Trying to figure out what i feel

I've come to the conclusion that pretty much the majority of these entries are gonna be long. I know that I talk a lot and I've become really self-conscious about that recently more than ever. So I feel self-conscious about writing too much in here as well. But at the same time, shoot, this is my blog and I have a lot I need to process. I'll try and organize this one as much as I can but I'm a pretty scatterbrained mujer so this is gonna be interesting....

I think there are several things mostly on my mind. So I'll try& divide it up like that.....

Community. I think about this idea of community often throughout the day. I think about what it really means and if I have it or if I have ever had it. I think about how this is what every human being desperately longs for within, whether they want to admit it or not. Right now my definition of community means people you share life and passions with, that you naturally connect with and enjoy being around. I think community comes a lot more naturally and can be more fruitful in certain situations.

One thing I have noticed here in Immokalee is that the community is not as isolated like in big cities. I have only been here a week and I feel part of this town. I believe it has a lot to do with the culture, the hospitality, the way people have pursued me and loved me and welcomed me. Every night I have been out doing something with someone. Last Wednesday night I went to have dinner with Rahiel (the other intern from Yale Divinity) and one of our co-workers Brigiette at a lady named Christina's house. Christina is an older lady originally from Mexico and she had never ever even met Rahiel or me and she just welcomed us in as though we were familia. She cooked authentic comida Mexicana and then a one of the priests from the catholic church in town came over, too. It was like being at home or something with old friends and family. I just love this idea of welcoming strangers into one's home. Christina had one of the best decorated homes I have ever been in, too; orange walls and such. So simple and so beautiful. Nothing extravagant just simple and beautiful. And we all did not even know each other that well and we were all coming from such different worlds and backgrounds but we asked each other questions and shared life and found common ground. It was just simple and beautiful, like the house we broke bread in was.

Other nights have been spent watching some amazing documentaries that I am going to make some of you sit down and watch with me at some point, so get ready. Rahiel ,our other co-worker Jordan and I have been having a lot of movie nights together and they are so much fun.

Community. We eat together, we come home from the office together, some of us, and cook our lunch and it's not rushed. Nothing is rushed here. People value relationships and laughter and eating well. People eat together. The majority of time in college I ate meals in my car while driving and rushing somewhere or somewhere by myself on campus or something. Eating with someone or with several people was a special event. Here in Immokalee is natural and normal and I love it. My family did not often eat dinner together growing up because my parents fought so much and then they got divorced when I was a still kid and it never felt whole. You don't realize until you're older how those things really affect you. It became normal to me at a young age to just learn to take care of myself and be by myself a lot because that's what I had to do while my mom was working all the time.

There's something truly incredible about community, commitment, and stability. It's something my soul longs for, something I don't think I have ever had completely. I become more aware of that here everyday. There is something amazing about valuing relationships over tasks. So much of the US has lost that. Perhaps because Immokalee is a small town and the majority here are recent immigrants, they have not completely forgotten that yet. Being here reminds me of times in Ecuador, Mexico, and the Philippines. People over work. Yes, work is important but people are more important. It's okay to take time in the day to just be. We do not have to be busy all the time and we do not have to be so isolated.

It makes me think of how many people I have blown off because for some reason work took priority over them a lot of the time. Somewhere down the road I got brainwashed to believe that if I wasn't making all A's and B's in my college then I was less of a person. I know I did make time for people but man. I spent so much time being busy in life. We all have. Or how it would take me days to get around to calling people back because "man, I've been busy".

The community I have found here is beautiful and I already feel at home here in Immokalee. It feels natural and good to be here. I feel like a lot of the pressures of the world have left me. The one thing that gets to me is not having a spiritual community. The only person I have met here that follows Jesus wholeheartedly is leaving on Wednesday. That's a hard place to be as a Jesus follower...

...which brings me to another thing I have been thinking about quite a bit. I really don't like to do this but sometimes I believe it's necessary to put things out there in hopes that it will stir up some thinking in people. I'm not mad but I am hurt that I haven't really heard from certain friends while I have been here so far. There are a couple who have been checking in on me but I think a lot of the ones who I thought would at least shot me an email or even taken a few seconds to text me to ask me how the first week I was going...well, they haven't. And the big question that keeps coming to my mind is that they must be too busy. Too busy. We're all too freakin busy in this culture.

So much of me wants to be sympathetic to be people who are busy. But I think it's something we have got to break in us. Seriously.

But why? What are we trying to prove? Who are we trying to impress when we can say we graduated college with a 4.0 in 3 years while being involved with half of the organizations on campus?

Who did I hurt along the way when I decided it was more important to write a paper rather than to take just 30 minutes and listen to someone who was having a bad day and pray for them? Who I was trying to impress when I took 5 or 6 upper level classes in one semester and that left me with no time to get to know the people around me? What did I miss out on when I decided that it was more important to study and save money rather than go on a spiritual retreat with some good friends?

It's easy for me to feel a little hurt right now but also I need to realize where I have gone wrong with this, too.

And I don't want to act like I never had any good times in college or something. Trust me, there were a lot of times I did blow things off to be with friends and I believe I did find community in a lot of ways. I made a lot of incredible friends that I would not trade for the world.

I just think it would not hurt to rethink many of our priorities, our pace of life, and our pursuit of people. Especially pursuing those who have been forgotten, as Jesus would.

I wonder if I also give off the vibe that I am like this really busy person who has no time to talk to people. I am so sorry if I do. I believe that so much of me thrives off of being around people and conversing with them. I am one of the most extroverted people I have ever met. That's why I don't get why I have spent so much time isolated in life at times in the past.

I am so glad God brought me to Immokalee. Slowness is good.

It's possible to be content without so many of the things we believe we need. We are deceived so much everyday by this world. We are lied to and told we need to spend money on eating out all time, that we need to buy things we don't really need, that we need a lot of money, we need a lot of pretty stuff to decorate our homes with.

Those are all freakin lies.

This past Saturday I drove out to Miami with Rahiel since she has never been there and probably won't have a chance to go there for a while again. It was so funny to see someone who, as we drove through the Everglades to get there, was so amazed by the beauty she saw in all of it. I have driven through there so many times I cannot even see it sometimes or appreciate it as much. .............

Going to Miami made me feel like I left to another world. Right before we left, we went to one of the CIW staff's birthday parties, a lady named Pancha. I remember driving over to the trailer she lived in and looking around her neighborhood and it looked so much like the poverty stricken communities Mexico or Ecuador I have visited. Just Latinos who are hard working and looking for a better life. Then I drive to the other side of the coast into the upper middle class neighborhood my family lives in now. And there are Latinos, hard working and who were looking for a better life. But how did one side get so fortunate and the other did not? It's something I cannot stop wrestling with. I am realizing so much of it has to do with US foreign policy and our various relationships with different Latin American countries.

I am really, really grateful for my education. I see everyday here how a lot of what I learned in college is helping me here in Immokalee and to understand things a bit more. At the same time, though, I struggle with that tension of school being like a god....how much is too much? Where do we find our balance?

Oh yeah! I finally got to meet Lucas Benitez last night. He is one of the co-founders of the CIW and is just as amazing as the rest of this community. He is the main one, though, that has been talking with the UN about human rights violations in the fields of the United States.

It was somewhat discouraging, though, what he shared with us. He pretty much explained that the folks in Geneva have a hard time believing that such a thing like modern day slavery could actually exist here in the US. Yes, because this country is that flawless, right? Slavery is only supposed to be acceptable in the developing world? No, it's not freakin acceptable anywhere but sadly, yes, it does go on in Florida and other parts of the US. I think he felt that they just did not take this work that the CIW is doing too seriously. That is so sad.

I am so inspired being here. I love that I am doing work that is helping to slowly change a system. I think its important to meet immediate needs of people but I think that we have a higher call than charity work.

I believe that God wants us to move mountains and to change systems. Our Father in Heaven is a God of the impossible. Sometimes I look at these systems and I wonder how we will ever get over this mountain. Then I remember who my Father is. That's who we have. That's who we have to empower us to do more.

And we need to do it TOGETHER. In community, in Him, in love.