becka lippy

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