Can you pass me my machete, por favor?

I don't have wireless in the house I live in anymore in Immokalee so I have been limited on when I can actually sit down and write. It has been way too long. But less is more, right?

How does joy exist in the midst of pain? The past few weeks I have been crying quite a bit over several different situations of people I know, people I love and care about so deeply. I have been crying out to God and asking Him why. I don't completely understand why pain has to exist, why suffering has to happen. One could go ahead and give the cliche, "Oh, you know, for character development" deal but damn, it does not always feel that way when the suffering hurts as bad as a thick needle being stuck into your bone marrow. I know that I have learned that suffering is good and necessary because through it we learn obedience and discipline (Romans 5). It just doesn't always feel that way.

Where would be without the Lord? Where in the world would I be if Jesus had not intervened into my life and rescued me from myself? What would I do when I encounter so much pain this world? Where else would I turn?

Really, what can you say to a group of farmworkers who have been exploited their whole lives? To a group of people who have been discriminated against and taken advantage of simply because of their ethnicity and the class they were born into? Where does hope come from when those fair wages you are fighting for don't come in? What do you say to one of your good friends who has been battling a rare cancer for two and a half years, who has been to doctors all over the country and no one could cure her? What do you say to your aunt who is dying from diabetes at only age 42, what do you say to your uncle who has to do everything for her now that she is blind and can't walk anymore on her own? What do you say to your younger cousins who never come home anymore because they can't deal with their mother dying? What do you say to some of your closest friends when one of them hurts the other deeply, when one of them breaks the trust that was once there? What do you say to people who feel like there is no hope, there is no redemption for them, even when deep down inside you know there is something for them? What do we say to all this pain in the world? What do we say?

The thing is that I have nothing to offer, I have nothing to say, except for Jesus. I have nothing else to hope in. I do not have all the answers but I believe that without Him we are pretty much screwed. To think that we can make things right and better on our own is just straight up prideful. Who are we, but broken human beings, in desperate need of a Savior? Broken people searching for wholeness, and once we find that wholeness in Him, only then can we truly began to be used to bring some comfort to the pain of this world. Seriously, this has been one of the most painful years of my life. I have felt so sad way too many days but on those same days I have also felt a lot of joy when I have chosen to crawl into the arms of my Redeemer. Jesus is truly good news and I do not understand why any broken human being would reject everything we have always longed for. Being in Immokalee has allowed me to see my incredible need for Jesus more than ever. I never want to do anything apart from Him and all I want to do is bring others to know this incredible man, to put their hope in Him, to find joy in serving Him.

A little over a week ago my peoples from Tampa and St. Pete came for an immersion visit to Immokalee. It was so great to see InterVarsity in Immokalee! About a week before that, some good friends and leaders of the church I go to in Tampa also came to visit me, Brian, Joann and Alison. The visits really helped to affirm so much of what I am doing here. I am still so honored that they would take time of out their schedules to drive down here and spend some time in the community (especially with these gas prices). I loved how everyone was so engaged and so willing to take a posture of learning while they were here. I loved seeing my good friends from Immo talk with my good friends from Tampa & St. Pete. Bridging two worlds together, that is something Jesus uses us to do. I also do not feel as alone as I did before, in this burden to love migrant farmworkers, because now my community has seen what I have seen, now they have felt a bit what I have been feeling. Now we are in this together and this is so incredibly encouraging.

God has been really faithful in answering some other prayers. I have been able to really build deeper relationships with so many people in the community, even in my broken Spanish. I was thinking today about how much Vero and I have become good friends. Vero is the wife and mother of the family I live with and she doesn't speak much English at all. She understands quite a bit, though, and asks me how to say things all the time. She is also very patient with me when I forget how to say things in Spanish and I have learned a ton from her. I do not think I have ever had such a good friend where neither of us were completely fluent in the same language! It is amazing what the Lord can do, how He can work. God is bigger than my messed up Spanish, He is still able to use me in spite of it, to share His hope and love with others and He has been the One who has enabled me to be able to share my life with others here and for them to share theirs with me. Vero even told me a few days ago that she wished she had a sister like me and then I told her that I am already her sister.

Oh yeah, and I went to pick guavas about a week ago, too, that was so much fun. Lots of spiders, yikes. I never realized how incredible it could be to live in a rural area and to be able to drive out to the middle of nowhere and then run into a forest and shake the trees until the guavas fell out. I went with Melody (my roommate) and Reina, who is this really great lady from Paraguay that always invites us over to drink mate and chase alligators in her backyard. She is probably in her late 40's and she just puts on this big rubber boots and grabs her machete and starts cutting any of the branches in our way so we can run into the forest to climb up the trees. I hope that someday I can live somewhere in Latin America for a while in a rural area and climb mountains and swim in waterfalls. See, my indigenous roots are starting to be awakened more and more in me. My mom is so proud to be half-Incan, she would be proud of me. :) Perhaps I will start putting my hair in braids again and wearing my ponchos, like she used to do for me when I was a litte girl.