A month in Mexico and it feels like home.
We’re getting in the groove of serving everyone we meet. Every interaction is a chance to show Jesus. Big jobs like painting and manual labor, but even more so in the small jobs like cooking meals, giving rides, and offering a smile. Everything we’re doing here is an opportunity to give a glimpse at the love that is always available through our Lord. It’s the biggest lesson I’m learning through serving. It doesn’t have to be a grand gesture to make a big impact for God.
The staff here call me “muy activo” because I’m always moving and getting as much done as I can in my short time here. As you all said, three months will fly by, and it is. But I am really learning to slow down and let God move in my stillness. Much of what I am writing (and I’m writing a ton; devotions, chronicles, just getting it all on paper) revolves around resting and letting God lead my life.
The ultrasound clinic that ran last weekend was very rewarding. Our family was there to support the staff and three visiting techs. We gave people rides, made food, and helped keep everyone moving through the thirty-five mamas to be that got to see their babies. We had new moms as young as fifteen. It was heartbreaking. The scans they ran were what we take for granted as women in the states.
I started fitness classes last week as well. Our first class we had five people with their kids out for circuit training. I’ve been putting up flyers around town and the hope is to have classes four or five nights a week. Serving at a wellness clinic means they not only provide medicine and treat acute and chronic conditions, but we also focus on the preventative measure like exercise, mental health, and nutrition.
The kids are good. We have nature and humanity as our classroom. We see dolphins and sand-dollars every afternoon when we get home. We’re outside working a ton and we have a lovely math and now a Spanish tutor. Praise Jesus! The missionary community down here is robust and generous. Next week the kids will even learn to weld, and were going over to the orphanage this Thursday. They have connected with a local church youth group that has a good number of English speakers so that’s a true blessing as well. We’re making memories and they all seem to have adjusted to our new “home.”
We have had the usual dumb life snags, five people driving for hours in a small car, teenage and six-year-old melt downs, I dropped and broke my iPad (1st world problems but I do love to read,) we’ve run out of bottled water at times, and everything shuts down when it rains. But we arent as worried about saftey and security as we were before we came. We even go into Tijuana a little more and we go out at night now where we didnt before. Baby steps in feeling more comfortable with our surroundings.
Even the hard parts seems easier when the focus immediately shifts from your own stuff to serving those around you. When something starts my brain buzzing with worry, I turn around toward Jesus and whose needs I can serve that aren’t mine.
We’re making time for fun and rest as well. We went to a resort for a couple days and saw my dad and stepmom for half a day. We’ve also really connected with my stepbrother and his family in San Diego. I’ve never lived closer than twelve hundred miles away from them my entire life, so we never had a chance to get close. Now, my sister-in-law and I communicate most days and we’ve seen them twice already with plans to see them again a couple more times before we go home.
These little unexpected blessings coming out of the bigger blessing of our mission.
The food is insanely good, my Spanish is better than ever and I’m finally getting a little tan, I just need mother nature to remember this is Baja and start bringing the sun and warmth! I’m devouring books, and I’m hoping to get an article published in Coastal Living or another large publication, about the benefits of a serving sabbatical. Im thrilled to not have TV (although we are binging Outer Banks on Netflix,) we go to bed early and wake up before the sun. My nails and eyebrows are a mess, and makeup is pretty rare, but Its also so freeing to not live with a scale or a full length mirror, when for twenty years my life has been in front of a very judgmental camera. Also freeing is having only five shirts, four pants and three pairs of shoes. And no Amazon! Wow, no words for how good that can actually be. Learning patience and to be content with what you have. We do get up across the border once every couple weeks and you can bet I put in in order a few days before.
I long for certain parts of home like friends, and my dog, but mainly I get sad thinking this will all come to an end in less than two months, but I redirect those thoughts to Jesus.
Praying he will keep me grounded in the present.
Praying he will keep leading me on this path that he has always had planned.
The moment I start looking at my return-to-work schedule or orthodontist appointments and soccer registration this spring my heart clenches a little and my stomach drops. Of course, I’m grateful for all those things; my career, UPS, a home, activities for my kids. But my goal is to figure out how to take this nearly constant current focus on the needs of others and not my own, back into my “real life” at home. It really is amazing how less of you and more of others (and God) is the key to peace.
In March we have some visiting volunteers to put to work painting and building and we plan on finishing our work on the pharmacy and records. My in-laws are coming to visit for a couple days. Were headed back to my stepbrothers for a cousin’s birthday. I’ve got to buy our flights home at some point (pray that ticket prices drop please) and we may get away for a few days to Cabo San Lucas. Oh and it is my twentieth wedding anniversary at the end of March!
I’m also trying to sit back and relax and enjoy since I’ll never likely get a chance to have three months off my day job ever again, and these kiddos aren’t getting any younger. When we get back Grace will be starting high school.
My time with them at home is so limited as all you parents know.
I’ve got dreams of what will be done before we leave. One of which is I want Siloé to have a working car, truck, or van. If I had one to give it would be donated in a second, but we sold ours to fund this trip. So, I’m putting it out to you all, if anyone has a used car that is set to expire, it can be used down here. Transportation is one of the biggest barriers to services. We can’t get people medical attention if we can’t get them to the doctors. I also want to raise upwards of ten thousand dollars for the clinic so we can, among other things, hire another doctor. Always a shopper, I also want to get branded apparel to sell when churches visit and to sell online to provide a stream of income for the clinic. Any one with a swag business want to donate? All of this takes a lot of money and so many of you have been so generous already. All donations go directly to the clinic so if you have it on your heart to help spread the gospel and serve humanity please do.
If you've read this far, you've likely questions so come join me as I’ll be doing another live stream Saturday Morning 3.4.23 8am PST/11am EST in instagram. Ask me any questions you might have. I always look forward to our chats.
As always, thank you so much for your prayers and messages of encouragement. Im still just a girl who is always a little insecure, but the loving words of affirmation you send and the notes of lives changed through these words I share about Jesus, keep me going.
xoxo
Kerstin
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