Lessons I learned from dreading my hair

Ok wow this is definitely one of the craziest things I have ever done, mostly because before I dreaded my hair I LOVED my hair! Before I came to Peru I almost cried at the thought of chopping it all off.. when I heard it might be easier to have short hair in the jungle. Thus my crazy solution DREADS really is pretty extreme for me.

 

The last six weeks have been full of hard work with mi pelo Rubio (my blonde hair) transforming it into nudos (knots)! What happens is you section your hair into small pieces rubber banding the roots and then back combing starting at the top going down. It's a long, painful process. My hair is crazy thick and in total I think about 5 people have spent about a total of 10 hours knotting up my hair. Ok one big misconception about dreading hair is that it doesn't take maintenance or much work. That is a huge lie! I hate doing my hair and because I didn't maintain my dreads well enough the first 3 weeks this week my friends literally had to rip my hair apart because the dreads had dreaded together. Ouch it was not a fun process! Anyways, I learned my lesson and now roll my dreads almost every day. Hopefully once they become more developed and dreadier I will not need to put so much effort into maintaining them.

 

Anyways I decided to get dreads because I feel it describes my personality and my motto about life YOLO and YOYO "You only live once" and "Your only young once." I've thought dreads looked pretty cool for a while and I decided to just go for it. Anyways here are some pics of my dreads so far, all natural- no products used =)

 

 

 

 

missionary

There are some days when I feel like I am a missionary- those moments when I know exactly why I'm serving in Peru. Those times when I can directly impact children's lives or when I am really excited about the service work I am doing.

Yet sometimes I don't know why I'm here. I get so discouraged about what I'm doing. I feel like I'm not making a big enough difference. Drama and distractions get in my way.. and I cry out to God what's going on?

I believe that being a missionary is not a feeling, it's an action. More than that, it's a response to God's calling or tugging of your heart. It isn't something you do just for the fun of it or even on a whim. It's a response to God's command to serve, sometimes in big ways but mostly in small things- seemingly unimportant- often the overlooked.

I wanted to be a missionary for a LONG time. Ever since I was like 5 years old I've been dreaming of doing mission work in the jungle. I've always forseen myself having these crazy adventures. rescuing orphans, possibly assisting in big pregnancies, preaching sermons and watching baptisms, and occasionally crying myself to sleep at night.

But sometimes missionary work isn't like that. You see missionary work often doesn't seem special. Sometimes it's mundane. Far too often it seems like all I do here is teach swimming lessons and cook or wash dishes. Sometimes I help a little bit in the clinic...giving medicine, giving shots, comforting the kids. giving glasses, or registering patients. Sometimes though I get so frustrated because I feel like "I'm not making a big enough difference. I want to see results now. I want to go on adventures."

Tonight I read an article online about missionaries that I found very encouraging and would like to share part of "First, doing ministry in another country is just like doing ministry in the US, except for the fact that you have a mountain of additional challenges: the enemy’s violent opposition, a language barrier, cultural misunderstandings, having to learn new ways to do things (like shopping for vegetables outdoors or washing clothes by hand), and possibly doing without a lot of conveniences you are used to (for instance, a vehicle, air conditioning, or electricity). While I considered myself fully willing to give those things up and accept the extra suffering and obstacles, I had not yet proven myself able to do ministry faithfully and effectively where it was easy, so how could I expect to do it when opposition raged?

Second, missionaries like Hudson Taylor, Gladys Aylward, and Amy Carmichael appear to us like glowing examples of triumphant faith because we get to see the end of the story. We can read their whole life story in a little book. Authors don’t spend a proportional amount of time on the drudgery-to-glamour ratio in the lives of missionaries. They focus on all the interesting parts of a person’s life. Even as we read, we gloss over the boring parts that do appear. We quickly page through the fact that Hudson Taylor spent a number of “hidden years,” or spent months bedridden with illness. We fail to consider how it felt to him to live through that. We read about Gladys Aylward marching triumphantly over the mountains. “She rescued 100 children!” we exult. But how many years did she spend in China before that, faithfully doing boring things that no one took any notice of? We read Amy Carmichael’s writings and our hearts are thrilled and inspired with her mighty faith, but we forget that her day-to-day life probably looked to her like a mundane series of tasks. We appreciate her vivid quotes, but fail to understand the pain and suffering she had to go through in order to learn these things.

 

The danger of over-glamorizing mission work

The danger of placing an unhealthy expectation on missionary work is that if God ever does call us to serve Him in another country, we will be unprepared for the challenges that we face and therefore be far less effective in the work."

 

Sometimes my everyday work- the things I do each day- seem so boring, so unimportant, un-impactful. Yet overall I look back and say "wow I taught 15 kids how to swim", "I made this little girl smile today. I held his hand when he was given a shot."

 

There are those times when being a missionary is that crazy adventure you are looking for. Like when I weaved through town with my feet wrapped around the 2 people in front on a motorcycle, or when your dreading your hair, experiencing a clinical emergency, or trying to lead song service when you have no idea what the words or the tunes are for the song you're singing. You will have those super fun crazy stories that you can tell your friends later.

 

And yes there are those times when being a missionary is crazy hard. Like when you're sick and your hands are swollen and black and blue. You have to go take blood tests at this sketchy place in town and you pray you don't get a disease when your phlebotomist drops your cotton ball on the ground and refuses to get you a new one. Or possibly when you are overwhelmed with exhaustion and being with 19 other sm's and just want to run away to get some peace.

 

But there are also those times when mission work feels boring. When you become unmotivated, when everything becomes routine and you forget to see the purpose in what you are doing. Whether it be washing dishes. cleaning the bathrooms, or cooking-- sometimes you get frustrated and tired. You wonder if you're making a difference at all. You struggle with God and the desire to read your Bible or practice Spanish. You struggle, you grumble. you struggle... until you realize--

 

1. that YOU right now are in the place exactly where God wants you

 

2. that sometimes God works in different ways and in different times than we choose

 

3. that if you look back at what God has done for you in the past you can see the fingerprints of God

 

If you are feeling discouraged today as a missionary (abroad or in your school, church, or college) here are some verses I found very encouraging. I pray you have faith in God and persevere through any tribulations you may encounter.

 

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. I Cor. 9:24

 

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts. Zech. 4:6

 

 I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. Psalm 71:16

 

Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this. that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus

 

Boys vs girls

Once in a while things get a bit crazy and the boys decide to attack the girls.

About 3 weeks ago we had frog and beetle wars. Those were disgusting. The boys threw 3 frogs into our room. Once while Arri was showering, she got a nice big frog thrown over the shower. You should have heard her scream from a mile away ;)

About a week ago we had a huge bottle battlefield fight. All of the boys began throwing bottles into my room. Katie and I were in here and not happy. After about 20 bottles filled the ground we decided we needed to fight back. Thus the bottle battle began. 6 girls came into our room and we soon were tossing about 100 plastic bottles back and forth as fast as we could jumping and dodging to try and avoid being hit by the bottles that were coming from the ceiling. It was pretty fun, not gonna lie, kinda like dodgeball but with bottles.

After the bottle warfare, came the bottle chandelier and underwear fight in my room. Gross right? Boys will be boys...

Yesterday though the boys threw a living tarantula into (Not my room praise God) but into Lisa's and Arri's . They were so not happy. I would have been terrified!  Katie Kat and I were in our room and we hid under our bunk quietly hoping they wouldn't hear us so they wouldn't toss one in here. It was like the holocaust. We hid silently listening to the screams and the warfare going out inside our room. All of a sudden we heard banging on the door. We were so scared that it was one of the boys going to do something that we didn't answer it for like 5 minutes. Finally we answered it and let poor Bernice, our dear roomie who was wet from her shower, into our room. Yikes- alot of prank action, but for me tarantulas are just too much.

Orphanage

This is an orphanage- not a home but a refuge. A place full of smiles even though the kids who live here have suffered far too much for their age. It's hard to describe the feelings you get when you visit this place. Your heart breaks and aches in a different way than ever before. You see things and problems you never imagined could exist for such innocent children. Yet the kids love and trust you with a love so pure that it must be heavenly. They kiss you and beg you not to leave them. They want to be held, want to be loved, want to be embraced close to you. They adore you even though you have done nothing for them. So you lavish them with kisses on their heads and cheeks, you spin them around in airplane circles until you're too dizzy to walk, and you sing ring around the rosy as loud as you can. Hoping and praying to God that someone special adopts each one of the special children soon.

It's hard not to ask God why? Why could He allow all these sweet children to be in an orphanage receiving only minimum care? Why would He allow the special needs kids to be abandoned in a place where they can't receive what they need? Why are children hungry and suffering and without loving parents or brothers and sisters?

But what if God asked us the same? What if He said these people are your neighbors, your friends, your brothers and sisters in Christ? I gave you money.. so you could bless them. I gave you parents to teach you how to love.. so that you could love these kids. I blessed you.. so that you could bless them.
What have you done with the gifts I have given you? How have you helped them?

It's our responsibility to care for the orphans. It is our responsibility to help the needy. If God has blessed you, He has blessed you so you can bless others.

I pray that God opens your eyes so that you can see the world as He sees it and others the way He views them. If God is calling on your heart to help the orphans, or help the poor, especially this time since Christmas is approaching, I challenge you to consider donating to the Christmas Orphanage Project that my SM friends and I are working on. We are trying to provide special Christmas bags to all 87 kids and we will be delivering them to the kids personally. I will also get to spend 19 days from December 24th to January 12th living at the orphanage and helping each of these kids- spending Christmas celebrating God's son with them.

Please check out my link http://brooketotallybrio.blogspot.com/p/christmas-orphanage-project.html that tells more about the project and consider donating to amorprojects.org/donate

Swimming lessons

I teach swimming lessons and I am a good teacher. I have had professional training and much experience teaching lessons, but most of my lessons have been in the states where swimming is quite different than here. In the states, teaching swimming is simple. Follow the book, do the skills step by step. No fear, no push. The kids develop slowly level by level improving a little day by day.

It’s difficult to teach swimming lessons in Spanish when you can scarcely communicate to scared children who have never before learn to swim. I believe the secret to a good swim teacher is confidence and knowledge of skill- progression and technique. But it’s so difficult to not be able to converse with the kids freely and discover their feelings, fears, and explain to them the strokes and the procedures as well as why not to be afraid.

Thus while I have learned a few key phrases in Spanish about swimming: patella (kick), flotar (float), sopla burbujas (blow bubbes) ect. Most of my Spanish lessons come from the simple technique of “mira me y repita” or “watch me and repeat”. Normally, it works with much demonstration and as the kids swim I will correct their technique and efforts while working with them.

I teach the kids step by step but I ask them to trust me as a teacher- that’s the only way I can teach them. If they ever start drowning, I will always rescue them. I will never let them drown under the water. Sometimes I will push them to do things that are difficult, but my desire is always for their success and for their swimming achievement.

In the morning, the group of boys I work with are doing wonderful with my teaching. On the first day they couldn’t swim at all, and now they can cross the pool on their own swimming with good proper breathing and kicking. The girls in my second class are a different story. Because some of them have came to to class each day in perfect order, those girls can swim well and are learning quickly for a level 1 class. But because many have missed classes, it is difficult to teach different levels at once. There is one girl in particular named Melissa, around 10 years old, who has missed a few classes and is a little behind the other girls. It’s not that she can’t do the skills, it’s simply that she is afraid and starts to freak out in the water.

Yesterday Melissa almost drowned twice and one of them was definitely my fault. The problem with Melissa is the minute you let go of her, instead of practicing putting her head down and using her arms, she freaks out in the water in a vertical position thus drowning herself. The second she can’t feel you around her, she panics. She has no faith in herself or trust in me that I will get her when she can’t swim.

Thus yesterday I wanted her to swim to the wall which was only two feet away. She was grabbing onto me and refusing to swim on her own so I pushed her to the wall and went under water in an effort to force her to use her arms and swim. Instead of reaching for the wall which was very very close, she grabbed to me, grabbed to my hair and began to drown right above me slightly under the water.

I was very frustrated and she was very scared. I made her repeat the exercise twice trying to explain to her that if she had listened to me and used her arm motions she could have simply reached for the wall. She repeated it twice successfully shaking from terror. I feel quite bad for the girl and next class I am going to move her down to a different level. She simply can’t keep up with the other girls- not because of her skill level- simply because of her fears and lack of blind trust. I feel bad that she almost drowned because of me. But by herself she will continue to drown, until she learns to trust in herself and in me and swim or use her arms.

My third class of swimming girls are by far the littlest and cutest. They are only about six to nine years old and they were all terrified in the water on the first day. I have had the joy of watching them learn to trust me and overcome a lot of their fears in the water. Now they can jump in the water and come up on their own in the deep end. They can do superman float and twist to back float without panicking. They can bob with assistance in the deep end. The girls trust me a lot- and trust is definitely the key to their success.

My swimming children remind me a lot about the importance of not worrying and trusting in God. When we have a problem in life we tend to freak out immediately. Similar to trying to swim vertically in the water, panicking and freaking out will only make our problems worse and eventually if we worry about everything we will drown.

When we are encountered with a difficult situation or asked to swim against the current or in a new direction that is unfamiliar, we need to trust in our God. We need to obey and continue to follow Him (to keep moving towards where He wants us). To learn how to swim or to learn how to walk closer to Christ is often uncomfortable and scary. God is patient in His work with us but sometimes He calls us to take a big leap of faith. We need to trust Him and be confident that He will provide even when He asks us to do things we can’t do.

God is way better than I am as a teacher. God has had years of experience directing lives. God understands our fears and our feelings perfectly. He is always capable of coming to our rescue and He always will when we are drowning in life’s troubles.

Sometimes it may seem like we are drowning. Sometimes similar to Melissa, we will not feel God and we will get scared. We may ask “Where is God while this is happening?” We may not feel like He is real or like He is really going to save us. These times are hard but it is important that we don’t lose hope of God even when times get difficult.

20

What's it like to be a missionary with 19 other college students?

Simplified it's chaos, drama, laughter, fun, and action all the time.

- When it rains we all huddle together at the dinner table or inside our little rooms reading or sharing stories
- There's constant laughter and jokes
- When it's dinner time we all run because we know food goes fast
- We pile on top of each other for town trips. We know that's just the way it is. Your lucky if you have a seat to place your but. 32 is our maximum in a 12 passenger van.
- We have drama- yup all the time- we laught about it though.
- We take turns being moms: cleaning tons of dishes, scrubbing poopy bathrooms, and cooking for 22 starved soldiers (that's how our group eats)
- We make a beautiful choir complete with ukeleles, guitars, sopranos, and wannabe bases
-When someone leaves our clinic who we love we follow them singing na na na na while dancing and chasing them goodbye
- We know that meetings are just: not good and when it's time for a meeting- you shut your mouth and be quiet praying for the ending and group serenity
- Every chore has lyrics and dance motions
- Every other sentence includes one or two random spanish words
- We are a family
- We love movie nights, sometimes in the dental rooms
- We practice medical things on each other (shots, iv's, and dental)
- We have personal trainers among us that use sticks to motivate work outs
-For birthdays we sometimes awake each other with a special song, later we sing and have birthday cake, and egg each other like crazy
-- We know each other so well that we know all of our strengths and faults.
-There's alot of group love and occasional head kisses or group hugs


Before I came I didn't know what it would be like to serve with a group so big. Sometimes it's definitely challenging because there is NO personal space. You are NEVER alone LOL! This is definitely a struggle for some of us introverts or for those wanting a quiet place to read their Bible. Sometimes everything gets a little overwhelming and chaotic...

But most of the time, it's exciting and a ton of fun. It's amazing being part of a huge family that you know and love so well. It makes me think about all the missionaries who are serving alone or only with one or two people. I definitely admire them and think that it's a difficult role. I definitely think all of the missionaries serving by themselves need special prayer. How lonely it would be. How hard to not have so many familiar people to encourage you and uplift you. How blessed by God I am to have my misisonary family of 20 here with me =)

Remember to Breathe

The last few days my thoughts have been jumbled and rampant and my character has been shifted slightly to the right and overly impatient side. My head has been in the clouds and far too often I have felt my brain thinking up a different complaint or wish that I had or could do. I've been running around simply forgetting to stop breathe in God and experience life as it is.

How often do many of us forget to breathe and run around like chickens with our heads cut off, worrying about things that really don't matter or dreaming about things that will never actually happen.

How important daily prayer and Bible reading really is to the believer and what a day-by-day difference it really does make! Taking the time to slow down and think, processing thoughts and events, conversing with the God of the Universe, and reading His wisdom and advice for all of life is so crucial! I can honestly say that I am a different person on days when I have spent adequate alone time with God than on days when I forget or procrastinate reasons and don't have the time to stop.

How can we expect to love if we are not every day lavishing ourselves in the love of our Heavenly Father? For if we are not breathing in God's grace, love, and new mercies every day, our strength will wear far too quickly and soon we will simply be clanging symbols making noise but having no meaning.

Matthew 4:4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

As we wouldn't simply forget or procrastinate to eat, we should prioritize our study of God's word so that nothing can stop us from spending time with Him. God created us to long for the word of God and to need it daily. God created the Bible to sustain us and to give us courage to keep going.

Joshua 1:8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

I want to encourage you to take the time to stop and breathe in God wherever you are and wherever your relationship with God is at. Simply taking time each day to stop whatever your doing and maybe go outside, or meditate on God's word, can be so renewing, so powerful, and so perspective- changing. Take the time to really slow down and your eyes will be opened so much to what God is really doing.