Saturday Post - 05/08/17

We have spent the last six months living with other people all around the globe and, as of yesterday, we are once again on our own for the foreseeable future. And I (Amanda) am kind of sad about it. Maicol, KC and Caleb Rivero had been staying with us for the last six weeks as they came back to Trinidad for their niece Milly's wedding to Mauro, and to visit family. For those of you who don't know, Maicol and KC were missionaries here for about 15 years, but moved back to KC's home town near Seattle two years ago (Maicol is Bolivian and his family is here, hence the family visit). They left yesterday on their return trip and the house is now strangely quiet. Sam absolutely loved having Caleb around, who is two years older, and I think he misses his friend already.

We've thought a lot about hospitality and sharing living space with people over the last six months. We've been really challenged about sharing what we have with others and not hoarding what we think we have a right to, whether that be space, time or material possessions. It's not really ours. I think everyone has one thing that they really struggle sharing. I think Craig's is popcorn. You see, he would get really upset that I ate popcorn faster than him, and he felt that I was getting more than 50% of the bowl, so a long time ago we had to start eating our popcorn out of separate bowls. True story. However, more seriously, Craig and I both have had trouble sharing our space. Material possessions (well, you can't take it with you) and time (sharing our time is kind of in the job description) have never given us too many problems, but our space is precious (my home is my oasis). So, I think God kind of decided to really challenge us about this over the past six months.

We moved around a lot while on home assignment, and we stayed with a lot of different people, all with their unique way of doing things and their own reactions to having us there. Sometimes we stayed in one place a month or more at a time, and sometimes it was one night, but I think we calculated that Sam slept in 18 different places overall. Generally, I never felt bad about it. I kind of have an attitude that goes like this: "I live in Bolivia; if you want me to come visit you, you need to provide a bed. Thank you." I can be more subtle than that, but I never felt guilty about putting people out. It kind of comes with the lifestyle. But I don't think I ever made the connection between how I expect people to put me up, and how we can be precious about our space.

Maybe the term "being precious about our space" is a bit vague. It is not like we've ever decided not to accept friends and family from visiting us in Bolivia. We love having visitors. Come one, come all!...but only if you plan on going home at some point before we feel you've worn out your welcome. And that is what I mean by being precious. Everyone is on the clock because eventually you're going to inconvenience me and that's not OK. And that is the attitude that I feel God is challenging right now in our lives. What happens if someone needs to stay indefinitely? Can I handle that? How do we treat that person? When I say, "You can stay as long as you need!", do I really mean that?

I used to think that if someone is hospitable, they are good at having people over for dinner or that they are good at having people stay for the weekend. But I think hospitality has more to do with how they make their guests feel, regardless of if they are there for the weekend or for six months. Do their guests feel welcomed? Do their guests feel like they are being asked to join the family? Well, I have been that guest and I know what it feels like to be made to feel completely at home and to be made to feel...not completely at home. And this is where attitude is so important, because no one ever went out of their way to make me feel unwelcome or less than included, but the attitude that people have about their space permeates the home. It is something that hangs in the air and says to a guest, "Make this your home too", or it says "This is not your home, so be careful what you do in it". I don't want to subtly give out that second vibe because I don't like how someone stacked the toilet paper rolls. Craig and I came back to Bolivia determined to address this in our lives. We have no idea if we've gotten it right, or if we still have some work to do, but it is something we're really conscious of. You'll have to ask Maicol and KC if they felt welcomed or if they felt we couldn't get them out the door fast enough. :)

Now, if you're reading this and you hosted us while we were on furlough, please don't start analysing everything you said and did while we were there. This post isn't about our experiences, because we are truly grateful for every single person and place that accommodated us. This post is more about what has come back to mind over and over again as we've moved from place to place. The truth is that being a guest can be hard, especially for people who have been away from home for a while, and that being a host can be hard, because our private spaces are being exposed, therefore the attitude that we have going into the experience can dramatically affect the outcome.

So, we've gone from being the guests for six months to being the hosts once again. And as mentioned above, we love having people visit. So, please feel free to get in touch if you want to experience life in Bolivia.

I wanted to share this because it has been on my heart and mind a lot recently, but aside from thinking on this subject, Craig and I did have a normal work week. I am loving my job just now, as I feel I am being productive in helping people to do their jobs better, without any of the nasty, complicated paperwork I was doing before. Win/win. It really has been a pleasure to go into work and feel good about what I am doing. Craig had a Langham meeting this morning, where he was preaching. He then had to chair and facilitate the critique of his own sermon because the other group coordinator had to leave early. No one critiqued him at all, but I guess we'll never truly know if it was an amazing sermon or if they were all too intimidated to share. Sam loves daycare and grabs his teacher's hand once he arrives and waltzes off without saying goodbye now; that's a knife to my heart. But it was quite clear to us that we had gotten quite used to daycare as well when we learned that there were no classes yesterday and that there will be no classes on Monday either due to a national holiday. What? Four days straight where I have to look after my child myself? Are you joking? How will we cope?

Classes start again on Tuesday! Yes!!!

Prayer

• Maicol, KC and Caleb Rivero as they travel back to the States
• Our work in the Foundation and in the church - that we'll be able to pick up momentum now that we're without a visiting team or house guests.
• We're planning to start construction on FT's water tower this month - please pray we can get the contract signed
• For Sam, as he gets used to being the only child again in the house
• We're trying to get Sam's second next follow-up visit organised, but the social workers don't seem to have it on their list of priorities right now - pray that it gets done soon

Praise

• For a really great time with Maicol, KC and Caleb - a friendship forged on the battlefield, so to speak, that'll last a lifetime. It doesn't matter that we're not even that similar - 

KC: "Amanda, what are you reading?" 

Amanda: "A novel. It has dragons in it." 

KC: "Why are we friends again?"

True story! 

¡Que Dios les Bendiga!

Craig, Amanda and Sam