Jamaica: a recap

i wrote about everything. i wrote about the class i took, the church i attended, the kids i played with, the daily thunderstorms, our nightly meals...everything.

day one: "I don't know how you go back to America after this and settle back into USD and an American lifestyle of spending and wasting and shutting yourself off from what is truly good and important in life."

day two: "I am being ruined in the best possible way."

"I feel like the world has so much to offer us than what we accept from our culture. We settle for cheap and shallow experiences when we can have deep, rich experiences everywhere we go."

day three: "It's frustrating how we emphasize entertainment and economic prosperity and so many other things over human life...we don't value each other...there have always been issues of exploitation and injustice...our bombs are more sophisticated, but we're still using bombs. Where is the progress?"

day four: "We are so far from the life that the Lord originally intended for us, so I'm stuck between loving being alive and experiencing life here and grieving over the state of our world, longing for the promise of what is to come, what will be fulfilled, and soon!"

day five: "I want to do things that matter. I want to experience life."

day six: "...I'm still working it all out in my head."

day seven: "The Spirit moves as it wills, and that is enough for me."

day eight: "I'm not wasting my breath or my energy. Ever expenditure over the last week and into the next two matters. Every trip to Duncans has engaged me, taught me, expanded me and my ideas and perceptions in a way that is life-giving. This whole process has been so beautifully orchestrated."

day nine: "That bugs me. I see it in myself, too, and that bugs me even more."

day ten: "I'm so human."

day twelve: "I'm not quite sure how I'm feeling about going home yet...not ready to hit the reality of being an American...not sure if I'm ready to resituate myself into living at home again."

day thirteen: "It makes me sad to think that some people use other substances so often that it masks who they really are...like they're no longer real and aren't truly experiencing life because every experience is covered by something else...they eventually become slaves to that substance and lose the freedom to exist well without it."

day fourteen: "It constantly amazes me how unique each person is...how our personalities can blend or clash and how humans are seriously just so weird...how humans usually have some really awesome characteristic that differentiates us but somehow brings us together at the same time. It's cool to be a part of that kind of melding."

day fifteen: "I'm so glad that I am somehow here, at this school, in this country, doing what I'm doing...I feel so so blessed...and also, 10,000% tired, which, I think, is the best way to be."

day sixteen: "I don't understand why the Lord would let the name of Christ, the Messiah, the name of justice and of life, be manipulated in such a horrendous way...I don't understand why humans seem to have so much power even though we misuse it over and over again."

"This is just part of me longing for a heavenly reality that is soon coming, but isn't quite here yet...sometimes that inspires hope and excitement in me; sometimes it depresses me."

"I can do my part."

"I can't describe how good this kind of exhaustion feels--knowing that I've given myself completely...I can feel it in my arms and my legs, the fact that I'm constantly hungry. Every last bit of energy is being used up."

day seventeen: "I am going to significantly simplify my life when I get home."

"I'm in a completely different place than I was a few months ago...I'm a different person...sometimes I barely recognize myself..."

day eighteen: "Tomorrow is going to be a hard day. How do you say goodbye? I'm already so sad."

day twenty: "I'm on the plane right now. This is so so strange. Tonight will be hard."

"This is not Jamaica...everything is different and I'm not really a fan...I'm afraid that people are going to think that Jamaica was just beaches and sunshine and that they won't understand the depth of my experience...how intense it was, why it's so hard to be back."

Jamaica challenged me on every single level imaginable...so let me try to explain...