four years ago...

Centro NOE, today marks my fourth year of knowing you. On March 23, 2011, I boarded a plane in tears and from take-off to touchdown, I questioned my sanity and my God for taking me somewhere where I didn't know a single soul. The overused question fell from my mind and into my heart and I kept asking, "What on Earth are you doing?”

But that night is as clear as if it were yesterday, I pulled back the covers of my unfamiliar bed and before I closed my eyes...I sent a text to my best friend and I told her that I knew Morelia was home, that it wouldn't just be a place on a map to me, nor would it solely be a name of a city that I couldn't pronounce.

Since that March day four years ago, I have found my voice.  It is a voice that doesn't just reply with a yes or no, the shake of a head or bow out of conversations due to fear. It’s a voice that no longer cowers in the shadows or stays behind closed doors. I have found a voice that speaks truth with tears and even tends to sing in front of a crowd.

F o u r Y e a r s

I never would have imagined that a few, succinct words would bring me to my heart’s home. I never would have pictured the outcome of my heart’s cry at the Bible Study retreat; I would have never expected that asking God for more that day would eventually mean that He would bring me to MORElia.

I fought life with bitter tears and a broken heart for years. I fought for my quaint idea of perfection and for some time, it meant life would be lived in Baja, no questions asked. But when you tell your feeble, quaking knees to rise and when you walk forward in the unknown, your shaky voice is unknowingly declaring that God can have His way in you.

And He had His way in me.

I told every single passerby that I was ready for the mission field when graduation came. I knew that my hundreds of papers researching missionary life would be all I needed to settle into the unfamiliar.

But I was just a little girl. A little girl still set on saving the world and still convinced that life was hers to fix and that the burdens of others needed to be welcomed with open arms. I was just a little girl that though she knew how to speak didn’t revel in being heard. A girl that trembled in corners and hid from the fear of being heartbroken and was convinced that the past was what defined her and that stuck there is where she would always be.

However, that October day in 2010, God had other ideas.

Years had been spent with Baja on my heart and mind, and to this day I will honestly tell you that my love for Baja hasn’t been forgotten, nor does it go ignored. But I was adamantly decrying that God’s plan for me could be anything different; I was quietly demanding that my perfectly planned perfection would be the only way my heart would be content.

Perfection wasn’t coming.

The move to Baja wasn’t happening.

I was at a standstill and my heart was becoming paralyzed by the wait. I stopped dreaming and I lost my time in racks of clothes. I found myself falling into that misconception: that if God isn’t clearing an obvious path for you, then you just need to stop dead in your tracks for a while. I welcomed lies and I found that they were my only company.

That October Day, I visited my Mom at work and she had bookmarked her latest read, “Outlive Your Life” and told me that while she finished up I needed to read one particular paragraph of words.

I obliged. Chapter 12. Breaking down walls. Morelia, Mexico. Morelia couldn’t fall from my tongue without my gringa accent, but that didn’t diminish my curiosity.

Because you see, I had started to exhaust my options after my mom nudged my heart forward. She had started speaking truth over my heart for a few months, telling me that maybe this wasn’t time to be completely still, but time to take that cliché leap of faith and start moving.

I read those words a few times and then I found myself stumbling onto the website. I realized that Mexico wasn’t just Baja and that there were other crazy people called to love the sing-song sounds of the Spanish language, called to love the unfamiliar and the foreign, called to love the precious, beautiful children of Mexico, without trepidation.  I wasn’t the only one.

I printed the application.

I sent it off.

And weeks later, FELICIDADES showed up in the subject line, I was set to be Mexico bound on March 23, 2011. I heard my director’s voice the night before my departure and his friendly laughter assured me that all would be well. My bags were packed and my dear Mom held me for a while and gave me her blessing. I don’t think at the time we realized how monumental that blessing was.

My two cheerleaders, my darling parents, saw me off and left me alone with my crazed questions and serious reconsideration. And while I say that, I kept declaring that God was with me, and that He had chosen me for such a time as this, but it’s easy to not question when you are certain about where you are going. And for one of the first times in my life, I had no idea what was ahead. All I knew was that Morelia wasn’t just a place on a map anymore, and that for the next three months I would be attempting to make it a home.

However, God was in it. The faulty attempt sure could be seen in those first few months trying to figure out how to speak up and the dear ones that I now know as family will tell you, I didn’t say much those few months. Some shrugged it off as gringa-mannerisms and didn’t believe that this trip would result in a return and some found a way into my heart and spent all of their time with me. And those are the ones, those precious souls and the family that opened the doors of their home and their hearts are what convinced me that maybe, just maybe this wasn’t a little detour.

Goodbyes made that pretty obvious on that stormy day in June. The Heavens were releasing torrents of tears and the pink walls of my home were surrounding my little band of friends…as we flustered at having to say goodbye, while not knowing if there would ever be another hello.

I moved to Baja two weeks later. I fell back into step with the need for perfection, but Morelia couldn’t be forgotten. It couldn’t be ignored. The pull was too strong.

I returned the next year in January spending January to June, with a painful year in between of sixty-hour work-weeks in the States, and then September to May of last year and now, here I have been since September. It’s been four years and with each passing day, I am confident that this is exactly where I was always meant to be.

My excitement for my anniversary never fades and so I found myself giddily telling those here. I didn’t really mention it with the hopes in receiving anything, because I’ll tell you for the rest of my life, these beautiful people here have given me more than I could ever give them in return.

But to my surprise, at midnight I was being celebrated and reminded of these four beautiful years by a steady, dear presence. My morning class was full of laughter and they left my heart brimming with absolute joy at their craziness and hilarious examples and we couldn’t stop laughing…much learning wasn’t accomplished, but then I was able to thank them for letting me be their teacher. I told them that I was so incredibly blessed to be able to go about my normal day with my favorites and that I wouldn’t have it any other way. They bid their farewell in hashtags and laughed their way out the door.

My heart was full.

We walked home with Parenthood on our minds, celebrating alongside the Bravermans and feeling for their pain. And then we were called to our meeting, a meeting I hadn’t planned for…

I walked into NOE and immediately asked about the strong smell of food, but Juan shrugged it off and opened the door. As he opened the door, people yelled “SORPRESA.” I was greeted by the ones that have held my hand and have fought for my stay and the dear couple that four years ago yesterday, were picking me up from the airport and reassuring me that I didn’t make an impulsive decision, that God was very much in this move.

And then I noticed the table was graced by my favorite, tacos ahogados, and I was overcome. I was overcome that this would be celebrated. I was overcome that I still find myself here in this city of a million hearts. I was overcome that after what most would assume a chance encounter with a few hundred words, wasn’t chance. I was overcome that the more I had prayed for years ago, has become Morelia.

And then letters, the way to my heart, were placed in my hands. Moments were passed in their sweet company and I left NOE awestruck and blessed, and overthinking like a writer tends to do, longing to put things to paper, but I just didn’t want to let words take me away from the present.

We laughed over the weird things that were done in order to keep things under the wraps of secrecy. And things began to make sense…

My doorbell rang at 4. I was told of a student’s past and I couldn’t help but feel the heaviness of gratitude for a couch, where hurting hearts can sit and attempt at facing the questions of life together. The gratitude that a student would have confidence in me left me speechless.

The next few hours I made sure to tell my students how much thankfulness rested upon my heart for four years here and for the blessing it is to be here. And then I found myself singing alongside their precious hearts and then listening to the Bible Study message. Before I knew it, Bible Study was being closed in prayer and my heart’s fullness still couldn’t really even be explained. When I opened my eyes, there was a little table with a cake and before I could realize what was happening,

Juan was telling my story. 
My story.

He was talking about my four years and asking me to come up front. I’m sure my face was a million shades of red, as I made my way to stand in front of the ones that stole my heart years ago, the ones that continue to steal my heart daily. He asked if I wanted to share anything, and well my first few months here I only shared when I felt like I had to, but these days sharing what’s on my heart comes easier and I find that people deserve to know the gratitude that rests upon my heart for them. If I don’t speak up, they might never realize how much they mean to me.

A prayer was prayed over me and then words were said over what I had done in the lives of three dear ones. The cake was cut and I was surrounded by the ones I love, jokingly arguing about who was going to stand beside me as we took a picture that will forever be stowed away in the depths of my heart.

And here I am. I don’t even think these 2000 words or the book that I will one day find myself writing will ever be enough to express how grateful I am that a few words brought me to my MORE, to my MORElia.

A book will never do it justice and this is just my heart’s feeble attempt to save these feelings before they flee from my heart and mind, due to the busyness that fights for my attention, the present that will soon ask for my acknowledgement and beckon me to keep clinging to the beauty of what it is when your heart feels completely certain, that it is right where it needs to be, for such a time as this. 

Jesus, You changed my life when my feet first stepped off the plane in Morelia on March 23, 2011.

And so it has been twelve years of loving Mexico, since my little girl braids leaped up and down at the chases of the dark chocolate-eyed beauties when we didn’t share but a few words in common.

And so it has been four years of loving Morelia and letting go of the pencil so God could have His way in me and whisper that this life isn’t about being perfect, that there’s more to this life than controlling clenched fists, that His plan for me exceeds my meager attempt at hiding the key to my heart and my desperate need to know what He has for my tomorrow.

So Jesus, may these four years be just a beginning. Thank you for being ever present and may your praise and your love be ever upon my lips as I go about my days, surrounded by the most love my heart has ever felt in one simple place.