I got to experience Palm Sunday here more out in the country among the indigeous people of Ecuador and it was really cool. We were on our way to Igapirca (an Incan ruins site) and we stopped at a really amazing church up in the hills. Then we stopped at a market full of HUGE pigs, sheep, etc... so yeah definitely check out those pictures if you get the chance!
Also, here´s a little something that God used to encourage me this week. When I was sick I got super upset and it really confused. I´ve always thought of myself as pretty independent and never thought I would have a problem being away from home for 3 months. However, in the beginning of my trip a part of me honestly wanted to just be home with my family and & friends... i kept thinking to myself how much easier it would be. Then this appeared in my inbox:
Somewhere Else: by Jon Walker
Have you ever been somewhere you didn´t want to be? Maybe it was a job, a town, or a marriage. Maybe it was a stage in life, like singlehood, or a state in life like a disability. It´s very possible that as you are read this you are wishing you were somewhere else - anywhere else - living a different live, but you know it´s not likely that anything is going to change that anytime soon.
God has a word for you. It´s the same word He gave a group of people when they were stuck in another country, exhiled from their homeland. They´d folded their arms and said, ¨We´re going to wait this thing out, and when we get home we´ll start living our lives.¨
Through the prophet Jeremiah, God told them, ¨You´re not going home anytime soon, so start making your lives here. Plant gardens, buy homes, let your children get married, and pray for the peace and prosperity of the place you are currently living...¨
To use a modern chiche, God was saying ¨bloom where you´re planted¨.
...¨it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to live by faith.¨ This focus allows you to see that your life is centered in God and not the place you live or work, not the person you´re married to - or not married to - not how you look or how you feel.
Investing in people around you is exactly how you find life. Jeremiah even told the exhiles that God had arranged for them to be in exhile. So it was God´s plan all along to push them to the end of their existance, so they would end up centered solely on God.
You may feel like you´re in exhile too, but God is still working in your life. And His message to you is: Dig in and fully embrace the life around you.
