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May 2010.
I was 21.
As I pulled a long piece of packing tape over the opening of the box I had finished packing, I ran once more through the list of items in my head.
Bible
Cot
Bedding
Hammer
Tool belt
Work clothes
Boots
And the items I thought I'd need.
10 pairs of shoes
Every cute piece of clothing I owned
Make-up
Nail polish
Perfume and lotion
My laptop
My Blackberry
By August I had used almost none of the last seven items.
If I think hard enough I can still smell Juarez. I can smell the lumber and the sawdust. I can smell the raw sewage outside the city. I can smell the landfill. I can smell the fresh burritos and tortillas. Smell the tar drying on the roof we had just laid.
I can see my friends. The people I worked alongside for twelve weeks. I can see the face of Carmen, who was gone by the next winter when I went to visit her with a new blanket, who told me that when I could cook rice and shake my hips at the same time, I was ready to get married (Carmen, I'm married, but I still can't make rice!). I can see Chila and all her pets. I can see the miles of cardboard boxes that people call home. I can see the lights of the city at night and the jet-black beyond where the slums begin.
I can still feel the weight of a 20 oz. hammer in my hand. Feel my tool belt digging into my hips. Feel the calluses on my hands, the dried concrete caked into my hair. I can feel the rain soaking my back as we frantically picked up our tools and drove out of the city as Hurricane Alex swept everything away. Feel the dull ache in my heart seven years later.
A couple weeks before I moved home from Mexico, I wrote this post. In it, I promised myself I would return to Juarez after graduating. I had two years of college left - senior year and a victory lap. And to me, that time couldn't have gone fast enough. I wished away my last two years of college, all the while never realizing that God was quickly closing doors to not only Mexico, but working internationally in general - a longtime dream of mine.
Beth Moore said in a message once that there are so many times that we take our selfish ambition, stick a mask on it and label it calling. I didn't care what it took or whether it was God's plan for my life or not. I was moving back to Mexico.
Six months before I graduated college, Andrew and I started dating again. (We had dated for three years previously, broken up for a while...I moved to Mexico and he moved to Oklahoma). Three months later, we were engaged. He was on board with moving to Juarez if that's where we ended up. I began emailing a few orphanages there, looking for openings at high schools in El Paso. I never heard back from one person. I never found an opening in a school. And the ministry I worked for had nothing for me at that time.
After talking with Andrew and praying for months that God would give me a job in Mexico, we decided that I would begin looking at home. Andrew had moved back to Wichita at this point and was working for Freddy's. God was silent.
I had applied for a few jobs here and there and was offered one in Garden City and had a potential job offer at North High. While waiting to hear back from North, where I was sure to accept the job if they offered it, I was scrolling through the internet one day and came across an article on a new high school being built in Valley Center. The school was beautiful. I prayed silently as I opened the district website, hoping there would be a job.
Job Openings:
Spanish teacher
It took me only a little while to apply. I received a call the next day and was hired the day after my interview. God's answer could not have been more clear. And although I was ecstatic about this job, I struggled to find contentment. I was restless.
And so I began to pray. I prayed for contentment for probably two or three years. Ironically, the verses I had memorized while working in Juarez were Philippians 4:11-12: "I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."
I had memorized these verses mainly because that summer I was learning what it meant to live with nothing. I was filthy most of the time. Hungry sometimes when teams wouldn't bring ample food. I was driving a 25-year-old truck with no air conditioning (I loved that truck). But I was content.
Now, I was to learn to be content "whatever the circumstances."
Over the past five years, I have LOVED my job teaching Spanish. Loved it. I love those kids. And God began to show me that I could do His work right here at home.
After working specifically with several different students struggling with depression and anxiety, and struggling with it myself for years, I decided to drop my master's program in Spanish and switch to counseling. I became fascinated with psychology and studying mental illness in teens.
And now here I am. Sitting in a new job that I don't deserve, but am so blessed to have. Seven years ago I never would have thought I'd be in a beautiful office, working with kids from all different walks of life. Some just want to talk about college. Some want to talk about their fears. I never would have thought I'd be spending my lunch hour in a high school cafeteria, wandering from table to table, laughing hysterically at 16-year-old humor. I never thought that I would be so excited for Monday morning to come, and all the mornings after. I never thought I would get to still work with students from all over the world (we seriously have so many this year!) and help them to be successful in their classes. My heart cracked a little the other day as one of our students from a highly impoverished area of the world said it was his dream to get to take a science class someday. I never thought I'd get to travel and take all my crazy kids with me.
God knows my heart better than I know it. He knew seven years ago that Juarez was not his plan for me, at least in the years after college. He knew I was not ready nor strong enough to take on full-time missions. I was not emotionally healthy. In the months after my time in Mexico, the healing process was extremely painful and long. A lot of nightmares. A lot of tears. A lot of time in Scripture. But slowly, after tearing down the walls of my heart, God began to rebuild it, fitting in pieces of Juarez that He knew I needed to carry with me.
Without me realizing it, he brought another Juarez to life right in front of me. We have so many kids who come from homes where they are well-loved and well-taken care of. But we have many that aren't. Serving both has become my passion.
Of course, I still work with Casas when I can. I am hoping to make it back this year before Christmas. It will be the first time in almost six years. I have not shaken the idea that maybe international work will fall into my lap someday. But if it doesn't, that's okay.
At this point in my life, if I was asked to move or give up the job I have now, it would surely break my heart.
I am in a place now that I am able to sit at my desk every morning with a hot cup of coffee and my Bible open in front of me.
I am content.
