becka lippy

I called my dad today, got his voicemail, and sang a hearty HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Now, Im not really satisfied with that, so I decided it would be appropriate to give a full fledged shout out to my dad here on the blog. One of the things I'd like to do here is to list some of the things I inherited from my dad that Im grateful for, and some of the things I WISH I had inherited from him, but I didn't. Things I DID get from my dad: - responsibility with money. Now this is less genetic and more training. From as early as I can remember getting an allowance, my dad had us put 10% toward tithing, 50% into "savings" and 40% was spending. By "savings" I mean the money went right back into his pocket. He gave each of us this little check book, we kept track of our savings and when the time came that we wanted to spend some of our savings on something we had to go to my dad to get the money out of the "bank". I VIVIDLY remember my first big purchase. It was a dol

Yesterday was a crazy whirlwind of a day. Yesterday, I moved apartments. They say that moving is one of the most stressful situations in life, and while I dont know if it was really one of the MOST stressful, it definitely wasnt a stree-free. I went to bed at 2am on Saturday night, and woke up at 8am to finish the packing before church. Went to church, had a few of the people who had said they would help me move, then tell me that they couldnt. This included two of the girls I disciple, who I have been trying to encourage in their general service of others... oh well. Another battle for another day. I went home after church with my friend Magda. We grabbed KFC on the way home (and no, that is NOT common for me, but on a day like yesterday, french fries are exactly what the dr ordered!) We finished packing up the last bits and pieces and I tried to get organized. At 4pm, the two conserjes showed up and literally within minutes my stuff was all downstairs ready to be loaded into the cars

This weekend is a four day weekend. Now, normally I would feel the need to go crazy and do something extravagent for a 4 day weekend. At least a trip to the beach would be in order. But I feel like the last week or so has been a bit stressful. So Im chilling at home. I'm tired and not really sleeping well. So it's going to be a calm weekend here in Santiago. I got some fresh veggies and fruit from the market and am fully prepared to spend the weekend in my little domestic haven. Here are my special finds from the market. Believe it or not, I spent about $8 on all of this. Crazy, right? I remember how last time I lived here, I ate so many fresh veggies. So I am trying to get creative with different recipes. If anyone has any suggestions they are more than welcome!

and my mom....

Its been quite some time since I changed the blog up. My dear friend Megan commented to me that she gets a migrane looking at the bright red, so I figured, why not switch it up a little. Put a little something tranquila to match the tranquila that I feel in my life at the moment. Im back in CHile, living in the neighborhood I love, with a stable job, and an incredibly sweet church. So yeah, tranquila is the word. The credit for the photo above goes to my brother, Jeremy Lipkowitz, who is an extremely talented photographer. Maybe I'll post more of his photos just for fun. (Of course I'll do this without telling him, but in good family fashion my mom will gossip it along to him!) Anyways, that's all for now. Just a little change to spice things up.

"la santa cena" literally translated as "the holy meal". In English we say Communion. It's celebrated all over the world in churches. It's form may look different in various denominations and cultures, but the heart is the same: to somehow repeat something that Jesus told His disciples to do in remembrance of Him. So we do it. When I was younger, I didn't really understand what the fuss was all about. I loved celebrating Passover with my family, but when it came time for communion, the connection was missing for me. Part of the problem was that my church only celebrated it a few times a year during a special service. It was a sacred event, which I appreciate. But for me (and seemingly for others) the desire to make the event sacred made me miss part of the point. I wanted it to be full of reflection, deep repentence, and almost sorrow as I took the little plastic cup of grape juice. But I could never get somber enough to feel like I really "got it&q

Living cross-culturally is challenging in so many ways. One of my biggest challenges is understanding cultural differences and allowing space for the differences, but not hiding behind them. Some cultural differences are obvious- language, etc. Some of them show you the sin in one of the cultures. Some of them bother you more than others. I've been here for 9 months now. And while it feels like time as flown by, it also feels like Ive been here for years. One of the things I like about living in another culture is how much it stretches you. It's just plain hard sometimes to live in another culture. There are plenty of people (mostly North Americans) who go live in other countries but stay in bubbles of their own culture. I am not here to do that. I have a few gringo friends, but I am very purposeful in who I spend time with. I know how easy it would be to spend all my time with people who speak English, who understand my culture, who share my worldview. But I want to be here in

This morning I am overwhelmed by not only the quantity of grace that is sustaining me at this moment, but the fact that God (again, because of grace) is letting me have a little peep into the reality of my need for grace. Recently I was unconsiderate of a friend. Very unconsiderate. It wasnt on purpose but my actions showed how poorly I loved her. She confronted me on it and I apologized again and again, truly sorry for hurting her, but the uneasy feeling stayed in my gut. I am actively preaching grace to myself... There are some aspects of my heart that are so girly, that they often are sinful. One of them is my tendency to wander off in my mind with a guy. I meet a quality (or so says his facebook profile) guy and its not too much an exaggeration to say that within seconds I have our courtship, wedding, and first three kids all planned out and ready to go. Why is it wrong to do this? Well, for one thing it comes from a heart that is not content with what God has for me in this momen

It's Friday, por fin. Last night I got messages from my students that they wouldnt be able to make it to class today... and I thought to myself.. hmm... ESCAPE! I rescheduled my discipleship time with Maka (who definitely will have a blog dedicated to her soon) and I packed a backpack full of goodies- journal, bible, other nerdy books, sunblock, you get the picture. I woke up nice and early to get on an early bus and by 11am I was planted on the beach with a latte in hand. On the agenda for the day: NOTHING. Nope. Today is just a day to chill with the Lord. Enjoy one of my favorites of His creation, the Pacific Ocean. And just breathe deeply. I was praying on the bus ride here and I was thinking about how I wanted to view this day as a day with Jesus. It reminded me of one of my guy friends who said it was ridiculous for girls to talk like that. And I have to say, of course it's not the same as a real date. But Jesus calls Himself the bridegroom of Israel. He wants us to relate

So as many of you know, I live in a somewhat sketchy building. Its 11 floors, with about 6-8 apartments on each floor. There are a couple offices on the lower floors, a gyno office on floor 2 and the bottom is a peruvian restaurant. Half of the apartments are empty and the majority of the occupied ones are used by prostitutes. They dont actually live here, they just work here. I've noticed that "business" hours tend to be 5-11pm. There are some downsides to living in this building. Sometimes the men arent sure where to go to find a prostitute so they just wander the halls and knock on doors until they find one. So I just dont answer my door if there is only one knock on it. Also, the elevator is really small. Like it only fits 3 people and that's with a lot of personal space invasion. Sometimes I get the awkward situation of riding up in the elevator with one of my neighbor girls and their client. awkward. Then there are the few guys who approach me outside my buildin

This week I get to participate in an incredible conference called "Transformacion de la Cruz" or "Cross Transformation". It is coming out of John Piper's ministry Desiring God and it focuses on why the cross has to be central to every area of our ministries and lives. Last night the key speaker, Pastor Glenn, gave an excellent talk about the two thieves of the gospel- religion and irreligion. He described the irreligious as the person who tries to lower God's standard to justify himself. And the religious as the person who tries to raise his own justification to get closer to God's standard. Both descriptions stung. Depending on the situation, I will choose which of these two thieves of the gospel serves me best. It is so hard to accept my absolute failure and God's absolute perfection... and the only way I can deal with these two unavoidable realities is to cling to the cross. For it is there that these two realities are reconciled. I know this may

When people ask me what I do here, I am always a little dumbfounded as to how to answer. I teach English here, but I am here because I want to live here. I want to serve the church here. I want this neighborhood, Bellas Artes, to know Jesus. So I serve the church here. One of the ways God has me serving is in discipling some of the girls in my church. I have 3 girls that I meet with individually for a few hours each week for discipleship. It is such a blessing to meet with them, preach Jesus to them, and walk with them through the mess that we call our relationship with the Lord. One of the big topics among all the girls is idolatry. I've talked enough about this topic on this blog that I shouldnt need to say that I am not referring to little golden idols, but to our hearts' unrelentless search for satisfaction in things outside of Jesus. Really, it's pathetic. I've found myself asking the girls (and myself!) "how big is your Jesus?" Is He small so you can con

Im not really sure where to start. Too much time has passed and too much life has passed. It’s been about 3 months since I last posted. A few of you have asked why I stopped blogging. I started blogging 6 years ago when I first moved to Chile. This blog has seen me through quite a few stages in life, even through quite a few countries. I blog for others (my family, my friends) but I also blog for myself. But recently, life has been a bit full. In the last three months, my work load has increased a bit, my commitments with my church have increased (the amount of activities, the sentiment has always been 100%) and some key players in my life have come and gone. One of the bigger moments recently was when my boss, who has been an incredible support for me in my life here, died. Very unexpectedly. She was young, in her mid 30s, and for all we knew vivacious. I don’t want to get into the dirty details here but I will say that the cause of death is still not sure. She left behind her husband

Like I mentioned in my last post, I've been wrestling with joy. I have all this theology in my head, but living it out, enjoying the fruit of it, is another thing. I am fighting to live out of the reality of who I am in Jesus. I've noticed with some of my friends, as we've gotten older the pressure of the world becomes both more stale and heavy. It's this constant voice that tells us that we don't have enough. Not enough money. Not enough security. Not enough love. It's the world of marketing at its best. We NEED more. So while the world around me tells me that I need something more, I am fighting to see my everything in Jesus. He is enough for me. He is. I am fighting to believe it. It's not always hard to live it. There are moments of grace when I see and feel His goodness in such a tangible way. There are moments when I realize how wonderful He is, how great His love is, how unbelievable it is that He has loved me despite my rebellious heart. Moments when

I've been struggling over the last few weeks with some big truths that have made themselves into my head but aren't settling in my heart. For example: Jesus is my joy. Yep, I believe this with my brain. I know this is true, but I don't feel it is true. I feel like I get a lot more joy from other things. I know I should get joy from knowing Jesus but really, when I am honest, I spend a good deal of time and energy trying to find sources of joy outside of Jesus. This isn't to say that we shouldn't ever find any joy in any place other than Jesus. But as I was explaining recently to a friend, I need to be very jealous of my relationship with God and if I see that something is distracting me from Him, or stealing my affection from Him, I need to "alejarme" (to move away from) that thing. Or let's talk in terms of idols. No, not little wooden statues that people bow down to, but things both abstract and concrete that we put our hope or value in. Things that

Last night at ISA I got a LOVELY surprise from my dear friends Beth and Derek Brown- a huge bunch of BEAUTIFUL roses!!! That's right. And not just any roses, but probably my favorite kind of rose. They are multi-colored (yellow and orange) and they have crinkely tops.

Hello all! I know it's been quite a while since I posted here. To be honest, I've had a rough few weeks. Why? you ask. Well, basically through the course of a few events, and a few people, the Lord showed me just how little I trust Him. So we had a bit of a wrestling match over the past few weeks and I bet you can guess who won. But this past week has been much calmer. I still feel like my trust is much more "head" trust than "heart" trust, but it's okay because I have seen the Lord's faithfulness in this time and I know He won't let me go. So tonight is my last night as a 27 year old. I had an asado (bbq) last week for my birthday. Honestly, I don't really like to celebrate my birthday. It has nothing to do with getting older. Actually, in some weird way I like the fact that I am getting older. I don't feel like Im as mature as I should be at this age, but I like to think that with age comes wisdom and I really want that. So bring on the

10. the noise 9. the constant movement 8. awesome access to public transit 7. better shopping opportunites 6. working close to where you live 5. having neighbors from all over the world 4. having the police close by pretty consistently (although, its sucks needing the police to be close by consistently 3. sitting at my windowsill and watching my neighborhood in action 2. you can't avoid the reality of life (the homeless, prostitutes, general breakdown of society) 1. God loves the city!!! One reason I DON'T like the city: having to deal with my completely rational fear of pigeons!!!

An awesome post from Justin Taylor that I just had to repost. Of course, he is quoting Kevin DeYoung... so this is a re-repost! Enjoy!!!! Parent-Child Conversations on the Gospel Kevin DeYoung gives a fairly typical example of what gospel-centered attempts at parenting can look like in action: Me: What’s the matter son? Child: I want that toy and he won’t give it to me! Me: Why do you want the toy? Child: I don’t know. Me: What’s going on in your heart when you desire that toy? Child: I don’t know. Me: Think about it son. Use your brain. Don’t you know something? Child: I guess I just want the toy. Me: Obviously. But why? Child: I don’t know. Me: Fine. [Mental note: abandon "why" questions and skip straight to leading questions.] Do you think he is having fun playing with the toy right now? Child: No. Me: Really?! He’s not having fun? Then why does he want that toy in the first place? Child: Because he’s mean. Me: Have you ever considered that maybe you are being mean by try

This blog is dedicated to Ale and Pao for going against their own culture to serve their families. You are inspirational to me! In light of this week's celebration of mothers, I want to share some thoughts I've been working through while living here. You see, being a mom is a HUGE dream of mine. And when I say huge, I mean gigantic. I have wanted to be a mom since I was 3 and my brother and sister were born. I think tends to be a somewhat natural desire among women across cultures. But how motherhood looks, what is expected of mothers is quite different from one culture to another. One of the benefits of living in another culture is being able to judge more clearly your own. One of the big differences between chilean and gringo culture is the role of the family. Here, families spend a lot of time together. I mean, seriously, even my adult students will spend all day saturday at their parents house. Just hanging out. No particular purpose. I think this is great. I love that fami

Each year, on Mother's Day I post a note about my mom. Often I am far far across the world and can't wish her happy mother's day to her face, so the blog has to suffice. This year, we are even further away. She and my brother are travelling around India for a month. I know, adventurism runs in the family. (Mom, don't fight me on the word "adventurism", I'm an English teacher!) Anyways, here is a photo of my mom in India: Isn't she absolutely beautiful? Happy Mother's Day mom. I love you mucho and I'm so proud of you for all that you have accomplished! A note about my grandma: I can't celebrate Mother's Day without a special shout out to my wonderful grandma. She is truly one of my favorite people in the whole world and I am so blessed to have her in my life. What other grandmas buy and learn how to use computers, video cameras, and skype so they can stay in touch with their grandaughters? My grandma Phyllis is a gem! Love you grandma!!!

Warning: grandma (and all other Jewish mothers), please be forwarned that this post is very honest about my life and you may or may not want to read it. So as I have mentioned before, I live in a building that is generally occupied by prostitutes. Most of the apartments are used as places of "business" for my neighbors. This means that certain awkward situations arise at times. Like when a guy goes through the building knocking on random doors waiting for one to open with a girl ready to go. When these guys knock on my door, usually they knock once, realize I'm not a prostitute and then move on. But last week, this guy kept knocking at my door. Don't worry, I don't EVER open my door for a stranger, but this one took a firm declaration to LEAVE MY DOOR! And he did. Now, usually my awkward moments are more like riding in the tiny elevator that only fits 3 people, with a neighbor and her client. Awkward, but okay. But this morning my building sank to a new all low. T

I have a friend here, I'll all her Mary. She's going through an interesting phase in her life, getting ready for marriage, learning through some interesting trials what God wants to teach her. And as she is sharing with me all that the Lord is teaching her, I feel the Lord preparing me for a change. I started reading "I kissed dating goodbye" by Joshua Harris. And before you go and get all worked up about how you don't like the book, let me just say that I don't agree with everything, but I sure do agree with a lot. It's making me feel even more resolute in a lot of my convictions concerning dating. Here in Chile, it's really common to have a palolo (boyfriend). It's NOT common to be single for a purpose. It's really common to make out in public. Seriously, ask anyone who has lived here and we have plenty of stories of couples rubbing up against us as they make out on the bus. Gross, right? And before you go thinking that this kind of behavior

Life is moving pretty fast these days. I find the days moving pretty quickly and the weeks are just flying. The time between each weekend seems so long when I am facing Monday morning, but come tonight, a Thursday night, I can't believe I'm only one day away from Saturday! Part of the reason the time flies is that there is just so much to do! I have my "real" job, teaching English at the Central Depository of the Stock Exchange (or at least that's how I translate it). And I like my job. I like most of my students, I have a pretty good schedule, and they pay decently. But this isn't my life or at least not all of it. When I think about my life, I think about my church, my sweet community that I have there and all the work there is to do in our tiny church plant. There are these three girls that I have started to teach how to read the Bible. They are all fairly new to their christian walks and its so exciting to get to study the Bible with them!One of them who I

Today is the day! My dear friend Michelle and her beloved Ernest tie the knot. I met Michelle at Westminster, in fact we met on the first day and it didn't take us long to realize we were gonna be lifers. Over the course of our friendship, now almost 4 years, we have seen each other through soooo much. Especially in terms of relationships. Both of us have had our heart broken, have loved foolish men who didn't know how to treat a daughter of the King, and have longed for a man who would love us for who we were. Michelle met Ernest through our friend Julie. Because Ernest lived in D.C and Michelle in Philly, they didn't actually meet face to face until they had already talked quite a bit through email and phone. They spent their first day together in New York (which in my opinion is just a magical place!) and from there decided to pursue the relationship even though the distance would be challenging. Then, last year, Michelle moved to Chicago where Ernest had been relocated

The last few months have been FULL of weddings: Sam and Peggy, JungMi and Will, Stacy and Chris, Liz and Daniel, and of course The Royal Wedding. But this weekend in particular, two of my dearest girl friends are getting hitched. First, let me tell you about my dear friend Sarah. Sarah works at Jews for Jesus, where my dad works and where I worked for a few months in 2007. In those few months, Sarah and I met, started hanging out and quickly developed a deep friendship. She is one of those people who I know I was supposed to be lifetime friends with and it was just a matter of meeting. After those 3 months, I left town, in fact I left the country. But that didnt stop our friendship. Over the last four years we've kept a long distance friendship and I've been so blessed to share life with her. When we met, we were both single. Four years has seen us both through a few relationships and we talked through each one, encouraging, counseling, rejoicing, and when they ended, crying. B

It’S been a few weeks since I last posted. Nothing dramatic happened, but life in general has been pretty full of… just life. Last weekend was our church retreat. I took on the awesome challenge of preparing the Passover seder for my church. In the past, when I’ve held Passover Seders I’ve gotten stressed from all the prep work that goes into it. Last year, I really worked hard to put together a haggadah that I could use for years to come. I imagined my children growing up with this haggadah and my children’s children. I know, it’s way sentimental, but that’s me. So when it hit me this year, that I wouldn’t be able to use that haggadah but I would need one in Spanish, I felt a bit overwhelmed. After some research, I found a messianic haggadah in Spanish. Between Spanish haggadah, using google translate with my own haggadah, and a TON of hours I was able to produce my own Spanish version. It wasn’t perfect, but time ran out and I used what I had. Then came the challenge of finding all t

I have nothing special to say at the moment except that I feel extremely blessed. Tonight, walking home from church I was overwhelmed with how much God has blessed me. Beyond all the obvious (a relationship with Him, grace for my ridiculous self, etc.) He has placed me here in this season to live a pretty sweet life. Here are the blessings I see in my life: 1. I am living in the country I love. There are definite moments when I get frustrated, but ever since I first came to Chile, I have considered this country my own. I waited for 4 years for God to open the door to return here and now I get to live here for a loooooooooong time! 2. I have an awesome apartment. Really, my apartment is so comfortable. I've lived in so many places and the last few years I've begun to feel the need to "nest" and here I have it! I have a beautiful apartment and I love spending time in it. 3. I have a wonderful church! We are by no means perfect- and we know it! But we are striving to liv

Yesterday was my 3 month mark. I didn't even realize it until this morning when I was thinking about the great and awesomeness that was yesterday- I GOT MY RESIDENCY VISA! That's right, for the next year, I will stay here on my temporary residency visa and then I can apply for my permanent residency visa. It feels great to have this stamp in my passport. POR FIN! To be honest though, it doesn't feel like it's been three months here. Three months is such a short time. I feel like I have been here for much much longer. It feels very much like home to me and even though there are still a lot of parts of the culture that I don't like, or appreciate, it nevertheless feels like it's where I am supposed to be. I've had to learn to extend grace to myself over these past few months. When living overseas, everyone has this idea of what their life will look like or should look like. And the failure of that vision is unavoidable. We won't ever adjust as much as we t

Yes folks, that's right. I finished my cabbage soup diet, made myself a beautiful pancake topped with lots of syrup, had a candy bar, and decided that for dinner, I wanted more soup. Crazy. But this weekend, I was talking about food to my friend and we came upon the topic of korean food. She asked me if they really eat kimchi at every meal there. As I was explaining the importance of kimchi in Korean culture, I realized that my cabbage soup is quite like kimchi chigae (kimchi soup). Granted, the cabbage in my soup isn't fermented, but I make it in a red (tomato juice) sauce and I make sure it is nice and spicy. So in a lot of ways, a bowl of hot spicy cabbage soup is similar to one of my favorite Korean dishes. No wonder I've enjoyed it so much!

I live near a long thin park called Parque Forestal. It's really quite a nice park and it has a long stretch of a lane for riding bikes or jogging. And since I have a fear of riding bikes in this city, I jog. It's really pleasent. I usually listen to radioDisney on my mp3 player and jog along to Jonas Brothers, Beyonce, or Julieta Venegas. Great stuff. Yesterday on my jog I noticed that the trees were beginning to change. Fall has finally arrived and I am glad for the change. But as I was jogging through the falling leaves, I began to think about how much I like fall. And I had this special moment when I realized that I want to be here in Santiago, jogging through this park for many falls to come. After the past few weeks of cultural adjustment being a little more painful than normal, this was a nice thought to have.

So I made it! I cheated a little. Yesterday I fried up two eggs for dinner, and I had a handful of peanuts the other day. But overall, it wasn't so bad. I think I might try to make the cabbage soup a more permanent part of my diet. Not that I want to spend days eating ONLY cabbage soup. But I think its a good way to get some extra veggies in my diet. I am definitly looking forward to eating sushi and chocolate. But during this week, I started going on runs. I looked into buying an eliptical machine for my apartment. And in general, I want to be smarter about what I eat. I love sugar. And Im not planning on giving it up permanently. But it was good to see that I could go a week without it. I've been reading a book called The Weigh Down Diet. The basic idea is that people who are overweight, are so because they eat more than their body needs. That they eat even when they aren't hungry, when their bodies don't need more food. I know I do it all the time. I eat when I'm

It's still going well. I think adding the option for a hard boiled egg a day and some almonds made the whole thing much more doable. I still find myself hungry often, but I have also found that most of my issue is psychological. I want other food, but I'm actually fine. I eat my cabbage soup at least twice a day and I'm trying to limit the fruit I have each day to only 2 or 3. Today in class was a challenge. Not only was I hungry, but all of my students decided that they wanted to talk about food. I always ask my students how their weekends were. I ask them about what they did, etc. Well, today, as they shared about their weekends, they described the food the ate. Seriously, they all wanted to talk about the food they ate. In all 5 of my classes, this was the topic of the day. And I found myself craving BB when they talked about BBQ, wanting sushi when they shared about their favorite sushi spot in town, and just in general, wanting food! Oh well. I might have to take more

Well, I think it's too early to tell how it's going but I feel ok. I went to bed hungry but not willing to eat any more soup (that's what I get for eating 3 bowls in one afternoon!) I woke up and had an apple and an egg. I still couldn't bring myself to eat any soup. It's a beautiful sunny day here so I went for a walk. It turned out to be a two hour walk and by the time I got home, I was really hungry. Soup sounded just right! I added some Peruvian yellow aji (pepper) paste to the soup which made it a delightful spicy soup. I do have a headache, which might be from the detox, or possibly from the seasonal allergies that a lot of people have now. I went to my friend Mauro's house last night. I thought a bunch of us were going, but there was some confusion and people decided not to go. But I went. I had been nervous about going to a party with this detox thing going on. It's really socially unacceptable to not eat or drink at a party. And don't try to exp

My dad is the most self disciplined man I know. Seriously, I defy any of you to surpass him in self discipline. And he makes it look so easy! But sadly I did NOT get the self discipline gene. No, I'm quite the opposite and I've been pretty convicted by the Lord recently on my lack of self control. I can see it in various areas of my life, but it became most evident in my addiction to sugar. I just can't say no! I've been thinking about how I want to do a makeover on my general diet. But I knew that I wouldn't be able to just moderate the sugar in my diet. First, I would need a detox. I know someone who does this cabbage diet every once in a while. So I looked into it and decided it just might be the best way to detox from sugar. I read all the different recipes out there, found one that I could make here (things like V8 juice and lipton soup don't exist here!). I added some brown rice to the soup and I think I might allow some hard boiled eggs into the diet. To

Yep, that's right. I'm sick again. I basically will get anything that goes around so when a few of my friends got a virus, I knew it was only a matter of time. Friday evening it happened upon me. I pulled my blanket over to the couch and made myself comfortable. Sleeping on the couch is one of my FAVORITE things. I recently mentioned my love for napping on the couch. But I reserve overnight sleeping on the couch for when I am sick. I turn the tv on and let it keep me company as I doze through the night. I spent all of Saturday and Sunday on my couch. The truth was that I couldnt do anything else. The virus wasn't too bad, I felt feverish but had no temperature. I had the aches and pains of a fever, but not the chills. Really, the worst part of the virus was that it completely wiped me of any energy. Even making it the 5 steps to my kitchen area to refill my tea was exhausting. Monday night I made it to work and though it was beyond tiring, I was able to rest a bit before ou

In case you were wondering, no, Im not going to talk about getting my hair done. No today's post is more of a catch up post. Stuff that's happened this week. Kinda boring, but I guess boring is better than some other options. The bigger random non-personal things: There were a few earthquakes this week. The biggest one was 5.7 and I felt it comfortably from my apartment. I'm weird I know, but I kinda like earthquakes. As long as they aren't damaging, they are kinda fun. There was a bomb scare in the building across the street from my apartment this week. I came from work and found the street blocked off. Evidently there was an annonymous call about a bomb being planted in the building and the precautionary measures were taken. This morning I was surprised to hear a bunch of racket outside. I looked out the window and saw what looked like something between a parade and a protest. I enjoyed watching them walk by but couldn't hear well enough to understand anything the

Today was one of those days when I wish I had a husband. No, it's not Valentines Day. Nope, today was the day my sofa finally arrived. Well, it arrived to the lobby below, where the delivery guy politely informed me that it wouldn't fit in the elevator, so they wouldn't be bringing it to my apartment. Now, before I get ahead of myself, let me start from the beginning. I bought the sofa a month ago. They told me it would arrive on the 19th of Feb. I waited all day Feb 19th for the sofa to arrive. Nothing. A few days later I recieved a string of phone calls. None of them helpful, but all of them saying that someone else would call me to set up an appointment to have my sofa delivered. So I finally went back to the store and had them call the delivery company. They said it would come the following Saturday. So I waited in my apartment. Finally I had to leave because I had a commitment to attend to, so I left my keys with the consierge. I got a phone call a while later from the

I think Im in a bit of culture shock. There are supposed to be two waves of culture shock (or so said my prof in uni). The first is that initial one, usually the first few months in a country, where everything is new and you don't understand much of what goes on around you. The second one is a bit more subtle, it happens a year or two into your stay in a foreign culture and it has less to do with not understanding what is happening, and m,ore to do with understanding but not feeling comfortable in what is happening. I am there. I understand fairly well chilean culture. And Im not so much homesick for another culture, because I still love it here. But I am definitely aware of how different I am. I am much more comfortable with being alone. Anyways, this week, some of those differences came out and I took some time to write down some reflections: Tonight (Friday night) was a night of reflection. I learned some new lessons tonight, saw some realities about my life here as a foreigner,

I was randomly craving some carrot muffins, so I looked up a recipe online, it seemed easy enough, and I went at it. Mixing all the ingredients together Trying to keep the kitchen clean Waiting with anticipation..... and.... Done and DELICIOUS!

I’ve been listening to a bunch of sermons on unity in the church and they have been reminding me of a topic that Ashlee and I discussed recently. We were talking about the need to be in community in order to experience grace. If you’re a Christian, you believe that you have received the grace of God. You believe that His grace has some power in your life, and maybe you even feel at peace in your soul. This is good, and I need to be careful not to diminish the true experience of the grace of God. But I am not writing this blog post to just affirm our supernatural experience of grace. I am writing to call us to live courageously in community. It is in the community of the Church, among those who have received the eternal grace of Jesus Christ, that you can experience grace here on earth. There is a movement of people my age that believe that they can be Christ followers on their own. While I will agree that it is possible, I also argue that it is not normative. It is not how God wants Hi

Short version: Yesterday was Valentines Day. I took a trip out to a little surfer beach town and spent the day wandering around by myself. I ended up spending some time with a random guy who was hoping to make me his valentine. I wasnt interested, and was grateful that God gave me the grace and wisdom not to be foolish. In the end, I found myself breathing a prayer of gratitude, thanking God that He really is enough for me. Of course a valentine would have been nice, but I don't need to make anything happen. I have all I need in Jesus, and in His timing, a valentine will come. Long version: Yesterday was Valentines Day. The holiday is really annoying when I live in the States, there is all this pressure to have a date, to do something with someone, or if all else fails, to have an anti Valentines Day party. In Korea, it was so outrageous that I was able to almost just laugh off the holiday (they extend the madness into three holidays stretching over 2 months!) It's actually not

La Magda y yo The group as we waited for our bus to return to Santiago

My brother came for the weekend. He's been travelling around South America for a month or so and decided to come pay his sister a visit. We spent Friday in Santiago and headed out to Vina and Valpo for the weekend. Here are a few photos to share with you... La casa de Pablo Neruda. I love Valpo, especially the colors and street art. My brother, the photographer We found an awesome place for some Peruvian food, which was the winner for both of us in the cuisine category.