What. A. Week.

It was the kind of week that makes you crash into bed every night around 10:00, and that’s after having fallen asleep on the couch.

It was the kind of week where the kids are wearing super random outfits because the laundry is literally taking over our kitchen.

It was the kind of week where being a missionary is just a little bit harder than I had anticipated.

It started out wonderfully.   Mother’s Day on Sunday, witnessing our littlest team member be baptized, an incredibly exciting team meeting, and even getting to celebrate our 8th anniversary at a very romantic spot in Bogota.  

But then things started to get weird.

There was an incredibly uncomfortable conversation (okay, confrontation) with a set of security guards who wouldn’t let us back into our friend’s housing c...

That Bible story that I’d heard over and over again as a child about the Tower of Babel is really starting to sink in now as I struggle through language learning.  And it kind of makes me mad.

I know some people see languages as a gift, a challenge, a way that God has used to color the world and make it a more interesting and diverse place to live in.  I, however, see language as a result of people trying to build a large tower and were punished by the curse of confusion.

Language aquisition has not been my strongest area here on the mission field so far.  The Spanish language is beautiful.  It is colorful and poetic and you can play with the verbs to tell a very rich story.  The problem is, I have to learn how to use those verbs, and there are 10 ways or more to use each and every one...

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord.  ”Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you a hope and a future.”  Jeremiah 29:11

I was in college the first time I really understood this concept.  I was facing my senior year, still single, still unsure of what to do with my life, and there wasn’t much that made it seem like that was going to change.  And as silly as it feels now, a young Christian girl graduating from a Christian college still single felt at the time like I was going to live the rest of my life unmarried and without children.

And then I remembered this verse, Jeremiah 29:11, and my heart changed.  Okay, so maybe I won’t find Mr. Right in college, or ever, and maybe I won’t have an outstanding career, but there is a plan, and it isn’t to h...