So I really wanted to drop in a blog in the last few hours of August. I have only written twice this month because one of the weeks of this month was absolutely one of the worst of my life. I do believe a cancer relapse may have been easier. This kind of pain was different because it was the kind that was mostly brought upon myself. Those who need to know what happened know and those who don't, will not know. All I can say at this point about that is that I have finally started to feel like Lauren Meow again in the past couple of days. I know it's been the prayers that several people were praying for me and a couple that I cried out for myself- the peace of Christ has come over me. I have been reminded of who I am and who I want to keep being. There were a couple of moments where I honestly contemplated running far, far away from everything because then I would never have to face anything. I would pretend that I did not have to face myself. I can't run from God. I could run into the mountains of Oregon or Spain or somewhere and still God would be there, pursuing me, chasing after me like a mother after her kidnapped child. Like a man who felt his lover slowly slipping out of his arms, He came back after me. I am grateful with all soul that I was not able to escape Him.
In three weeks today I will be leaving Immokalee. Tomorrow makes exactly three months that I have spent here. Despite all this self-inflicted pain I have been experiencing lately, I am so glad that I can say now that close to 4 months of my life were spent here. I am thankful for the stories I have heard, the people I have met, the pain God helped me to embrace, the countless times I laughed, the moments that made me uncomfortable. I am grateful for the way God has made me yet again even more desperate for Him. I am privileged to have been able to open up this world to many others that I know. I am honored that I have been accepted into this community, even as so far that two of my friends here from Oaxaca (southern Mexico) have insisted that I come to visit them soon when they finally go home after several years of being in the US.
The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur for me being here in Immokalee. I know that I have been working and living but it has been hard. I am trying to remember the week before that but right now I can't. Right now I feel like I am in a stage of mourning....mourning the lost of things very precious to me, mourning over the broken person I am, mourning over things that should have never happened. Anger has been flaring up and down in me, mostly at myself, somewhat at others. Others who should have heard me when I said certain things but mostly I wish I would have heard myself and that I would have heard God in moments that I really needed to...
Grace.
I have never had this kind of deep understanding of grace and love before. I had, in many ways, forgotten what the Gospel really is all about.
The Gospel is for people like me. Broken, prideful at times, feeling like much of my life has been a disappointment, feeling inadequate, confused, not one of the most educated, not someone who can speak in a very intellectual way, someone who just messes up a lot. The Gospel is for ragamuffins, for people who do not have it all together, for people who will never think they have it all together. The Gospel is for places like Immokalee, where there is a town full of people that the most of the world has rejected. So perhaps this has been a good place for me to be in a lot of ways. Though I am not materially poor, my spirit has always been poor and I will always need Jesus to keep coming to fill it to just where it needs to be.
I have recently started reading a book called The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I think everyone in the world should read this book. Unless you really think highly of yourself, that you're good on your own and that you don't need God. Otherwise, it will break you in ways that you didn't think were possible.
I have been dwelling just a little bit on this old Anne Frank quote that I have always really liked..."I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains". I remember I used to have that written that on my bedroom wall in high school (along with all the other hundreds of things written and painted on the walls). Let's face it, there are plenty of things to be miserable over in this world. I see a lot of things to mourn over every day in Immokalee. I see a lot of things that are miserable about me. I have done some miserable things but there is still so much beauty in me that remains simply because I am a Jesus follower. That is the only way any beauty can remain in me ever and it's the only way to keep bringing something better into a miserable world, even when you are the one who caused the freakin misery in the first place.
Reconciliation. Like I said in one of my earlier blogs, that seems to be the theme of my life this year. That is a theme I am desperately praying to keep around. I am hoping and praying with everything in me that I will see it once again lived out in my life again soon.
Perhaps I will write once or twice more before I leave here. My mind is still trying to grasp so many things that have happened lately that it's been overwhelming.
I hope all of you are doing well. I will see many of you soon!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
Just thinking....
Brian is right. It will never be cool to follow Jesus in the activist world. In that case, I would rather call myself a Jesus follower than an activist, an anarchist, a socialist or a radical. When being all about social justice stops being cool, I'll still do it because I'll always be a Jesus follower. It's not a phase, I am not being idealistic. I am just trying to follow all that I know to be true in a world full of lies. This is so much harder than I thought it would be. It is so hard to be the only one in a world full of activists trying to really hardcore follow Jesus. I struggle every moment to remember who I am and not to compromise myself to make others happy. That is not easy being the natural pushover, people pleaser that I am. Like I have said a billion times before throughout this blog, I miss my community and I cannot wait to live out justice with them. Last night a very dear friend of mine offered to pray with me over the phone and as we prayed for each other, I realized how much my soul longed and ached for something like that. Just to simply pray with another human and cry out to God together. After we hung up I started reading Ecclesiastes for some reason and then I got to the passage about how two is better than one, because if one falls, then the other can help bring them back up. I am grateful for many of you who have been my community from a distance. Please keep praying I don't forget who I am here. Please pray that I remember who I serve, who I follow, who I worship, who I love.
Monday, August 11, 2008
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.
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.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Bits and pieces
"We live in different realities".
"Here it's all about individualism. In Guatemala, when the town sees a woman and her family in need, we give her anything she does not have that we do. It's not like that here and that's why I don't like it, that's why I want to go back".
"They think we are happy to just have work. They say 'oh at least they are making some money'. No, we are not happy. We just absorb the pain and deal with it because we need to provide for our families. We are not happy with this work".
"We are not working for ourselves. We are working for our families back home. When we come here to the US and cross the border, we are not thinking about how we are thirsty or if la migra is going to get us or if a snake is going to bite us. You can't think about those things. All you can think about is your family and you do it for them. You keep crossing that desert for them, not for yourself".
"You want me to show mercy to those who exploit me? If I show them mercy and love, they are going to keep walking all over me. I cannot afford to show mercy".
"If you do not take the time to understand what is really going on, then you will never really love us. There is no way you can really love us then".
"God says we should love and take care of each other. That is why I always ask you how you are doing. But I am not going to church because in the churches here are the crew leaders who exploit us, who do not want to pay us for our labor. I do not want to be there with them."
"In the Lake Placid slavery case that was busted a few years ago, the people who enslaved the workers had a strong presence in church, they were the ones who were in church every Sunday. The ones who held others as slaves."
"We are not reaching and asking for that fair wage. We demand it because it's what we deserve. Ask for it?? F*** that! Demand it! It is ours!"
"I used to be in school in Guatemala, I was studying to be an elementary school teacher. Now I am here because some of my younger brothers and sisters are in the university studying. I work for them, I came here for them, I work so that they can study. I am the one paying for them".
Bits & pieces of conversations I had this week in Immokalee. These few words do not do justice for the pain and discomfort I have felt many moments this week. They do not do justice for the pain many of my people feel but have learned to absorb and take as a normal part of life. This is a glimpse of their reality.
"Here it's all about individualism. In Guatemala, when the town sees a woman and her family in need, we give her anything she does not have that we do. It's not like that here and that's why I don't like it, that's why I want to go back".
"They think we are happy to just have work. They say 'oh at least they are making some money'. No, we are not happy. We just absorb the pain and deal with it because we need to provide for our families. We are not happy with this work".
"We are not working for ourselves. We are working for our families back home. When we come here to the US and cross the border, we are not thinking about how we are thirsty or if la migra is going to get us or if a snake is going to bite us. You can't think about those things. All you can think about is your family and you do it for them. You keep crossing that desert for them, not for yourself".
"You want me to show mercy to those who exploit me? If I show them mercy and love, they are going to keep walking all over me. I cannot afford to show mercy".
"If you do not take the time to understand what is really going on, then you will never really love us. There is no way you can really love us then".
"God says we should love and take care of each other. That is why I always ask you how you are doing. But I am not going to church because in the churches here are the crew leaders who exploit us, who do not want to pay us for our labor. I do not want to be there with them."
"In the Lake Placid slavery case that was busted a few years ago, the people who enslaved the workers had a strong presence in church, they were the ones who were in church every Sunday. The ones who held others as slaves."
"We are not reaching and asking for that fair wage. We demand it because it's what we deserve. Ask for it?? F*** that! Demand it! It is ours!"
"I used to be in school in Guatemala, I was studying to be an elementary school teacher. Now I am here because some of my younger brothers and sisters are in the university studying. I work for them, I came here for them, I work so that they can study. I am the one paying for them".
Bits & pieces of conversations I had this week in Immokalee. These few words do not do justice for the pain and discomfort I have felt many moments this week. They do not do justice for the pain many of my people feel but have learned to absorb and take as a normal part of life. This is a glimpse of their reality.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Despierta
One thing I have heard a lot within the past few years of my life has been about how a billion people or so in the world do not have access to clean drinking water. We are privileged in the US to be able to turn on our faucets and drink from it without worry (usually). I have been meaning to mention this in here for a while now but I always forget to.
No one here in Immokalee drinks the water! If you do, you will be taking in lots of arsenic, all kinds of pesticides and, oh yeah, lots and lots of fecal matter.
In the United States of America, in a town called Immokalee, people do not feel safe drinking the water. I remember my first week here, all the allies and the CIW staff had a meeting at the new farmworker community center that we have slowly been moving into. We all talked about the water fountain in the center for quite a while, because everyone was really concerned about if people would drink out of it or not in the future.
That's a freakin huge deal.
Water! Agua! People, no matter where they live in the world, should not have to worry about if their water is going to give them a disease and eventually kill them. Arsenic in our water. ARSENIC. OK, some of you may or may not know this, but when I had leukemia, a huge chunk of my chemotherapy treatments were receiving arsenic through an IV for weeks and weeks. I think there may be different types of arsenic, I am actually not sure. I know that there are more toxic things out there than arsenic but it is still not great for the human body! If it is toxic and strong enough to kill leukemia cells (and those are some dangerous, powerful little things), then can one even begin to imagine what exposure to years and years of that will do to someone? Sure, OK, we have a bit more privilege here in Immo because there is a station near Winn Dixie where you can bring water jugs to be filled up with purified drinking water. Sometimes I see women walking around Immo, pushing water jugs in baby carriages back to their homes. So clean water is accessible if you have a way to get to this station and you have a $1.50 to fill it up; or you can use a filter like I have been doing. Still, though....every time I brush my teeth here or take a shower, I wonder what kinds of toxic chemicals I am once again being exposed to. I still don't really know what caused my leukemia a few years ago and I am definitely not in the mood to develop some sort of other disease that could possibly kill me again. My question is why has the county allowed us this to be, why has the state not done anything, where are the public health experts, where are the people of God? What about the children growing up here in Immokalee? Their health has to be put at risk simply because they were born into poverty? So it's going to be their fault if they end up with cancer in 20 years, if they end up with something else that could kill them? I mean, I know there is all kinds of horrible things in our water everywhere in the US but I have never felt that threatened about it growing up. The fact that people are concerned about a water fountain here really says something.
The longer I am in a rural area, the more I realize that rural areas are just way too neglected. They are so hidden, the people who live here are so hidden from the rest of the world. The focus is always on the city and that is where people want to go. I don't think the city should be forgotten but I don't want my people here in Immo to be forgotten nor in other rural areas.
There is something so intriguing about just being outside, about not having to endure traffic and overwhelming lanes of cars and trucks, about having some peace and quiet. There is something so great about everything being only 5 minutes away, about being able to ride a bike everywhere if you want to. A few days ago my roommate Melody and I went to pick pineapples, bananas and maracuyas with our other friends, Cande and Osker. We went to this forest/swamp place behind a lady named Reina's house. OK, I know this sounds weird, but she was the first person I have ever met from Paraguay and that made me really happy because I have always wanted to meet someone from Paraguay. I don't know why. There was just something so simple about it and we had a lot of fun, just all of us being together, and I was like why can't I do things like this more often? We just kind of took the morning off for a couple of hours and went did this and drank mate with Reina and it was a Tuesday and it was just so nice! So nice.
(OK, i have a lot of run-on sentences, I know, I know).
I told my friends that morning I wish I could be a banana. But I would definitely would want people to bury me when I became just a banana peel since I would be biodegradable and it would make me happy. So if I ever turn into a banana, I want you all to remember that.
It is so crazy how much I have adapted into a rural area. I suppose it could be my Incan roots coming alive in me (yay!). I just have this strong desire to live more naturally and simply.
You guys, I want us all to be more. I want us to be less so that we can be more (because less is more, right?).
I am so glad that I got to go to the Jesus, Justice & Poverty conference last weekend. I still think that was definitely the most incredible weekend of my life. I really feel like God is calling some of us into something together. I have some ideas and some vision but sometimes I am scared to put them down here. So i won't just yet. OK, I will put this out there but I think we all really need to bond together somehow and figure out ways as a community that we can consume less resources. When Brian spoke on Saturday about how 20% of the world consumes 80% of the world's resources (us), that was not the first time I had heard those stats, but they hit me just as hard. I have some ideas on how we could start to do this, to live more simply and stop using up so much resources for our convenience and I know that others do. I believe that God can really use a small community of people to make a huge impact if we allow Him to. I am just so tired of giving into convenience, I really am. I want to be about what I say I believe. For the sake of the love of God, I want to use less and be more. I want a community of believers to stop giving into entitlement and convenience and to start being better stewards of the environment.
Brothers and sisters, how are we going to allow God to use us to bring His transformation?
I miss my Tampa community a lot. I love my friends I have made here dearly but there is something incredible about being with other Jesus lovers/followers (jaja, that sounds funny but that's what we are). After the JJP conference, I am even more convinced that real justice and transformation cannot come without the Lord and it cannot come on our own, as individuals. We need each other. There is just so much going on that only Jesus can heal.
A couple of weeks ago I finally began to let myself really mourn over the pain of this beautiful community. I don't think that I have fully allowed myself to step into the pain of the community but parts of me have and the parts where I have gone to have hurt. I think it really began on the 4th of July; a large group us went to Ft. Myers Beach. It was a little crazy, a lot of fun and very surprising. However, it did also leave me with some aches in my heart.
Crazy because well, it was the beach on the 4th, enough said. (For anyone curious, no, I did not do anything crazy or illegal or nothing I should have not been doing!). It was fun because there were a lot of laughs making fun of each other and just hanging out and I always enjoy saying things that make no sense to people, especially in spanish, because then it really makes no sense at all (jajajajaja). Surprising, though, because God really just made some miracles that night. I ended up talking with a couple of the guys from the CIW for a couple of hours in Spanish (that's really huge for me to be able to speak that long in Spanish to people!). And I got to share with them about what God has done in my life and about surviving cancer and who Jesus has been to me! That's a miracle right there, on the real.
I also was able to do a lot of listening, though, which started to leave some aches in my heart. The one guy I was talking with mainly, everyone calls him "Chery" (and he told me he doesn't understand why, jaja), shared his story with me about coming from Guatemala to Immokalee. He is about 27 now and came here to the US about six years ago with one of his brothers, "Roque", who I actually worked with in the watermelon fields a few weeks ago. Anyhow, he shared with me that back in Guatemala he had been studying medicine for a couple of years in a university. "Chery" said he loved it, he loves medicine, he loves science and one day his dream is to go back to Guatemala and be a doctor who can provide medical services for those who cannot afford it. I've never been to Guatemala and I have only heard bits and pieces about the current political instability going on. "Chery" explained to me that there was still quite a bit of violence going on in the town he came from and that eventually he was forced to leave with his brother and come find work here in the US...
...how the heck does someone go from studying medicine to picking produce for sub-poverty wages?
I tried to imagine how I would feel if that happened to me. What if I went to the watermelon fields and for some reason, I was not allowed to leave? Or what if all of a sudden, I was forced to move to another country, where the culture does not make sense to me and I do not know when I will see my family again and I don't speak the language? And it does not matter that I just worked really hard and sacrificed tons of time, energy and sleep to earn a degree. I just have to work, I have to work to survive. The work I do has nothing to do with what I just studied but no one cares. Many would probably not believe that I ever studied anyway, because they already have their assumptions about me as a person because of the people group I belong to.
This is the case with many farm workers here. What does that do to a person's dignity? Studying medicine one day and then a few days later, picking produce for people in the US who will never thank you, never see your face, never really care about the back-breaking work you're doing for their convenience?
I would be so angry if that was me. I would feel entitled to more. I would demand better kind of work.
My heart begins to ache in situations like this. I also have met a couple of other guys who are really struggling with depression and then drinking out of that because they are so homesick and because they are away from all that is familiar and English is freakin hard to learn! This is where I start to mourn for my brothers, for those who are suffering.
God has been trying to teach me a lot about my people. I am so privileged that I cannot even see it most of the time. Almost everyday I am here I listen to people talk about their families they have not seen in years and it brings tears to my eyes, even now. It is so unfair. It is so unfair. It is so freakin unfair. How come I have the privilege to hop into my car and in an hour and a half I can see my mom, my sister, my step-dad, my grandparents, some of my cousins, aunts and uncles, my dad? How come others have to go years and years? I am a Latina but I have such a small understanding of my people's struggle. I don't fully understand what my family went through to get to this country. I know that my abuelita (grandma) had to come first and then she did not see my mom or any of her other children for 8 years because she did not have the money to bring them over here. I see the affects that has had my family until this day and I have heard my mom talk sadly about how she had to go through so much of her childhood without either parents around.
I am grateful, though, that God is allowing me to finally connect to some of this pain. I just hear so many hard things and I do not have any answers. I see no other hope than God. He is the only One who is going to be able to make things right. He is the One who has to bring people out of depression, out of drinking too much, He is the One who can bring families back together. I think the work and the organizing of the CIW is incredible and necessary. The fight is a good fight but the fight is bigger than us. We need the One bigger than us to win.
No one here in Immokalee drinks the water! If you do, you will be taking in lots of arsenic, all kinds of pesticides and, oh yeah, lots and lots of fecal matter.
In the United States of America, in a town called Immokalee, people do not feel safe drinking the water. I remember my first week here, all the allies and the CIW staff had a meeting at the new farmworker community center that we have slowly been moving into. We all talked about the water fountain in the center for quite a while, because everyone was really concerned about if people would drink out of it or not in the future.
That's a freakin huge deal.
Water! Agua! People, no matter where they live in the world, should not have to worry about if their water is going to give them a disease and eventually kill them. Arsenic in our water. ARSENIC. OK, some of you may or may not know this, but when I had leukemia, a huge chunk of my chemotherapy treatments were receiving arsenic through an IV for weeks and weeks. I think there may be different types of arsenic, I am actually not sure. I know that there are more toxic things out there than arsenic but it is still not great for the human body! If it is toxic and strong enough to kill leukemia cells (and those are some dangerous, powerful little things), then can one even begin to imagine what exposure to years and years of that will do to someone? Sure, OK, we have a bit more privilege here in Immo because there is a station near Winn Dixie where you can bring water jugs to be filled up with purified drinking water. Sometimes I see women walking around Immo, pushing water jugs in baby carriages back to their homes. So clean water is accessible if you have a way to get to this station and you have a $1.50 to fill it up; or you can use a filter like I have been doing. Still, though....every time I brush my teeth here or take a shower, I wonder what kinds of toxic chemicals I am once again being exposed to. I still don't really know what caused my leukemia a few years ago and I am definitely not in the mood to develop some sort of other disease that could possibly kill me again. My question is why has the county allowed us this to be, why has the state not done anything, where are the public health experts, where are the people of God? What about the children growing up here in Immokalee? Their health has to be put at risk simply because they were born into poverty? So it's going to be their fault if they end up with cancer in 20 years, if they end up with something else that could kill them? I mean, I know there is all kinds of horrible things in our water everywhere in the US but I have never felt that threatened about it growing up. The fact that people are concerned about a water fountain here really says something.
The longer I am in a rural area, the more I realize that rural areas are just way too neglected. They are so hidden, the people who live here are so hidden from the rest of the world. The focus is always on the city and that is where people want to go. I don't think the city should be forgotten but I don't want my people here in Immo to be forgotten nor in other rural areas.
There is something so intriguing about just being outside, about not having to endure traffic and overwhelming lanes of cars and trucks, about having some peace and quiet. There is something so great about everything being only 5 minutes away, about being able to ride a bike everywhere if you want to. A few days ago my roommate Melody and I went to pick pineapples, bananas and maracuyas with our other friends, Cande and Osker. We went to this forest/swamp place behind a lady named Reina's house. OK, I know this sounds weird, but she was the first person I have ever met from Paraguay and that made me really happy because I have always wanted to meet someone from Paraguay. I don't know why. There was just something so simple about it and we had a lot of fun, just all of us being together, and I was like why can't I do things like this more often? We just kind of took the morning off for a couple of hours and went did this and drank mate with Reina and it was a Tuesday and it was just so nice! So nice.
(OK, i have a lot of run-on sentences, I know, I know).
I told my friends that morning I wish I could be a banana. But I would definitely would want people to bury me when I became just a banana peel since I would be biodegradable and it would make me happy. So if I ever turn into a banana, I want you all to remember that.
It is so crazy how much I have adapted into a rural area. I suppose it could be my Incan roots coming alive in me (yay!). I just have this strong desire to live more naturally and simply.
You guys, I want us all to be more. I want us to be less so that we can be more (because less is more, right?).
I am so glad that I got to go to the Jesus, Justice & Poverty conference last weekend. I still think that was definitely the most incredible weekend of my life. I really feel like God is calling some of us into something together. I have some ideas and some vision but sometimes I am scared to put them down here. So i won't just yet. OK, I will put this out there but I think we all really need to bond together somehow and figure out ways as a community that we can consume less resources. When Brian spoke on Saturday about how 20% of the world consumes 80% of the world's resources (us), that was not the first time I had heard those stats, but they hit me just as hard. I have some ideas on how we could start to do this, to live more simply and stop using up so much resources for our convenience and I know that others do. I believe that God can really use a small community of people to make a huge impact if we allow Him to. I am just so tired of giving into convenience, I really am. I want to be about what I say I believe. For the sake of the love of God, I want to use less and be more. I want a community of believers to stop giving into entitlement and convenience and to start being better stewards of the environment.
Brothers and sisters, how are we going to allow God to use us to bring His transformation?
I miss my Tampa community a lot. I love my friends I have made here dearly but there is something incredible about being with other Jesus lovers/followers (jaja, that sounds funny but that's what we are). After the JJP conference, I am even more convinced that real justice and transformation cannot come without the Lord and it cannot come on our own, as individuals. We need each other. There is just so much going on that only Jesus can heal.
A couple of weeks ago I finally began to let myself really mourn over the pain of this beautiful community. I don't think that I have fully allowed myself to step into the pain of the community but parts of me have and the parts where I have gone to have hurt. I think it really began on the 4th of July; a large group us went to Ft. Myers Beach. It was a little crazy, a lot of fun and very surprising. However, it did also leave me with some aches in my heart.
Crazy because well, it was the beach on the 4th, enough said. (For anyone curious, no, I did not do anything crazy or illegal or nothing I should have not been doing!). It was fun because there were a lot of laughs making fun of each other and just hanging out and I always enjoy saying things that make no sense to people, especially in spanish, because then it really makes no sense at all (jajajajaja). Surprising, though, because God really just made some miracles that night. I ended up talking with a couple of the guys from the CIW for a couple of hours in Spanish (that's really huge for me to be able to speak that long in Spanish to people!). And I got to share with them about what God has done in my life and about surviving cancer and who Jesus has been to me! That's a miracle right there, on the real.
I also was able to do a lot of listening, though, which started to leave some aches in my heart. The one guy I was talking with mainly, everyone calls him "Chery" (and he told me he doesn't understand why, jaja), shared his story with me about coming from Guatemala to Immokalee. He is about 27 now and came here to the US about six years ago with one of his brothers, "Roque", who I actually worked with in the watermelon fields a few weeks ago. Anyhow, he shared with me that back in Guatemala he had been studying medicine for a couple of years in a university. "Chery" said he loved it, he loves medicine, he loves science and one day his dream is to go back to Guatemala and be a doctor who can provide medical services for those who cannot afford it. I've never been to Guatemala and I have only heard bits and pieces about the current political instability going on. "Chery" explained to me that there was still quite a bit of violence going on in the town he came from and that eventually he was forced to leave with his brother and come find work here in the US...
...how the heck does someone go from studying medicine to picking produce for sub-poverty wages?
I tried to imagine how I would feel if that happened to me. What if I went to the watermelon fields and for some reason, I was not allowed to leave? Or what if all of a sudden, I was forced to move to another country, where the culture does not make sense to me and I do not know when I will see my family again and I don't speak the language? And it does not matter that I just worked really hard and sacrificed tons of time, energy and sleep to earn a degree. I just have to work, I have to work to survive. The work I do has nothing to do with what I just studied but no one cares. Many would probably not believe that I ever studied anyway, because they already have their assumptions about me as a person because of the people group I belong to.
This is the case with many farm workers here. What does that do to a person's dignity? Studying medicine one day and then a few days later, picking produce for people in the US who will never thank you, never see your face, never really care about the back-breaking work you're doing for their convenience?
I would be so angry if that was me. I would feel entitled to more. I would demand better kind of work.
My heart begins to ache in situations like this. I also have met a couple of other guys who are really struggling with depression and then drinking out of that because they are so homesick and because they are away from all that is familiar and English is freakin hard to learn! This is where I start to mourn for my brothers, for those who are suffering.
God has been trying to teach me a lot about my people. I am so privileged that I cannot even see it most of the time. Almost everyday I am here I listen to people talk about their families they have not seen in years and it brings tears to my eyes, even now. It is so unfair. It is so unfair. It is so freakin unfair. How come I have the privilege to hop into my car and in an hour and a half I can see my mom, my sister, my step-dad, my grandparents, some of my cousins, aunts and uncles, my dad? How come others have to go years and years? I am a Latina but I have such a small understanding of my people's struggle. I don't fully understand what my family went through to get to this country. I know that my abuelita (grandma) had to come first and then she did not see my mom or any of her other children for 8 years because she did not have the money to bring them over here. I see the affects that has had my family until this day and I have heard my mom talk sadly about how she had to go through so much of her childhood without either parents around.
I am grateful, though, that God is allowing me to finally connect to some of this pain. I just hear so many hard things and I do not have any answers. I see no other hope than God. He is the only One who is going to be able to make things right. He is the One who has to bring people out of depression, out of drinking too much, He is the One who can bring families back together. I think the work and the organizing of the CIW is incredible and necessary. The fight is a good fight but the fight is bigger than us. We need the One bigger than us to win.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
aaahhhhhhhh
Lord, you are like a really good song with a sweet melody that comes on the radio at the end of a long, tiresome day when you're finally able to get into bed and just listen to music.
Lord, you are our refuge, there is a joy in being able to come into your arms, being able to recognize your power and our need for you.
The way a newborn baby needs their mama, we need you, Jesus.
I think I have writer's block...
sorry, guys!
And I have so, so, so many thoughts and reflections going through my mind. So freakin many. I want to spit them out and put them on paper and/or a screen and I want the world to see them. There are so many things I cannot stop wondering about, trying to figure out what the Lord is doing because so many crazy but incredible things keep happening and I'm like AAAHHHH.
:)
I just know that I had the most incredible weekend of my life. (Well, one of the most). No, it was definitely the most incredible.
I've seen a lot and I want to see more.
I want to be more.
I don't want to stop here. We have got to keep going, we got to keep seeing the bigger picture.
I am so excited about everything that is to come and that is happening even now....
When I get over this writer's block, I will write more.
Someone keep me reminding me that less is more. Less is more...so it's ok if I don't write a lot this month. It would be better to write one or two great things versus ten mediocre things, right?
OK. Less is more!
Lord, you are our refuge, there is a joy in being able to come into your arms, being able to recognize your power and our need for you.
The way a newborn baby needs their mama, we need you, Jesus.
I think I have writer's block...
sorry, guys!
And I have so, so, so many thoughts and reflections going through my mind. So freakin many. I want to spit them out and put them on paper and/or a screen and I want the world to see them. There are so many things I cannot stop wondering about, trying to figure out what the Lord is doing because so many crazy but incredible things keep happening and I'm like AAAHHHH.
:)
I just know that I had the most incredible weekend of my life. (Well, one of the most). No, it was definitely the most incredible.
I've seen a lot and I want to see more.
I want to be more.
I don't want to stop here. We have got to keep going, we got to keep seeing the bigger picture.
I am so excited about everything that is to come and that is happening even now....
When I get over this writer's block, I will write more.
Someone keep me reminding me that less is more. Less is more...so it's ok if I don't write a lot this month. It would be better to write one or two great things versus ten mediocre things, right?
OK. Less is more!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Chasing alligators with some maracuya
Wow.
I have not written in here for like 15 days or something. That makes me kind of sad. And sooo much has happened so far in July. I think this has been one of the most joyful months of my life, for so many reasons. From welcoming home some brothers and a sister, to a beautiful panda bear who has invited me just as I am into a bamboo forest, to chasing alligators with Melo, Cande, and Oscar and then drinking mate and eating maracuya with a sweet lady from Paraguay in Immokalee, to sharing the hope of Jesus in Spanish on the fourth of july with some of my hermanos here, from the Lord helping me to have more of a heart of compassion, to those simple moments of sitting around and listening to my Immo friends play the jarana (a traditional guitar like instrument from Veracruz, Mexico), finally being able to understand and embrace children for all the wonderfulness they are, from the smiles and laughs Itzael (the baby of the family I live with) gives me every time he sees me now, the excitement and happiness I feel when I see him, from being moved more and more out of complacency.............
Wow.
God never fails.
Where would we be without Him?
I will write more tomorrow. I have not slept much in the past 4 nights (but it was worth it for numerous reasons).
Love you all.
I have not written in here for like 15 days or something. That makes me kind of sad. And sooo much has happened so far in July. I think this has been one of the most joyful months of my life, for so many reasons. From welcoming home some brothers and a sister, to a beautiful panda bear who has invited me just as I am into a bamboo forest, to chasing alligators with Melo, Cande, and Oscar and then drinking mate and eating maracuya with a sweet lady from Paraguay in Immokalee, to sharing the hope of Jesus in Spanish on the fourth of july with some of my hermanos here, from the Lord helping me to have more of a heart of compassion, to those simple moments of sitting around and listening to my Immo friends play the jarana (a traditional guitar like instrument from Veracruz, Mexico), finally being able to understand and embrace children for all the wonderfulness they are, from the smiles and laughs Itzael (the baby of the family I live with) gives me every time he sees me now, the excitement and happiness I feel when I see him, from being moved more and more out of complacency.............
Wow.
God never fails.
Where would we be without Him?
I will write more tomorrow. I have not slept much in the past 4 nights (but it was worth it for numerous reasons).
Love you all.
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