the post entitled "my heart is getting bigger" and presently a baby is humming himself to sleep.

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Where do I even begin?!
I.LOVE.MY.LIIIIIIIIIFE.
Hard times don't matter in comparison to the good times.
What's interesting about that is I so cherish the times I'm feeling so low and so driven to the Lord.
So I love both fun times and tough times.

I am already so sad that I'm leaving Jamaica one day. I'm having these rich experiences and soaking them up, feeling my heart grow as more people climb inside of it, and I am glad that I don't know what my future holds.
My little world in Jamaica is growing, if that makes any sense. Not only do I have the MANY kids from this children's home that I cherish and love immensely, but now I have just a few other friends here from the community that I am so thankful for. This weekend I joined some of the guys from our small country community for their Saturday and Sunday morning runs. To help me ease into it, we went at 6am on Saturday, but this morning, we went at 5am, which is when they usually start. We spend some time doing warm ups and stretching before the sun begins to rise and then we run/jog/chase mean dogs away with small tree branches and sing songs and should call-and-repeat stuff until we reach one of the bridges and then we do some cool down exercises and stretches and as soon as we're not super hot from the run anymore, we kick off our shoes and jump into the river as the sun is rising!! When we finally reluctantly drag ourselves our of the water , we collect oranges, tangarines , bananas and today, a coconut along the way. The guys split the coconut in half but the outside was still holding it together so I balanced it over one of my shoulders and we all took pieces out to eat along the way. We talk about differences in our cultures and about doing daring things like hopping a barbed wire fence to jump onto the back of one of the untamed horses that live in the field...
I don't think there are any words to explain to you all how that makes me feel. I'm so thankful that I get to do life with these Jamaican kids.
I don't think I'll try to explain it. I don't know if I even can.
I had a busy weekend and I really miss just being at home all day sorting laundry, hanging laundry, washing dishes, taking care of the kids here and there ...It was busy because on Saturday, Amanda Martika , Timar and his adoptive mother to Dolphin Cove.
Tonight was the Christmas Concert at church! It was so much fun and my face was beaming the whole time, I felt like the proud mother of all the kids from the youth group as well as the kids from the home that were in the concert. I sang a song about baby Jesus called "Here with Us"...but of course I got nervous and my hands were shaking so bad. Without a band I don't know what happens to me. I feel like I'm trying to show off or something and I don't like that. I sing with and for the kids around here all the time. Anyhow, whatever.
During the Christmas concert was one of the moments I've had recently when I notice my heart growing. I almost cried when I was talking to the women afterwards about it.

...I really think I wrote about a lot of this already.
I know I emailed a couple people last night.
This morning swimming in the river was even more fun than yesterday morning...we get really into our games of freeze tag in the water! I was "it" or as they call it, "catcher," for a long time, clearly. I'll get more and more strong and brave enough to contend with them...swimming fast in the little section of rushing water that we use for tag, jumping in after people to tag them...
It's so refreshing to climb out of that cold river and walk or jog-uphill-in my sopping wet clothes to get home.

Sorry if I'm the queen of redundant right now.
I'm just really glad I'm here and since I'm finally not only re-oriented and also healed up from almost a month of bronchitis, I am finally able to get up early all the time and get some routine set for my days. I feel much et more purpose now. I'm not saying it's easy. I don't want easy. That's not real life. I have love and joy and I'm growing in patience and endurance and wisdom. Sometimes I get sloppy and become easily angered and that frustrates me, but I'm learning to deal with it when I notice it. Does that make sense?
Amanda flies back to the States on Tuesday morning. Miss Michelle and I are having our last dinner with her on Monday night and I might stay at this place in town with her for the last night. I am so sad for her because she's leaving all of this. And doesn't know when she's coming back. That's the position I was in back in September of 2006, but I had never been here for more than a month and she's just finishing a three month stay. Wow. Transitions...it's so crazy how you learn to fully love the place you're in and then have to be torn out of it and keep living life. That was really and unexpectedly hard for me. I stayed away for Jamaica for over a year in preparation for now.
That was a mistake. A year is too long to stay gone from this children's home.

Another nice thing, I told a few of the girls from church that Pastor Allen and I are planning when I can do some special girl-only hang out times and Bible studies during the week when all the youth group kids come together during the week. It will be so special. I live with four of the youth group girls in the home, and about six other girls from the community are in the youth group.
Does anybody have suggestions for things we can do or talk about? I already have some ideas forming...
I'd like to do a couple of crafts with them, different ice breaker games and team building activities...
It's going to be a little bit of a challenge figuring out how to make things relevant to their culture and the world they live in...

Hmm que mas? "Me no-noa" so I guess I will just say goodnight.
Oh...and please pray for me because this week, my severe neck pain came back. Some of you already know how icky this can be. It usually gets so bad that I have to try to cry myself to sleep in the fetal position because if I stand to walk or even try to crawl or something, I get really dizzy and pukey. No good. Thankfully this time it didn't get that bad and it's already going away. It's usually at least a week long process for the pain to take its course and leave me...

I need to go to sleep.
More lata. of course.

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Comments

[Kristi]

Can feel the joy
Stina, I forgot I could check in on your blog until I saw your message on Ezra's Offspring. I've been wondering how you're doing and loved reading all you had to say. I can feel your joy of being in the right place coming through the lines. And good to hear how you are using the tough times. I just wrote the Dec. check for you so I hope you're getting them from Kim E. A couple ice breaker ideas that I've used with our Guatemala team- two truths/one lie (you write three things on a piece of paper and the others have to guess which one is not true about you, such as I've climbed a mountain, I love pizza, I sky-dived from a plane. Do you know the story about The Write Family? It's all about passing something to the right or left whenever you hear those 2 words mentioned. You can write each person's name on a popscicle stick and they pass that. Then whoever's name you end up with, you pray for them for the next week. Talk to you later. With love, Auntie Kristi