Quisiéramos Ver a Jesús

“Señor, quisiéramos ver a Jesús” (“Sir, we wish to see Jesus”), is the inscription on the podium in the church here at Familia Feliz. In John 12:21, Greek men came to a festival and approached Jesus’ disciples with this request. The simple, straightforward expression of their desire encapsulates the longing of every human heart — conscious or subconscious: we want to see Jesus. Sometimes we see Him, other times people see Him in us.

Seeing Jesus
“This has been the best week I’ve had since being here!” I thought the second Sabbath of this month. Everything seemed to go right, my heart was content. I realized that I had prayed at the beginning of the week for God to help me spend more time with Him so that I can have Him to share. And that extra time seemed to make all the difference in every facet!

Feeling useful as a co-parent brings great satisfaction. With my older girls being gone for Pathfinder camporee, I ended up making suppers for poor Mariana (who isn’t old enough to know what to make besides rice when she’s on supper duty). Making two meals a day is good, but connecting more with Soledad felt better. “I have arrived,” I thought as she peeled her precious stickers from her Bible and asked to put them in my clear phone case. After leaving little gifts and notes on everyone’s pillows, joking around with the older ones, and executing successful behavior management with the littles, I felt worth my salt — an oddly rare feeling it seems.

The feel-good week reached into my classroom as well. “Do you ever feel like you saw a lightbulb, like your kids actually learned something?!? That was today!” I gushed to Emilianne. Another week with several days without T. Maria provided opportunities for me to have engaging classes. My favorite religion class was hiding papers with my drawings of the story of salvation and having my kids find them, put them in order, explain them, and repeat them. We made fun ornaments in art class, discovered there aren’t two suns in the solar system (even learned about all the planets), can name body parts in English, avoided broken arms in Red Rover (“Perrito Rojo” I call it) in  PE, sang our hearts out with my ukulele, and even found that the attention grabber Clap! Clap! Clap-clap-clap! is surprisingly effective in the midst of chaos and can save my voice.

On Sabbath, T. Abi asked me to teach Cuna (cradle roll), which I immensely enjoyed (who doesn’t love kid praise music and coloring sheets??). Since then, I am Abi’s helper — I love feeling depended on by someone who’s done so much for a year here. Furthermore, we had a breakthrough we’re-good-friends-now that Saturday night: she asked what I’m always writing in my journals and commented on how she loved my calligraphy. So we then sat up till midnight as I taught her fancy fonts with my nice paper and colored sharpies. She’s continued to proudly show me her artwork and we’ve had so much fun since.

I took time to realize all the good things Jesus has done for me that week. I asked God to help me see Him and I did.

Seek Ye First
“You’ve graduated!” Zoro exclaimed. “There’s no going back now!” My vespers talk on that “favorite week” Sabbath was my first without a translator. Not only was I proud of overcoming the fear of presenting in front of fluent adults and the entire campus, but I also feel like the kids actually got something valuable out of it. “That’s the first time I’ve seen every single kid actually pay attention,” Carlo said. “Teacher, everyone listened,” Mariana commented in awe after clapping when I finished. “Thank You, God,” I breathed.

I had done a demonstration on seeking God first and having everything else be added, too: key limes represented the important aspects of life, such as devotions, prayer, and Bible study; rice represented all the other tasks and activities of life, such as school and chores. When you put the big stuff first, all the small stuff somehow fits and falls into place. But when starting with the little makes it impossible to squeeze in all the bigger things. 

I’ve heard it said that the times you're too busy and stressed for Jesus are when you need to spend the most time with Him. I experienced just that that week, seeking Him first regardless. I just wish I would have carried it with me the next week during a lot of emotionally taxing situations followed by a quick trip to La Paz.

Dust and Spit
I woke up at 3:00 AM the next Wednesday and couldn’t go back to sleep. My restless mind was guiltily racing in every direction and reliving the failures I’d made in school on Tuesday. My lesson planning during recess (after T. Maria left) meant my class was unsupervised, leading to several kids getting in a lot of bad trouble. I’d heard of stuff happening here, but now it was my kids on my watch. Reaching for my Bible, I turned to John 9, where I’d left off. I drowsily read the story of Jesus spitting into the dirt to create mud, putting it on a blind man’s eyes, and sending him a long distance to wash it off in the Pool of Siloam. 

I stopped and reread it. Then again.

“God, I’m literal dirt. But You want to mix Your DNA into my life and make that mud have healing power.” I sat crying, so thankful for a mud-making God. And I was thankful, too, for the reminder that healing isn’t always immediate; sometimes our touch won’t heal: it’s the washing the mud off that brings vision. “So when I leave, Lord, let their sight come. If they can’t see You now, help them to see You later.”

Identification 
Carnets are Bolivian IDs that allow you to live in the country long-term, work, get a drivers license, and have bragging rights over other SMs (jk). Our deadline to get said carnets was November 19, so the eight Southern SMs made the fastest trip imaginable with Melissa to La Paz. 

We were the weirdest tourists you could ever see. What American goes to the capitol of a developing country and exclaims over modern conveniences in genuine delight?!? Us! “GUYS IT’S AN ESCALATOR!” “Woah, dark chocolate!” “Blueberries!” “Cold air!” “Liquid body wash!” “A COUCH!!!” 

Thankfully getting the carnets was exponentially easier and faster than getting our visas, so we had a whole day between flights to go to a market and buy the first souvenirs since living here, ride the gondola system on loop after getting lost, and wear actual coats.

“It’s crazy how much an identification makes you identify with that place,” I commented to someone. “I guess that’s why being called ‘ambassadors for Christ’ creates and identity for God’s people about having their citizenship in Heaven. I like the thought of having an ID from Heaven.” But for now, it’s kinda fun to have a little green card in my wallet and identify as semi-Bolivian.

Speechless
I lost my voice the same day my family’s plane touched down on the runway of Rurrenebaque’s doll-sized airport. My cold I caught from lack of sleep and cold weather in La Paz didn’t hinder my enthusiasm of seeing my two worlds fuse. Having my parents and sisters here and showing them where and how I live was the best thing! (It was also hilarious to remember the culture shock of coming here for the first time.)

Amidst the amazingness of mom hugs, VBS programs, vision clinic, gifts for the kids, stuff from home, Thanksgiving dinner, a pampas tour, and painting Las Lilas, I also allowed myself a mini meltdown. “I’m crying with you because I can,” I told Momma. All week I fought incredible frustration with not being able to talk. I realized how much I talk and how I need to project my voice a lot. “And the one time I’m with people who actually understand me, they can’t understand me!”

As I went along normal-ish activities silently, I realized that my actions in Las Lilas speak louder than my words. But what are my actions showing? The week I didn’t seek to see Jesus first, I found my own agenda surfacing and my annoyance showing through. 

Being speechless gave me more time to observe, like at the Thanksgiving table. Surrounded by my family and my new SM family, Treson suggested we all go around the table and say what we appreciate about every person there. It was beautiful to listen to the love, beautiful to be thankful, and beautiful to have such a spread of food, even if it was midnight.

To Give Than Receive
“I can’t think of anything better to say but, ‘It’s better to give than to receive!’” I grinned at Emilianne last night. We just finished Christmas celebrations in Las Lilas and had the best day. We blasted Christmas music, made pipe cleaner ornament wreathes, fabric angels, decorated the house with paper chains and stickers, put up a mini tree, read a story book, ate dulce de leche cake and jello, and opened all our presents while wearing Santa hats in 103 degree heat. The newly-painted lilac-colored walls made it feel like a true home for the first time. The girls where giddy. “Mi mejor Navidad,” according to Milenca. It was magical. Perfection. 

By Beholding
“By beholding we become changed. The more you contemplate the character of Christ, the more you will become conformed to His image” (Gospel Workers, 451).

“Nothing more is needed in our work than the 
practical results of communion with God.”
(Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, 37)

“Such a daily spiritual experience with Jesus constitutes the very core of witnessing, and without it we are representing ourselves, not Him” (Philip Samaan, Christ’s Method Alone)

“The challenge we face in our witness is to avoid being…so engrossed in working for the Lord that we forget the Lord of the work” (Philip Samaan, Christ’s Method Alone). This quote cycled through my brain on repeat as I stayed up late and got up early to work on my girls’ Christmas presents and letters for my family. “Later Lord,” doesn’t cut it, especially on days that are “too stressful” to take time for Him.

Being an effective missionary requires daily connection with Jesus. The end.

My Father in Me
“How have you seen Jesus this week?” is the question we SMs used to ask a lot in Friday night worships. These past few weeks have included the best of times, the worst days, tourism and family and holidays. And whether I saw Him or not, Jesus was there. I want more favorite weeks where I make the choice to see Jesus. And in my seeing Him, others will me able to see Him in me.

CAIN sings “My Father in Me” and I love the lyrics:

If I listen when I could speak 
and if I love someone who hates me;
when I drop the stones
I wanna throw and turn the other cheek
and make the first apology;
If I got without for someone in need;
when I use my strength defending the weak;
when I lose and choose to celebrate you instead of me
oh it's no mystery!

If there's anything true in my life,
anything right that makes you 
start dreaming of a higher place,
any kindness I show,
any good thing can only be
you're just seeing my Father in me.

I know all the depths of my heart 
and I've seen all the ugly and dark.
I could try to be a better me 
and work to play the part,
But I'll rest in my Father's arms.

If there's anything true in my life,
anything right that makes you 
start dreaming of a higher place,
any kindness I show,
any good thing can only be
you're just seeing my Father in me.



Love from seeing Jesus,
Katie-Jane

“I’d rather see a sermon than
hear one any day; I’d rather
one should walk with me than 
merely tell the way.”
— Edgar A. Guest

“We cannot give to others that which 
we do not ourselves possess” 
—Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, 37


This is still our Father’s world

“We can look up and see the stars
when others only look down and 
see the mud.”
— Phillip Keller
(morning of full lunar eclipse)

Some of my cuna (cradle roll) kids 

Pet squirrel! Only Mariana…

Cristal y yo
(She either loves you or hates you; 
I’ve had both. Now, she thinks she’s 
teacher’s pet after I asked her to be my 
‘quiet keeper’ — like a light switch!)

“‘Cause on my best day, I’m a child of God;
on my worst day, I’m a child of God.”
—CAIN: “I’m So Blessed”

Nicol standing on a bucket:
primary punishment to 
coax out an apology

First mangos of the season!!
(fibrous enough to be our pets)

Hand-picked, hand-peeled, hand-cracked cocos
(used a rock because we forgot the machete)

Sarita and her solar system project
(last science class of the year)

Calligraphy night with T. Abi

On our way to get our carnets

The magic of La Paz in el teleférico,
the public transport in a mountain city

The face of a carnet carrier!!

If anything, this 48 hours was good
practice for our upcoming travels
(photo: Treson)

When a pan flute is actually
chromatically tuned

We may have been tourists, but
only residents buy fabric for
graduation gown and 
quinceañera dress making!

Thanksgiving dinner immaculately cheffed 

Pampas tour with my family!!

VBS skit being Lucía and Pablo

Painting party in Las Lilas
ft. my beautiful sister!!

Vision clinic bringing physical vision
and prayers for the spiritual vision

So proud and grateful to have my dad here

Little sister and littlest Lila

New dresses and Bibles

Feliz Navidad
 
November 28 Christmas 
in Las Lilas before some
leave for vacaciones