me in situations where i never would have expected to find Him. i also feel like the Lord's really been preparing me while i'm here for what He has in store for me next semester, especially in my position as an RA. i think before i came here i often fell into being very judgemental of many of the choices that people make in how they live their lives, but i've been learning that i have no place to judge others. i'm here to love and to be the Lord's hands and feet, something i continually screw up, but luckily He's a bazillion times bigger than my biggest screw ups and shortcomings.

ohhh, there's so much i've been learning and processing. right now i'm really really tired, so i may leave you for now with the beautiful pictures of la isla de pascua, but as i continue to process all that's going through my head in these last weeks, i'll try and keep the posts coming. i love and miss you all and i'm really excited to see you all in so short a time! mark your calenders. july 15th's the day. i want to see you all PRONTO (soon!) after i get back.

les quiero y extraño muchisimo!

me attacking laurie w/ my lei (sp?) in the airport when we first arrived. me and the chicatito (little) moai. kinda a my size moai really. i liked his hat too.the sunset one night. this wasn't even the best part of it, this is just when i finally decided to go get my camera, which i've finally learning how to utilize to capture sunsets (yay for manual functions and actually knowing how to use them!)super cool flower that was all over the island.me and laurie sitting on a moai that was never completed. the carved shaped them while they were still in the earth and then somehow cut them out and set them upright. these are the 15 moai that are quite famous. i didn't get all 15 in this pic ( i have another that has all of them) but you can get an idea of how big they are in this picture b/c laurie and amy are standing in the middle of them. they're pretty huge if you haven't noticed by now.the sky at sunset one night, yet again thanks to the manual function of my camera which i've grown so fond of :)me in playa anacana (sp?). you can't tell in the pic, but it was raining while we were there (and all day for that matter), hence the wet hair. but it was quite beautiful nonetheless.

i'll be home in a month! that's crazy!!

well, i should probalby be sleeping or at least packing right now, considering i have to be on a bus to go to santiago to catch my plane that's going to take me to la isla de pascua (easter island!!!!!) in just over 4 hours (....), but i feel like it's been far too long since i've updated, and there's so many things i feel like i should be sharing, so... maybe i just won't sleep. i can sleep on the bus and the plane!

so, since my last post, geez, alot's happened. here's some of the event highlights:

• my dad came to visit me for a week. translating and being a guide was definitely an adventure and at times really tiring, but it was really a great experience to spend a week solid with my dad, something we've never really done before. it was really a joy to see him interact with all the people down here, especially considering the fact that he knows maybe... 20 spanish words. but he handled what could have been potentially frustrating situations incredibly. way to go dad! i'm really glad you came!
• we celebrated a couple birthdays. my mom's birthday was at the end of may so we threw her a fun little party and then i turned 20 while my dad was here. it was really a great birthday. started out w/ my brother seba sending me a text message at 12:30 am from his bedroom (i.e. we were in the same house when he sent it) wishing me happy birthday and telling me i should come search for my b-day present in his room. he gave me the worship cd from the church, which was a really thoughtful gift. about an hour later, pipe came home and greeted me with a rendition of "feliz cumpleaños" and a huge hug. and that was all BEFORE i even went to bed, the morning of my b-day. the rest of the day was wonderful too. my dad and i did some exploring in my favorite hill in valparaíso (cerro alegre!) and then seba organized a get together/birthday party with alot of my friends. we ate pizza and talked and watched movies. it was really fun! yay for birthday parties and awesome family!
• i got back some of my grades on tests and papers in some of my classes this week and they have all been surprisingly good! i have really decent grades in some of the classes i was really worried about, so that's a relief. and i finished my literature class that has been a huge weight on my shoulders, which feels so good. haha, but that's only after i read 110 pages of a novel in spanish in one day to get ready for my final test in that class. but it's done now. YAY!
• in my chilean culture class we have a final project to make a video, and after a couple changes to our topic, we settled on shoes in chile. super random, i know. but i'm pretty excited about it. mia, barret and i went to the beach today to get footage of people on the beach with shoes on. but while we were "working"on our project there was also a fare bit of goofing off and foot fighting (don't ask... you'll just have to see the video when i get home). good times, good times. it's really nice to actually be excited about a school project for once.
  
• and then a bazillion other really fun moments, but it would take me all night to tell you about all of them.

and then, another big event, too big for just a bullet point, is that i reached the one month left mark yesterday. one month left... the reality that i will very soon be leaving this place and returning home is starting to hit, and as it gets closer, i get more and more uncertain about how i feel about that fact. i've enjoyed all of this experience, but lately i've really starting to love it here. i'm starting to get comfortable in my way of life here, starting to become more independent, getting more and more things figured out, and most importantly, i've developed some really precious relationships. and in a month i leave it all. almost five months of living and loving and learning and growing and hurting and being comfused and being amazed and so many other things... that i have to leave. and while i have every intention of coming back it'll never be the same. and part of me right now hates the idea of letting it go. but then, on the other side, i'm really excited to be home. to see my family, my friends, the place and foods that i love, and for it to be summer (i'm sick of winter!). i'm excited about the things the next school year has in store, but... i'm just torn. but regardless of whether i like it or if i'm ready for it, it's coming. i'm just starting to realize it's not going to be as easy as i originally thought it would be come home. on top of leaving everything here i'm gonna be hit with some pretty serious culture shock in the form of being ridiculously busy with the school year that will start far too soon (especially b/c i have to move into the dorms aug. 2 for my RA position) and coming back to the university missing some of my most treasured friendships there (brittney, laura, josh). but i have faith in the Lord's provision. this experience was really hard at first, but it was soo good, and i know that coming home will be the same. life can never really just be easy, but it's definitely more interesting this way. and despite the fact that it's really difficult and confusing and complicated at time... it's so good. i continue to be amazed at how blessed i am as the Lord continues to rain down His blessing on me and i know that the rainy season of His blessing won't end when i leave the rainy season here in chile! (corny, but sooo true!)

well, i'm starting to get tired, which will soon cause me to start rambling, so i think i'll cut off this entry before that starts happening too much. i'll be sure and post my isla de pascua pics when i get back! les quiero y extraño muchisimo!! (i love you all and miss you tons!)

i really enjoy this picture! this is my chilean mom blowing out her birthday candles :)the kiddos (o chiquillos) at my b-day party. a couple more showed up after this picture was taken, but it's a fun one. in the picture are my brothers sebastian and felipe, my sister maría jesús, cata, eva, and diego.

me blowing out my birthday candles, and yes, that is a pizza.

eva, my chilean mom, my real day, me , and my friend dani eating at brighton cafe, which is this wonderful little cafe with an incredible view of the city and really great food on one of my favorite hills in valparaíso.

chiquillos en el collegio

the andes mountains near mendozakatie and i on the horses in the foot hills of the andes

i got up this morning at 6:50, struggling to motivate myself to get out of my warm bed because our house is so cold in the morning (well... and now for that matter, but it's worse in the morning). i got ready (without showering...) and then took the bus to meet another another gringo student and a teacher who's in the ISA office alot in the town center of viña. we met up, because robert (the other gringo) and i had volunteered to go to class with david, who's an english teacher at a high school here, to talk to his students and help them with their english. it was quite an adventure! the schools, or collegios as they call them here, are a little wild. you would have thought two celebrities had walked in when robert and i arrived. we went with david to all of the morning classes he teaches, four in total. one was segundo medio (sophomores), another was tercero medio (juniors), and the last two were primero medio (freshman). in the first two classes, with the older students, were relatively calm. there's always the student or two that talks the whole time or cracks all the jokes, but nothing too crazy. but the third class that we went two, the only one that was an hour and a half (the others were just 45 min.), was loca (crazy). robert's not exactly a bad looking fellow (i'm not personally attracted to him like that, but i'm not gonna lie), so all of the girls were practically swooning for him. it was pretty funny. it was also interesting because i had felt like in the other classes that the students at least somewhat understood what we were saying, but the younger ones... no cacharon nada (the didn't understand anything). i really did enjoy it though. it was cool to talk to people about our culture and hear their questions and their curiosities. so that was my morning! i then went to the ISA office for literature tutoring (yuck) and then came home and here i am now!

so i don't have too much else to tell, but i did realize just a couple of minutes ago something terrible simple, but so important. soy bendecida (i'm blessed)! definitely wasn't the first time i've realized that, don't think that that's what i'm saying. i try to realize that every day. but sometimes the blessings of the Lord just hit me. all the things He's given me. that i've done nothing to deserve. that i could do nothing to deserve. yet He gives them abundantly none the less. just a few minutes ago i read an e-mail from a dear friend (one that i just happen to share my name with :) and it was just so... good. reminded me of all the wonderful friends i have at home. and then that got me thinking about all the other blessing i have. my family, who i'm not nearly as thankful for at times as i should be, but i'm so thankful for them (i'm so thankful for you! and i'm not just saying that!!). all of the great people i've met here, and the ways they've all touched my life in sooo many ways. all the things i've been blessed with. yeah, things aren't that important, but i've still been blessed with them in abundance. money, clothes, education, books, house, dorm, job, scholarship, and so many other things. so few people have those. and experiences. geez. i've experienced in my nineteen years of life (almost 20!!) more than so many people get to in an entire lifetime. blows me away. and i know that really, the experiences have just begun. so thank you for all of you. i know that if you're reading this, you've probably blessed me in more ways than you know. what a great God we serve that He gives so abundantly. He is good!!

so that's all. i don't really know what the weekend has in store, but if anything of note happens, i'll keep you all posted. hope your summers are off to a wonderful start for those of you who are done with school and for those of you who are now traveling to all parts of the world, i pray for safety and beautiful, blessed experiences!! love you and miss you all!

border crossing in the andes mountains

i added some stamps to my passport this weekend. four to be exact. two more from chile and two from argentina (you get a stamp from the country you leave and that you enter here). we had a long weekend, with today being a national holiday in chile, so me and two other girls got on a bus and crossed the andes into mendoza, argentina. i normally don’t enjoy long bus rides that much, this ride was really incredible. it’s about 6 hours in the bus, plus border crossing, but about 3.5 of those hours are spent literally in the andes mountains. beautiful doesn’t begin to describe. i think the pass we went on reaches a peak of 12,000 feet, with snow covered mountains still towering all around even at the highest part of the pass. the border crossing it actually pretty close to the top of the pass, which is quite interesting. sadly i have no pictures for you at this time b/c i forgot my camera, so i just had to soak it up with the mind’s eye, but i probably was able to enjoy it more that way anyway. but all is not lost for you my friends b/c my friend katie did have her camera and she took tons of pictures, so hopefully i’ll get those from her and share them with you.

well we arrived to mendoza friday night after an exceptionally long ride b/c we took 3 hours crossing the border. but we were all safe and sound, so that’s all that really matters. we checked into our hostel, found a restaurant, experienced a mendozan “tenedor libre” (which translate to free fork, but it’s a buffet) complete with a mariachi band and lots of fresh meat, and then crashed for the night. saturday we got up and took a micro out of town to an area where there’re tons of vineyards (mendoza’s the 8^th most important wine producing area in the world) for a wine and bike tour with the intentions of learning about the wine industry that’s so important to mendoza and madding doing a tasting or two. we kinda got a late start and after lunch which was our first stop i managed to get a flat tire. so we made friends with some locals, one being a very talkative, but hard to understand, old man who called the bike place to get a new wheel and by the time we got done we had no time to see even one bodega (where they produce the wine), so no worries, no drunken rachel on a bike in south america. there was actually no alcohol involved. that night we made dinner in the hostel for $2 a person (dinner of ravioli, yummy sauce and bread, pretty great price i think) and went to bed cuz we were all pooped and had sore butts. sunday katie and i got up early and headed toward the mountain to go on a horseback ride in the mountains. the view of the andes is quite incredible from the argentina side b/c there aren’t as many hills to obstruct the view of the actual mountain as there are in chile. we ended up getting a private tour b/c no one else had signed up for the day. our guide was this wonderful argentinean man of probably 40 something who has spent all of his life working in the mountains and was really nice and helpful and knowledgeable. i was so cool to just talk to him as we rode along and took in the sights of all the beauty around us. it was also really exciting b/c we were all talking in spanish and i understood 99%. understanding is such a great feeling. so we went on about a 4 hour horseback ride and then headed back to town for a little souvenir shopping, dinner and another kinda early night b/c we had to catch a bus this morning at 8:45. the ride back across the mountains was pretty uneventful but still breathtakingly beautiful. parts of the mountains had more snow than they had just 3 days before and it was snowing a bit as we came out of chilean customs. i also watched the guardian on the bus in spanish, which i was also able to understand, much to my surprise and delight!

most of the trip can be summed up in accounts of places and sites and silly interactions, but there was one experience that struck in a whole different way. i was on the micro on the way to the vineyards when one of many passengers boarded the bus. as he got on and told the driver where he was headed, i remember thinking for the millionth time how many attractive men there are in argentina, when all of the sudden, i caught a good look at his face, and i could hardly believe what i had seen. he headed back to about the middle of the micro (i was pretty close to the front) but i could still see him in the rearview mirror, and as i looked back, i was again struck by his appearance. he looked like josh. i think i had prepared myself to see people that had some resemblance to josh in the states, especially in places and situations i was used to seeing him in, but this was completely unexpected. when i first saw him, i thought it was some trick my mind was playing on me, but as i continued to glance at him, his features kept popping out at me. the shape of his face, his light hair (not quite as light at josh’s but similar by south american standards), his height, and his eyes. i could hardly take my eyes off of him. it was like, by looking at him, i was seeing josh again. i couldn’t process it all in the moment, b/c i was trying my hardest not to freak out and stop crying, but i had this almost uncontrollable urge to talk to him, ask him his name. as if somehow he would be josh. that talking to him would somehow be liking talking to josh. i’m sure i just imagined it, but i felt like he kept looking at me (maybe because i looked distraught), and i imagined some weird connection between us… as if he were josh and not just a random argentinian man that bore his resemblance. right when i was about to break down, we reached our stop and quickly got off. i saw him watching us as the bus pulled away, and i broke down. i was overwhelmed with grief. i was struck with how much a missed him and the fact that i can’t see him now, and that all the look alikes in the world will never be him, no matter what my mind tries to make me believe. i composed myself after a couple of minutes and we got on our bikes and headed off, but i couldn’t get him off my mind all day. as we rode our bikes at the foot of the beautiful andes mountains i couldn’t help but think how much josh would have loved that. bikes, mountains, what more could he has wanted.

i’m continually surprised and confused by this process that they call grieving. xuan said it well in her blog when she said it comes in waves. but it doesn’t seem to make much sense sometimes, but i guess that is life. who are we to understand it. we just have to live it. and as i remember josh with tears or laughs or smiles or heart aches, i remember who he was and how he lived and what he lived for. and i miss him like mad. but i can’t help but be ok b/c he’s with our father, and the idea of him worshiping up there is even more beautiful than all the memories and it makes him not being here easier. i makes it ok. i even makes it good. i also am continually encouraged by him. encouraged to live as he lived, love as he loved, and accept my faults and screw ups as he did and live unashamed in the Lord’s grace. Lord to be unashamed! to live in that freedom. live in that love. that’s my desire.

as a closing note, i left the states three months from today. three months. it seems like no time at all but then again it almost seems like years sometimes. it still amazes me that worlds apart from home, life still continues. you all have gone on living your lives while i’m here figuring out how to live mine, apart from yours. and while we’re thousands of miles and a continent away, we keep living, keep learning, keep struggling, keep rejoicing, keep smiling and laughing and crying, and while our worlds are soo far apart right now, soon we’ll again share the same land mass and we’ll get to share all these unique experiences with each other. how glorious that day will be! for some that day will be longer coming than for others, but know i look forward to it! so keep living, keep making discoveries and having adventures and learning and drawing nearer to the heart of our Father, and i’ll do the same

lobo marinos y manos congelados

i am yet again dumb struck that another week has gone by. they go so fast! but it was a really good week. some highlights:

• discovering a spot really close to the university where i can go and watch a whole bunch of lobo marinos (sea lions) just off shore. there's this big concrete structure just off the coast where there's aways about 6-12 sea lions and they're terribly fascinating to watch, watching them get up onto the structure (quite the feat), fight with each other, and all kinds of other sea liony things. maybe pictures to come soon.
  
• made a new friend who's from argentina, so she talks way different from the chileans, the argentinians pronounce their "ll" really different. it's quite amusing.
• playing random games with seba in an attempt to warm up my cold hands (my hands were cold b/c our house is cold b/c none of the houses here have central heating, and we don't use our little space heater thing much), including the hand slapping game (where you put your hands about the other person's a the person who's hands are on bottom try to slap the ones on top) and also the chilean version of rock, paper, scissors, which includes some pretty intense punishment when you lose (involving licking fingers and slapping the other person's hands really hard). so pretty much seba was beating me up b/c i'm terrible at both games (i don't know how you can be terrible at rock, paper, scissors, but i am...). classic brother sister time. especially considering it was really late and i was laughing uncontrollably but trying not to wake the whole house. you probably had to be there...
• getting two 7s on some of my essays (which are like A+s)
• seeing spider man 3, even though it wasn't that great
• getting mail from friends at home
• discovering a REALLY funny chilean show called "casado con hijos" the idea's taken off of the american show "married with children" which i really have never liked, but the chilean version is hilarious. it's really really chilean, with all the slang and everything, i'm gonna try and find a way to record an episode or something, just to show a bit of chilean culture

in other big news, i found out my dad's going to come visit me which i'm REALLY excited about. he's coming in june for the week of my b-day. so now i'm trying to come up with fun stuff for us to do while he's here, which i think will be pretty easy. it's gonna be an adventure for the both of us, but i think it'll be really cool!

so the books i've been reading while i'm here have really been great (not the spanish ones sadly... but still...). i've been reading the normal christian life by watchman nee for a while now. i think the title's a little misleading for this book, but it's mostly a book about romans 6-8 and all that Christ's death and resurrection does for us. it's a really incredible book. it presents alot of the foundational truths of our faith in a really incredible way i think. so here's a couple excerpt from things i read this week that i really really liked, and really talked about alot of the exact same things i've been thinking about and learning about alot lately.

"a brother who was trying to struggle into victory remarked to me one day, "i don't know why i am so weak." "the trouble with you," i said, "is that you are weak enough not to do the will of God, but you are not weak enough to keep out of things altogether. you are still not weak enough. when you are reduced to utter weakness and are persuaded that you can do nothing whatever, then God will do everything.." we all need to come to the point where we say: "Lord, i am unable to do anything for thee, but i trust thee to do everything for me.""

"have you despaired of yourself, or do you hope hat if you read and pray more you will be a better christian? bible-reading ad prayer are not wrong, and God forbid that we should suggest that they are, but it is wrong to trust even in them for victory. our help is in him who is the object of that reading and prayer. our trust must be in Christ alone."

"...the old habit of "doing" reasserts itself and we begin our old self-efforts again. then God's word comes afresh to us: ït is finished" (john 19:30). He has done everything on the cross for our forgiveness and he will do everything in usf or our deliverance. in both cases He is the doer. "it is God that worketh in you.""

food for thought. how wonderful is it that all that Christ asks of us, He himself accomplishes. He does it all... that's just a pretty incredible thought. learning to live in that prevision is sometimes so against my nature though, but i've been learning alot about that and it's been really great.

well, i'm super tired, so that all for now folks. i love and miss you all!!

riding in a sardine can

picture of mi kissing a rapa knui, the trademark guys from the isla de pascua (easter island, where i'll be going in june!!) seba took this of me in a restaurant on his phone and i think he messed with the background a little bit on photoshop. pretty fun though :)oh how the weeks continue to fly by. i only have classes monday through thursday (with only one class mondays and tuesdays) which means three day weekends every weekend (rough life i know), so the time has seemed to be passing at an almost alarmingly fast rate. it's amazing how even three day weekends can feel short! next semester will definitely be a shock for me as i jump back into the insanity that is my life at the uofa: into marching season, my new job as an RA, and a full load of upper level classes (but they're all either communication disorders classes or spanish, so they should be pretty good!). but all the craziness of next year aside and plans for when i come home, i still have almost two-and-a-half months left here, and i don't want to waste away the time i have here thinking about things for when i get home.

so the last few weeks have been really good. i feel like the Lord's really been showing me and teaching me alot as i've kinda come to peace about alot of things. i'd gotten really frustrated with myself for a while because i felt like i wasn't doing much here, and in the years past i think i've picked up the twisted way of thinking that if i wasn't doing stuff, that i was wasting my time and something was wrong. while i generally go out with my family or friends on the weekends and occasionally do stuff during the week, alot of times if i'm not in class i'm just hanging out in the house working on homework or reading the endless amounts of spanish literature i have to read (or more accurately-thinking about how i should be reading spanish literature and how i don't want to be...). but i've realized that while sometimes i may be a bit lazier than what's called for here (sleeping in has become a bad habit), i really think the Lord's calling me to a time of rest here, which is a concept pretty foreign to me, but it's been really great, especially since i've allowed myself to be ok with it. i've been reading rob bell's book velvet elvis (incredible book-if you haven't read it, DO) and in one part of it he talks about how he learned that he had to take a sabbath, b/c if he didn't he would lose his soul in all the doing. i feel like this time is kinda like an extended sabbath for me. not to use that as an excuse to not do anything, but just in the sense that the Lord's calling me to learn to rest in Him and learn to just be, instead of always feeling like i have to be doing. plus i'll have plenty of doing to do when i get home.

and now, i think i'll leave you with a story/description of something that has become a very big part of my life here in chile-las micros. so every morning/afternoon when i go to valparaíso for my classes, i take the micro. i flag one down three blocks from our apartment and then ride it to my university. the micros are a huge part of life in chile. they're everywhere and almost everyone uses them at least sometimes, even if they have cars, just because they're super economical, especially if you're just going around town (because parking at times can be a hassle and gas is even more expensive here than at home). supposedly there are bus stops, but really you can pretty much flag one down anywhere and they'll stop to let you off about everywhere, which is great except that it makes for some pretty interesting traffic situations and a longer ride. luckily there's a part of the ride to the university that goes right along the beach, so it's a pretty ride. when i come home i take the micro as well and it drops me off just a block from our apartment, which is pretty nice. ok, so today i got on the micro coming home from my class in viña (so it was a much shorter ride than when i come from valparíaso) and i happened to get on a micro that was jammed with people. i could barely get inside the front door, let alone make it the two feet to where you normally pay the driver. but no big deal. the crowds like that are relatively common and usually the number of people on the bus equalizes people fast. well... this time that didn't work out so well. more and more people just kept getting on. i have no idea why the driver kept stopping to let people on. at one point, i was holding on to a rail by the front door when the driver opened the door and i managed to get my arm caught between a lever for the door and the rail... so here i am trying to move out of the way so people can get on with my arm wedged betweens these two bars, looking very much like a gringa... gotta love situations like that. luckily the door closed after a minute or so and i was "free" again. or as free as you can be when you're wedged in between so many people, so close that i'm continually bumping into 3 random people i've never met. so when it comes time to get off, i've managed to make it to about the middle of the bus, which means i have to try to squeeze my way out without killing 5 people on the way with my backpack... it's a hard task. i definitely took a huge sigh of relief when i stepped off the bus and no longer felt like a sardine. so welcome to chile, where the micro drivers are crazy and at times the concept of personal space gets through out the window of the micros!

this is a great picture. i've probably ridden this exact same bus. i tend to favor the "2 viña buses" as they always come close to my house and are easy to spot. there's a ton of different micros that go all over the place, so you have to be careful to get on the right one (once i got on the wrong one and had to ride it for about an hour before i could get off and get on the right bus, and that was after going about 1/4 of the way to santiago...).

well, now you understand just a little bit better my life in chile (cuz the micros really are a big part of it!). until next time, i love you all and wish all of you that have finals the best of luck!

cada día me atraias hacia tí

mi hermano seba and i discovered this mexican singer named marcela gandara who i've pretty much fell in love with. she is a christian singer who sings in spanish (and i can actually understand almost all of what her lyrics say!), and i've been listening to her almost constantly for the last couple weeks. this song especially seems to be relevant of late:

Desde el principio cuando te necesité,
from the beginning when i needed you
desde el momento cuando la mirada alzé,
from the moment when i looked alway
desde ese día, cuando sola me encontraba,
from that day, when i found myself alone
cuando tu mirada en mi se fue a poner.
even then you turned and looked at me

Supe que me amabas lo entendi,
i then understood that you've always loved me
y supe que buscabas, mas de mi,
and that you looked for more of me
que mucho tiempo me esperaste y no llegue,
that you waited for me for a long time, but i never came
supe que me amabas, aunque huí,
i know that you love me, although i ran away
lejos de tu casa, yo me fui,
far from your home, i went
y con un beso y con amor,
but with a kiss and with love
me regalaste tu perdon, estoy aqui.
you gave me the gift of your forgiveness, and now i'm here

Y cuando lejos me encontraba te senti,
and when i was far away i felt you
sabia que entonces me cuidabas y te oí,
and so i knew that you you cared for me and i heard you
como un susurro fue tu voz en el silencio,
like a whisper was your voice in the silence
cada dia me atraias hacia tí
every day you pulled me toward you

and then it repeats the chorus.

so that's a pretty rough translation, but the song's about the prodigal son and it's really quite a beautiful song, for a beautiful story. how great is the love of the Father that even when we run away from Him and squander all the blessings that He's given us, when we finally come home to Him, expecting to work as a slave, He welcomes us back into Him arms with rejoicing and throws us the biggest party imaginable! who great is His grace! i have found myself very thankful for His grace this week and for His never ending, never wavering love and provision. how great is it to live in the grace of our Father!?!?

in other news... i slept through an earthquake that was a grade 5 on the richter scale. i woke up this morning and my family asked me if i felt the super strong earthquake and i had no idea what they were talking about. i guess it happened a little after 6 this morning and was really strong. down south, it was quite catistrophic with a number of people dieing from huge waves caused by an earthquake saturday afternoon. i'm really not afraid of them at all, but i guess there's been quite a bit of seismic activity in the last month. they're still almost fun for me, which probably is a sign of my naivety of how terrible and destructive they can be, but i kinda hope i don't learn to be scared of them...

below are some pictures i took yesterday. ISA went on an excursion to some towns a little north of here called hurcón y zapallar. zapallar especially was quite beautiful. enjoy the photos!

me eating a camaron y queso (shrimp and cheese) empanada! yummy!!

pretty shot of some boats just off the beach in zapallar as the sun just starts to peak out of the clouds.

i feel like every picture with a random dog in it is a classic chile picture. i especially like this one!me by the beach!on top of a super cool rock by the beach. i wish we could have stayed to watch the sunset because it was BEAUTIFUL last night and this would have been the perfect place to watch it. but i got to see it, and that's all that really matters!!

pack your bags and go!

well, i officially feel like a world traveler. i survived my first completely independent, self planned, self managed, no-one-helping-me traveling experience to distant parts of the world, without bodily harm, emotional scaring, or anything of the sort. the freedom to go where we pleased, do what we wanted, without having a schedule of events to tie us down was really awesome. if you ever want to travel just to get to know a place, buy a plain ticket and a guide book, pack your bags and go (and of course call someone every night to tell them where you are in case something goes wrong, like i did, but that's beside the point)!

the trip consisted of a week down in southern chile, just north of patagonia in the southern part of the lake district and the island of chiloe. we (being myself and my friends katie and mia) flew into puerto montt monday afternoon and then started our traveling in the island of chiloe. we stayed in hostels (or hospedajes), traveled by bus, and met alot of really cool people. i think that meeting the people from all over the world was my favorite part. at one of the hospedajes we stayed at we met people from australia, holand, england, and lithuania. some of them were literally traveling the world, and it was really cool to hear some of their stories. a couple of them had what's called "round the world" plain tickets, something i didn't even know existed, but apparently includes a ton of different flights, literally all around the world. it was also really nice to be in a place with a much slower pace, much fewer people, and wide open spaces just a short walk away. one of my favorite parts of the trip was when we went on a tour that was guided by the owner of the hostal where we were staying. we went with 4 english boys and the guy from lithuania to parque nacional chiloe where there is one of the two temperate rain forests in the world. we also went to the beach on the west coast of chiloe which was really beautiful (really windy, but i really enjoyed it).

below are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. i have more, but these are my favorites. i figured out how to use the manual function on my camera, so i think the quality of my pictures is improving.

haha, this is my starbucks cup from the airport. i took a picture of it for two reasons, 1-note the way my name is spelled, and 2- to show how desperate i am for coffee that i even resorted to drinking starbucks (i figure it's not that bad here, b/c you just can't get good coffee... you know it's bad when starbucks is the best coffee around. chile needs a kennedy's...)

this is a picture of the church in chonchi, chiloe where we stayed for two nights. chiloe is full of these super cool old churches. each is considered a national heritage sight so something like that.this is also in chonchi. these little boats are all over the island of chiloe and make for some really cool pictures.

this are the swans off the coast of an even smaller island to the east of chiloe called lemuy. we went on a wild goose chase one day (get it!) to see these swans and took some wrong roads and didn't exactly know where we were, but we ended up finding them and finding where we were supposed to be so it was all good. just alot of walking (about 7 hours!) and we didn't exactly bring lunch, so we were starving by the time we got back to the hospedaje.this is in the rain forest walk in parque nacional chiloe. it was really different than anything i'd ever been in before. from what i hear, if you get really deep into the forest it's really quite incredible, but we were only on the edge.looking up through the trees in the rain forest. i like this pic!

this is on the beach on the west coast of chiloe. it's more exposed than the beaches here in viña and valpo with alot more wind and much stronger waves. we hiked along two different beaches. i really enjoyed it!katie and mia on the beach.

all three of us girls. i really like this picture too!katie and i took a boat ride on this big lake in mainland chile. the lake was near a town called petrohoe. we went there for a little while one day. the lake is surrounded by mountains and volcan osurno, but we couldn't see all the volcano b/c there were alot of clouds, but it was still quite beautiful.

katie on the boat with the volcano behind her.

the volcano with clouds wrapped around the top. we finally did get to see the top when we flew out in the airliner!this is the church in puerto varas where we stayed for two nights before we flew out.

so that was my trip in a nutshell. i really enjoyed it but i'm also glad to be home. it was weird being gone for a whole week. i have so little time here that i felt like i was wasting the precious time i have to build relationships. i think i'd definitely go again if i was given the chance, i really did enjoy the trip, but i realized that i don't want to spend all my time here traveling, even though there are a million cool places i'd like to go. but really, not traveling now will just give me a good reason to come back!

so for now i'm back home, needing to hit the books again. it's getting harder to motivate myself to study, but i need to more than ever. i also know that, while reading in spanish is super frustrating at times, everything i read will help me learn the language that much better, so i push on! i feel like i have so much to learn here, about the language, the culture, life in general, and the promises and the love the Lord has for me, but processing it all is at times really difficult. well, i'll update again soon, but for tonight, i'm out. i love you all!

anduvimos por valparaíso

what a week! today i finished what has probably been the most difficult week i've had so far. not so much in an emotional sense, but just in that fact that i had a ton of school work hanging over my head for the last week, really really weighing on me. i had a project due monday, a presentation in one of my classes wednesday that's the most important grade for the whole semester, and an exam in my literature class today. i definitely read 100 pages in spanish (it was a play so there weren't quite as many words on one page...) yesterday, yes, all in one day... i really haven't hardly stopped studying since saturday (that's 5 days solid...) but today it all ended and i'm free for a week and a half!! that's right. next week's what they call "semana novata." i'm still a little confused of all the details of what this week entails, but it has something to do with the first year students and all the classes after about noon are canceled, and since i only have one class that only meets twice a week before noon, i'm going to travel to southern chile with my friend katie for the week to chiloé (a big island right off the coast) and the area surrounding a town called puerto monte.

seba and i wandered through the streets of valparaíso thursday taking pictures. while we really didn't take that many, we got some good ones. these are my favorites:

me, looking down from a hill in valparaíso and out to the ocean

looking up one of the steep streets

window of a housea latch on a doorperfect example of the dogs in valparaíso, they're everywherethis picture is the jem of the photo shoot, this is probably the coolest cat i've ever seenseba outside an old jail in valparaíso
seba making some sort of pensive face that turned kinda goofywe played the act out emotions game (which i'm terrible at...) i believe this was... crazy? no sé...muy triste... (very sad)

i kinda got out of the habit of giving prayer requests, but i think that should change, so here we go...

• pray for a safe, fun, but also God glorifying trip south
• pray that i'll be able to truly enjoy and make the most of every moment here, because sometime i stuggle a little bit with missing home, not that i want to leave, but sometimes thinking about home so much makes it hard to appreciate all that's going on here
• pray for the relationships that are developing with my family and my friends (chilean & american)
• pray that the Lord would teach me to worship and learn of Him in another language, b/c i feel like things are getting lost in translation sometimes right now

so that's yet another glimpse into my life at the moment. all i can say is i'm blessed, here and at home :)

¡bienvenidos a mi vida!

well, life just keeps on flying by down here in chile. i've been here almost a month and a half. crazy! i'm beginning to think that five months is not nearly as long as i originally thought. i miss home like crazy sometimes, but i have a feeling it's going to be hard to leave here too. but i have plenty of time before i have to worry about that, so for now i'm just trying to soak everything in, experience all i can, and really rejoice in the time i have here.

i don't have anything terribly profound or interesting to share, so i thought i'd post some pictures instead or long ramblings like usual. enjoy!

seba and i drove out to reñaca and con con (smaller towns to the north) sometime last week or so and took these pictures at this really pretty look out spot. i played with the color on the bottom one a little, that's the chilean flag, in case you were wondering.

¡mi primer pie de manzana en chile! i made an apple pie yesterday, and i had definitely forgotten how much work it was to make, but it was fun. it turned out beautiful except i guess i didn't put in enough corn starch because it was SUPER runny, i was really disappointed. but it tasted really good, the crust turned out great, and the fact that it was runny gives me an excuse to make another one later and show my family how good apple pie can really be!
me cutting the pie... not that exciting, but whatev...
me and mi hermano seba
me and my other hermano felipe (he was a little sick when this picture was taken...)
me and mi mama chilena
this picture's a little bit blurry, but i still kinda like it. we had a mini salsa dance party in our living room tonight. this is my brother seba and my mama.
maría jesús, mi hermanita (little sister)

well, that's all for now folks. i love you, miss you, and as always would love to hear about your life! p.s. i could use your prayers especially this week. i have a project, an oral presentation (all in spanish of course), and a lit test this week, not to mention some papers do coming up, so prayers for strength and wisdom would be greatly appreciated!