It hit me today. I'm uprooting myself from all of the red, white, and blue, from the spacious skies that I know and moving to a land of green, yellow, and blue that shouts of Order and Progress from the heights of cramped apartment buildings.
From the plain, straightforward language of my mother and father to the tongue of a culture that finds my name difficult to pronounce.
I've been there before, this beautiful, tropical place where no one is in a hurry unless they're trying to get on the bus or metro, a place where hearts burn as hotly as the sun bears down on land that is far too close to the equator. I can keep up with most conversations and stumble along replies. But I am a toddler in this culture, in a world that looks at first glance close to a modern American city. Upon further investigation this is not America, nor anything close. People think and act differently, get offended because of different things (eg, the "ok" hand gesture should NEVER be used), form friendship based on a different set of completely unspoken and implicit rules, and appreciate different gestures of respect and kindness.
I'm bound to fall on my face. I'm anxious and nervous about being wanted there, because the normal gestures of a person waiting another's return haven't been found in my friends there (talking about being excited, skyping and texting and verbally expressing).
But I know I'm loved. Last week I spoke with the family I lived with last time I was there, and before I could ask my host dad assured me my bed was ready and waiting for me and that it had been since I left. A brother studying at the seminary messaged me the other day and let me know that he had heard SO much about me from all of the others and, though he didn't know me at all, was excited to get to know me and serve our God together with me in the congregation.
Please pray for me. I struggle daily with my own inadequacies, failing often to remember the old adage that "God doesn't just call the equipped, he equips the called". I've read it over and over in Scripture. Help me remember that our sovereign God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As He gave Moses, a stuttering, simple boy the voice of His people, may He grant me a way with the lost, the hurting and the spiritually needy of Brasil.
"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair... Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, 'I believed, and so I spoke,' we also believe, and so we also speak..." (2 Corinthians 4:7-8, 13)
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