Perfect One For Me

Some days I just know all over again that I'm marrying the right man.

I suppose that's a good thing, right? :)
But in all seriousness, I do. I haven't doubted whether I should be with Lucas or not, but some days, I just get hit by the thought, You are so the right man for me.
Today was one of those days.

Lucas has been in Kenya for the last two weeks and has two more to go. (You can read his blog here). The decrease in communication has been extremely hard; I've struggled to adjust to writing long emails about my day and then waiting for long emails back from him and then only hearing his voice once or twice a week.

But this morning he called me bright and early at 6:30 am. Of course, on the day I don't have class until 11:00 am, but I was still ecstatic to hear from him, it didn't matter. We talked for two and a half hours and I loved catching up and hearing about his time in Kenya.

And hearing about how his heart hurt for the North American church.
And how his heart was burdened.
And how we're missing the mark.
And how the pain around him made his heart hurt too.

I love it that his heart hurts and breaks for the brokenness in this world. I love it that he gets frustrated when our churches spend more money on our new buildings, facilities, carpets and coffee hours than on the least of these. I love it that he's so unwilling to compromise what he reads in Scripture just because our culture has accepted it and said its okay. Yes, even when our Christian culture has said its okay.

I'm so encouraged knowing that this man's heart beats not for the things of this world. 

Yup, I definitely miss him and am counting down days until we can Skype again and not have a seven second delay (true story!), but I'm also so grateful that he's exactly where he should be right at this moment.

Lucas, Lucas in Kenya

Lucas went to Kenya last year. I was so happy that he was going and I was super excited about all the experiences he'd have and all of the great cultural experiences he'd certainly get. I knew that going and working in a rural African hospital wasn't necessarily the safest thing he could do, but I definitely felt that it'd be worth it.

But now...

Now it's about 200 days until our wedding and he's in Kenya. Earlier this week, news headlines read, "Bomb rips through Nairobi minibus, killing six" (Chicago Tribune). I spoke to Lucas later that evening and he said he could hear the sirens outside his window. The excitement I used to have for his huge cultural immersion suddenly wasn't as thick.

And it's true... I'm not elated that he's there. I've been brought to my knees more than once, pleading out to God, that he would be brought back safely. I'm thankful that I'm marrying a man who is determined to love others more than himself and is committed to finding out what loving the marginalized looks like and how he can best prepare himself to do that. I'm thrilled that this is the man that I will be with...

But I still feel fear creep up my neck when I think about the riots, the bombings. Yes, I know that the news isn't always an accurate portrayal. I know, I lived in a country that didn't have the greatest news coverage and I still felt safe. But still...

I've been reminded day in and day out that I need to rely on God and trust him with Lucas. Worrying or fearing isn't going to protect him any more. The best thing I can do with my concerns is fall to my knees and spend time interceding for my fiance and the people he is working with. We prayed that this time would draw us closer to Jesus and I've certainly seen my prayer life enriched through this time.

Would you pray for Lucas and the people he's working with this month?
If you'd like to read his blog you can read it here.

Out of the Water

I find I have to prove that I'm Hispanic. As if somehow, saying that I was born and raised in Colombia, my dad is Colombian and me self-identifying as a Colombian is not enough to give me space and credibility within the latino community.

I spent this last weekend on a latino retreat with InterVarsity. Their latino fellowship is called LaFe and doesn't really exist on the U of I campus. However, there was a regional retreat going on called Encuentro and we gathered together a carload of latinas and headed off to a weekend of fun and fellowship.

When we arrived and got into the elevator, on our way to meet everyone else, I felt quite apprehensive of what the following social encounters would be like. I was glad I did not have the ability to read minds as I did not want to verify what I assumed they'd all be thinking, "Why's the white girl here?" Maybe a kinder version followed the lines of, "Oh, she's really into building cross-cultural relationships..." But never in a million years could I fathom the others in the room seeing me walk into a room full of latinos and have them assume I was one of them.

This weekend threw me back into that season of my life where all I did was process my bi-cultural identity. I realized that building relationships with latinos on this campus has been harder for me than building relationships with any other student groups.

At best, they're nice and quite polite, but often I feel evaluated... continually. If I'm late and running on latin time, then that's a latin point for me. If I don't/can't dance well, then that's a white point for me. White. Latin. White. Latin. White. I wonder when they'll tally up the score and share their verdict with me.

And then, to go full circle...

I had dinner tonight with a lovely couple interested in going to Colombia to work at ECA. They wanted to know all about Colombia. They asked about the food, the language, the culture, the people. I didn't need to convince them I was Colombian; they believed me. I wished that loving Colombia as intensely as I do and that the gut-wrenching homesickness was enough to create a space in that culture for me to be at home there.

And yet, I know that I'm not 100% anything and it frustrates me quite often. I want to be able to claim an ethnicity and a people group and culture as my own. Instead, I'm suspended between two, and find myself swinging toward one or the other. Some days I feel so Colombian and so comfortable with latinos and in the place I call home. Others, I feel like a fish out of the water, wondering why I don't just let them think I'm white and leave it at that. Some days I feel like I've begun to adjust to white American culture and others, I've never felt so foreign before.