What the heck am I doing??!!

I've read all the sayings about doing things scared.

"It's okay to be scared. Being scared means you're about to do something really, really brave."

"If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try" 

"Everything worth doing starts with being scared." 

And while those are all really great sentiments, they don't stop me from being a little bit scared.

They don't stop me from asking the question "What the heck am I doing?"

And if you've read this far, I bet you are also now wondering what the heck am I doing and the point of this post is to tell you, so let's carry on warriors.

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Last week I resigned from my job as Director of Youth Ministry at First Pres. in Pittsford. I've been there for a little over a year and have met some incredible people. The church not only states that their mission is to be "a caring community, growing spiritually as disciples of Jesus Christ" where "together we spread the good news of Jesus through worship, fellowship, education, prayer, and especially mission"...

They live it.

And it's been an incredible thing to watch unfold week after week. It's been a privilege to learn and relearn just how beautiful a church community can be

And I resigned. What the heck am I doing?

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In the last year, I have moved into a little apartment on the westside that I love. It's quiet and just the right size for all my stuff (although the closet could be a little bit bigger :) ). It suites me quite well and there is an added bonus that my best friends are practically my neighbors.

In the last year, the gas tank also fell right out of my car due to a rusted bottom and after the mechanic advised me that parts would most likely continue to fall out, I bought a 2012 Kia Soul. It's been wonderful not to have to get work done on my car each week. I bet my mechanic misses me..

Anyway, both of these large financial decisions were made because I had a job that could support the monthly payments of these new endeavors.

The job that I just resigned from.

And yet my plan is to keep both the apartment and the car. What the heck am I doing?

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In March, I went to Guatemala to visit one of my best friends. He works with a school and an orphanage in Hue Hue and I fell in love. With the country. With the language. With the people. And mostly with the kids.

The kids who sat on my lap during school, who never let my hands go unheld, who braided my hair and checked me for lice, who laughed at my spanish, who swam with me in the hot springs and giggled with me over caca-chinos, who left their fingerprints all over my phone and who made me bracelets that still grace my wrists, who cried when I left and told me it was cockroaches in their eyes and who made me have cockroaches in my own. The kids who stole my hats and my heart.

Oh, and it was nice to see Mark too.

I loved my time there, but two weeks is my travel capacity. Many people probably know that I love to travel, but less know that I have crazy travel worries. Not about the plane or the fact that 50% of the time I travel, I pass out. Not about the language barrier or the fact that sometimes I might not be staying in the safest places. Not about the money or that I might have to shower with hot pots or that I have to wait for a kid to be done eating so I can use his fork because their isn't enough or that I might get sick when I return. None of that worries me. I worry about things back home. I get incredibly anxious that when I come back, things aren't going to be the same and mostly that my friends are all going to forget me. I said "crazy travel worries" but even so, the worries put my travel capacity at 2 weeks and that's pushing it.

So when I say that I am going back to Guatemala for 2 months in August, I also ask what the heck am I doing?

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But I am going back and I am departing from the city that holds the majority of the people that I love most, my apartment and my car, and all that makes financial sense on August 17th and to be honest, it's scary. But it's also exhilarating. 

I will spend the first two weeks that I am there visiting Mark and the kids in Hue Hue that I met in March. I can't wait to kiss Diego's face off and snuggle Antonio. I can't wait for them to steal my sweaters and wear them, even though it's 80 degrees and 12 times too big for them. I can't wait to see their smiles. I can't wait to hear their laughs. I can't wait for our broken english and spanish conversations. I can't wait to spend more time with them.

After the first two weeks, I will then head off to language school in Xela. It's about 2 hours away from the orphanage. I will stay with a host family there and go to school during the week. On the weekends, I plan to return to Hue Hue and hang out with Mark and the kids. I also have big plans to go kayaking at the most beautiful lake. This will be my rhythm for 5 weeks before I return back to Hue Hue to round out my trip and hopefully be able to tell the kids in less broken spanish that they are the bees knees and the bus drivers that I'll probably faint on the bus, but please keep driving without needing a note.

It's scary leaving what I know and what's comfortable to head to another country. It's scary not knowing what comes after. It's scary not knowing if my bills are going to be able to get paid. It's scary not knowing.

But I think it would be more scary to not risk it all and wish I had for the rest of my life than to stay. So that is what the heck I am doing.

Prayers coveted. :)

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