me oh myyyy....

i haven't written in so so so long but mind you it's for good reason! when i have internet access again hopefully i'll pick this form of communication back up; i miss my friends desparately. things have been changing so quickly and will continue to do so (moving to nashville tomorrowwwww....) that my head is still spinning ever since december and hopefully it'll settle down to splurge some thoughts.. here.

"Though I am silent there is singing around me."

-Wendell Berry, via Josh's page.... my thoughts today... p-sout. 

Currently Reading Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith By Jon Krakauer see related

teary-eyed bus rides

Currently Reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper Perrennial Modern Classics) By Annie Dillard see related

i realize it has been 2 months. my excuse? i can never choose what to write about. should i express my excitement, my recent crying spell, nun stories, the glorious adventures i have had, my depression over circumstances at times or the hope i feel overall?

today, nuns.

on wednesday mornings we clean the Missionaries of Charity like proffesionals. it´s all window washing (which are just heavily painted wooden shutters that stay open. i love that they stay open) in the chapel and in the big dining hall, washing loads of clothes and sheets by hand for my favorite little men who hold my hand and sing to me in portuguese and call me, "my love", helping in the kitchen with little ladies who stun me with their beauty because they live lives of such service and cook together here every week only to zoom off in their car together like teenage girls and come back the next week. There are other tasks but these are my favorite and most practiced by myself and Jenn.

As I was washing the shutters of the dining hall, I could hear the ladies in the kitchen chanting their prayers and they echoed far into every area of the home where any number of things were going on. Their chants are always like music to me; never distracting because unless I try hard, I can´t understand their Portuguese. I pray too as they chant; I pray for my friends at home, I thank God for beauty, I pray for my new friends on the streets that they would know how much they are loved and for little Renan at Dora´s who clings to me tight every time I have to leave (oh how i wish i could take him home with me and give him as much attention as he needs). As I look out the window I am cleaning I can see my favorite little nun; the one from Rwanda.. the giggly one with a big smile and a ridiculously endearing accent who wants me to teach her to dance. She is pushing big garbage bags full of clothes for the next group of street men who come in, down the stairs... giggling every time as they hit the ground with a thunk.

At 11:30, my sweet friend Maria Elena, who says to me everytime she sees me, "oohh!! i am so glad to meet you!!!" (and showers me with kisses), rings the lunch bell off the stoop outside the kitchen. My hard-working friends come from upstairs and from downstairs and we all get ushered into the kitchen where they serve us, and we sit at lunch drinking caju juice. I ask Maria Elena about her children and she returns the questions with ones about what I do and don´t have in the states.

I certainly don´t have this, and I will miss it greatly.

///and I plan on getting my favorite nun (can i have a favorite nun?) from Rwanda to teach ME how to dance instead because I feel pretty certain that she has better moves. ///

kites and machine guns

come with me to jacare :)

this is a view from my roof. children play on the roof and fly kites from them often.. one of my favorite things about this place.

another one of my favorite things about favela life: clotheslines. colorful. reminder of hard work and signs of life //

my belly is full of subway and my senses overloaded from a big movie screen with large speakers saying loud things in portuguese that i couldn´t understand.

saturdays are our "off" days, and for today we decided to do something somewhat familiar and comfortable. being immersed in a different culture gets a little hard at times and i just need to waltz into something i feel like i´m getting a hug from every once in a while. today it was subway and a movie. (they also had kfc in the mall. interesting.)

we saw "cidade dos homens", which means "city of men". if any of you saw city of God, this film was made by the same people and was more realistic to favela life. i felt strange as the camera panned the city whose streets i have walked many times now and whose people i have begun to fall for. it felt like my hometown; i felt proud and sentimental! the houses look like mine, the language the same as i hear flowing around me at all times now, and some of the characters even reminded me of some people we have developed relationships here. i recommend you seeing it if they are showing it in the states now.

it was difficult to watch because i know that the story is true and i now have faces to put to the pretend characters. the children here in rio have to grow up so quickly. they are born into poor families and so they must work, in whatever way they can find. they experience more violence than i have ever seen in my 23 years. the cycle is painful, and we don´t have a quick fix, but i have to remember that every snippet of love we give them is vital. the time we get to spend communicating to them their worth and that they are children of God is imperitive. and the time we can be adults for them and allow them to be children.. to blindly trust, to play and to say what´s on their minds.. well, they teach me a lot more than i could ever teach them no matter how many english, art, or bible lessons we have. they are teaching me simplicity, humility, and resilience.

i hope to continue to sit at their feet during my time here,

and i hope one can teach me to fly a kite.

"Love has a hem in her garment

that reaches the very dust.

It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes,

and because it can,

it must."

mother teresa

Currently Reading Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity By Ronald J. Sider see related

blessed are the poor in spirit...

As I sat on the sidewalk, I wiggled around to make myself more comfortable. Sometimes my sitting positions can be a little less than normal... especially on a broken up sidewalk with random puddles of i-don´t-know-what.  Lisa and I are playing UNO with a couple of boys who know much more Portuguese in their 2 and 4 years than we´ve learned in our 2 weeks. One thing I love about coming into this culture absent of the ability to communicate with words is the humility it brings.  The little fellas taught me some colors I didn´t know as we struggled to teach the smallest one the ropes of UNO.   As time passed on the sidewalk, I found myself gazing and contemplative as I so often do. My attention was brought back into the present when I heard the children´s mother yelling at the 2 year old. It turns out he was going to the wrong restaurant for the leftovers that would be their dinner.   He strutted back oh so proudly with an interesting swirl of foods in his little container and he shared with all.  As he piddled around, I had lost sight of the eldest boy.  Behind me was the street and in it I spotted him, crouched down using it as a toilet. As time crept on the reality started to hit me that... I was sitting on their living room floor. The boys didn´t have a way to wash their hands and they absolutely climbed on everything... as little boys do ;) I suffered some near fatal blows as they realized I was up to fighting and wrestling and tickling! 

Ben told us later of his conversations with the mother and with her 25 year old daughter.. both of which have chlidren in orphanges, on the street, and on the run.

Sitting on that sidewalk still, the boys took a break from their attack and I found myself wondering what I would do if I didn´t have a way to wash my children´s hands after they used the bathroom only to eat immediately afterwards and climb on the dirty Rio streetpoles and sidewalks.. or what I would do if I had children and didn´t have them to take care of becasue they had been taken from me... or what I would do if I knew in the pit of my stomach that there is no hope of them having any opportunity at a good education for themselves or any hope of us getting off the street.. because that´s just the way things work in Brazil. The stakes are higher and the falls.. harder.

And I decided I don´t know if I could do it... maybe I´m not strong enough, or maybe you just deal with it and the strength comes. I know one thing.. that more than anything I cannot ignore them when I pass just as all the passerbys did yesterday afternoon as we visited with them. The way I always have passed by because though my heart hurts, I don´t know what to do so I freeze up and ignore them... or give them some money or food and keep walking and never acknowledge their issues. If nothing else, I absolutely must express to them in any way possible that they are remembered.. that He comes for them and that they are loved.  Hope is a scary thing in their situation.. but it must remain. It is all they have.

I found myself grossed out. I wanted to go home and get a shower and lie in my clean bed and cry. Most of all I wanted to go home. I then immediately thought of the fact that... this is their home. They cannot go home. And then I realized that this isn´t just their problem.. and that I cannot leave and never come back. This is my problem.. it is our problem. We are in this together and that is why I feel that sidewalk visit changed me. I joined in their life.. even if for only a couple of hours.. felt what their life was like.. and realized the heaviness of the problem on our hands. And it is oh so heavy.

So now my question to my friends and myself and my God is how can we best love them.. and what does kindness do for them and what does rescue look like? 

As of this moment I don´t have much besides my tears and a fresh shower, but I realize that I must let them know they are remembered and loved... and that my God is one of hope and redemption.

Currently Reading Jesus I Never Knew, The By Philip Yancey see related