No Se Vaya

“No se vaya!” (“Don’t go!”) Every girl — from the ones I’ve known the longest to the ones who just arrived — will remember at random times that I’m leaving. That I have four weeks left. And they give long hugs and pitiful pleas for me to stay.

“Why do you have to leave?”

“Will you come back?”

“What are you going to do for the rest of your life?”

Soledad walks into my room as Maribel talks with me in my hammock. Maribel lays down in my lap for me to play with her hair and Sole pages through my journal, asking about it. “¿Cuando se vaya?” (“When do you leave?”) “Seis de Mayo” (“May 6”). A long silence follows. Then Sole counts, “Un, dos, tres, cuarto, cinco semanas falta.” (“Five weeks left.”)

“Falta solo un poquitito,” Marianely comes up to where I’m cooking and says in her too-soft-to-normally-hear voice. “Till when?” I ask. “Till you leave.” Shoot. I wasn’t convinced this chica actually felt anything for me. But here she is thinking about me leaving. I flip an omelette and look up at her. “Si, solo un rato.” She nods and watches my spatula intently. My heart cries. I blame the too-strong red onion sitting on my cutting board.

Nirza runs home from school with arms spread out for a hug, laughing to be swung in a circle. She begs for cosquillas (tickles) then más, Teacher!!

“BUENAS TARDES!” Sarita yells at the top of her lungs to announce her return a la casa.

Nicol tromps over in her rain boots and bucket hat and announces, “Quiero decir algo,” (“I want to say something”), proceeding to inform me of anything and everything and nothing.

“Teacher Kati,” Zeynet says in her nasally voice and grabs the side of my hammock in the morning; we snuggle and watch Bible videos till she falls asleep.

“Un besito!” Eli calls out after I pray over her bed, beckoning me to kiss her forehead through the mosquito net.

“Un beso para usted!” Rubí calls from her bottom bunk; I bend down to receive a forehead kiss through her net. My heart cries. I blame the cold seventy-five degree night air.

Arms wrap around my middle as I stand flipping flatbread for supper; Yamilé tells me about her day, face pressed into my back.

Little dirty hands reach up and plant themselves on my leg. I turn and look down from where I sit eating to find baby Abi teetering along, now wanting up in my lap to try to steal my rice.

Pinky waltzes over to where I sit smushed between two other girls and points with all her entitled might to the inch of gap on the bench. “Voy a sentarme aquí, ¿ya?” (“I’m going to sit myself here, yeah?”) “Girl, you’re ten minutes late to supper! No, go sit in the space across from me. *undersized four-year-old pouts dramatically* “Ok, come sit on my lap.”

“¡Buenos días chicas! ¡Levantan y brillan!” (“Good morning, girlies! Rise and shine!”) Six in the morning waking up with sighs and groans. After double-checking that Ticiane is awake, I head outside to cook with worship music, watching as Dianara stumbles over with bed-head and rumpled PJs. The biggest dimpled grin precedes the biggest abrazo before she plops on the bench to watch me stir oatmeal.

Johanna brings me yet another little rock she finger painted. Proudly placing it on a leaf on my floor, she turns around with a huge grin and awaits my praise. “Para recordarme, Teacher.” My heart cries and I nod, running my fingers through her short hair.

In these moments, my heart says, “No se vaya.”

Litmus for Life

I was so sure about my life last August. Everything was planned to a T, every t being crossed and most i’s dotted. I came to Bolivia to love on a bunch of kids, expecting to reset my habits of service for when I returned back to my perfect plan in the States. But once I got here, I stopped living in the context of the States or even thinking about life when I got back. When I wrote the first draft of this blog in November (never published), I did so with the realization that I’m using this year as a subconscious gauge of what mission actually looks like for my life.

I didn’t realize that I was doing this until I was talking to Emilianne and a mention of longer-term mission slipped out: “This year is almost like a litmus test for how the rest of my life could go. Could I see myself living like this long-term? Or is this merely marking the point in my life when my lifestyle at home shifts?”

Existential Crisis

Here’s my November thought: I’ve grown up in a home that balanced successful careers, raising kids, traveling the world, living near all my family, giving generously, and going on mission trips. I’ve grown up comfortable with all of that and desiring all of that. So I say I’m going into optometry so that I can have time to be a mom and have money to travel, donate, and take those mission trips. Perfect.

“But,” I say, “is that my calling? Or is that just my dad's? Have I blurred the lines of what God wants for my life with what He wants from my parents? Is my upbringing my calling or the groundwork for my calling?”

All I know is, I need to go where I’m called. But that’s just it. Where am I called?

Paths

I took a step back and wondered about what strengths and interests God gave me. Why would God put so many strong interests in my heart without planning to use them? Why would I love biology, travel, writing, archaeology, nature, religion, lots of kids, and public speaking if I wasn’t called to any of those?

I called my friend Anella at Southern, who is very much like me: “If I had nine lives, I could fill them all so easily.” I relate to her having such a broad range of interests and questioning which one is the path for her life. “There is one path that God has for us in His plan, if we would just let Him choose.” Then she continued, “We don’t have to fulfill all the purposes,” she said with incredible wisdom.

Not all the purposes, just our purpose.

“What if someday as I walk down the path for my life I find out that all the other paths do intersect, too?” I jumped on her analogy. “What if I have one interest that I’ve studied thoroughly just to reach someone sitting next to me who shares that niche? To reach the one?” If I love many things to reach many “ones,” my life will be well worth it. Now I just need to find the big one to follow and leave all the others as secondary.

I’m so afraid of being forty years old and regretting taking the easy way out, regretting not living on the edge for God. I’m afraid of settling for comfortable if God was asking for more.

“Katie-Jane, you won’t let God down,” Maddy told me recently. “If you choose one path for your life, God can make it your calling and use you there.”

I pray I don’t let God down.

What Godless Land

“What godless land am I in??” I have never genuinely asked this question until one Thursday in February as I searched all of Rurrenabaque for Bibles to give my new girls. I asked in miscellaneous shops through the town: “Where can I buy Bibles?” Over and over, I got the same confused looks as if I was speaking English. Finally, I called Melissa: “Where can I find a Bible to buy in town??” “Oh, they don’t sell Bibles.” HUH?? “Wait, like nowhere?” “No, they don’t sell Bibles here. You have to order them from Santa Cruz or La Paz.” WHAT?? What town with over 20,000 people not sell Bibles?? Suddenly I looked around at the people I walked past on the street as a whole new mission field. If only I’d known!!

To have such a magnitude of obvious need in the community surrounding the magnitude of need at Familia Feliz seems like a call in and of itself. As I reflected on this, however, I realized something about myself: my brain is thinking that the more dramatic the need, the more dramatic the appearance of God; that big, scary mission places mean that God will have to be there bigger than other, non-scary places. I prefer being scared to being uncomfortable, which naturally sends me overseas instead of to people my age who speak my language.

Am I chasing adrenaline or chasing God?

Mission Definition

Right after Valentine’s Day I was walking home from church between teaching sabbath school and heading to the sermon. I walked along the muddy road, watched kids running home, heard macaws flying over, and carried my ukulele on my back. My internal monologue was all fired up and I thought, “Mission. Mission just means doing life with people.”

With this definition, I won’t look back on this year and call it “my mission year,” as SMs sometimes do. I will think of it as the launchpad for the rest of my life, the lesson I needed to learn about what going and doing really means.

Doing life with people.

Feed My Sheep

My favorite verses, verses that seem to scream at me and simultaneously calm me when I read them, have all been so relevant this year:

“So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’ He said to him, ‘Feed My lambs.’” (John‬ ‭21‬:‭15‬)

Sarita plopped down in the hammock beside me. At first I told her no, I can’t talk, I was tired and busy. Then I said, “Actually, sure.” “You know how you told me to talk to you when I feel alone?” she started. “It’s one of those times.” She proceeded to talk about how she was pretty much convinced she couldn’t go to heaven because she’d sinned too much. She didn’t know how one Person dying could pay for her salvation. “Sarita, it’s like how you have to wash the dishes and will be punished if you don’t. Pretend you didn’t wash them today. You have to be punished. Now pretend that I, your teacher, wash them for you. Are they done? Yes. Did you do them? No. So you still deserve to be punished. Now let’s say I’ll be punished in your place. Now the dishes are done and someone was punished for not doing them.” “But, Teacher, that’s not fair to you!” “But I already did it! How do you think I’ll feel if you refuse to accept my gift to you? How do you think I’ll feel if you try to do something else or punish yourself?” “Mal.” “Right. And Jesus already paid for your sin. And He took your punishment, too. How do you want to respond?” She sat, the wheels of her mind visibly turning. Then she asked about hell. “God is just waiting for me to mess up and I deserve to go to hell.” We then talked about the real, loving character of God. “And hell isn’t God being excited to get rid of you! Hell is just a result of you holding onto sin in your heart; when God consumes all sin to clean up the world forever, you’ll be consumed with your sin if you chose to hold onto it.” Huh. “But, Teacher, my sin is too big for God.” “Sarita. Who is bigger, you or God?” “God.” “What is bigger, something you can do or something God can do?” “God.” “What is bigger, your sin you do or your God?” “Ummmm, God?” “Yes!” This conversation made me think coming here was all worth it just for her, if no one or nothing else.

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” (II Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭20‬)

One Sabbath it was raining so hard we couldn’t go to Sabbath school. We pulled benches out in our kitchen (away from the leaking gutters) and sat in rows singing to the speaker I held inside a metal bowl to amplify the sound above the rain. Out came my bag of twelve little felt snowmen stickers that each girl was handed. “How is salvation related to this snowman?” I started. We then launched into looking up Bible verses about sin, sinners, and the Savior. At first the questions I asked were simple, with equally shallow responses. But soon we covered everything from how God is doing everything He can to get us into heaven not keep us out, to how one Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to cover the sin of every human. To make them think and then pin down a real answer and see the lightbulbs go off in the older girls’ heads is the ultimate satisfaction.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”‭‭ (Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭31‬)

Las Lilas begging to have more than one It Is Written Bible study a week actually makes my heart so incredibly happy. When thirty kids in sabbath school actually sat still as Emilianne and I pretended to be news reporters to tell the story of John the Baptist, it felt like such a breakthrough. When my girls beg to tell me a Bible story we covered in worship so that they can earn a photo print of said story, it feels like such a win. The enthusiasm with which the kids still want to have the EvangiCube explained to them never gets old. In those moments, it feels like God is so for us.

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills— From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.” (Psalms‬ ‭121‬:‭1‬-‭2‬)

My goal before leaving is to have a one-on-one conversation about salvation with each of my girls. About half of them have given me the opportunity easily, sitting in my hammock, the new favorite sacred friendship space. The easy ones are those who are curious, who ask questions, who are open; kids like Dianara and Ticiane and Sarita and Jhoanna. But the harder ones are actually the ones who’ve been here longer, who know the Bible trivia answers, who maybe got the rules down before the relationship; kids like Soledad. Sole, my whole heart, has been here for five years and has told me she doesn’t want to get baptized “because it’s boring.” That’s when all I can do is keep watering the seeds that have been planted, teaching her it’s less about the baptism and more about the friendship that event announces. Those are the kids I’m really having a hard time letting go of and trusting God with.

No Se Vaya

My response to, “Don’t leave,” is, “I don’t want to.” Genuinely, I don’t.

I don’t want some other series of people to raise Nirza. I don’t want to have some other volunteer plan a quinceañera for Soledad and Maribel next summer. I can’t imagine others cooking on the soon-to-be-installed tile counters in my kitchen.

Someone else will wake the girls up every morning, but will they say, “Levantan y brillan!”?

Someone else will finish the Bible study series I’ve started with the girls, but will they have fairy lights and glitter pens?

Someone else will become Milenca’s “favorite volunteer.”

Sarita will tell someone else, “You understand me best.”

Someone else will someday get Soledad’s award as “The best Lilas house mom.”

Someone else will get a ritual Rubí good-night kiss.

Someone else will have a phone full of selfies on the bench in front of a little yellow house.

Someone else will spoil them rotten, love them too hard, pray that they have the world, and then never want to leave.

Some days I don’t want there to be a “someone else.”

“Is your hesitancy to leave due to a fear that God won’t provide for them?” Emilianne asked me genuinely. “Um. Yes.” Quite truthfully, I feel that as long as I’m here I can ensure my girls have fun activities, Bible studies, bedtime prayers, hugs through a mosquito net, and those favorite forehead kisses with noses flattened against said net. I can ensure quality worships, buying the things they need from town, spoiling them with gifts I pretend they earned. But the minute I leave is the minute I let all that go. Trusting someone else can and will do all that they need is hard. So I want to stay.

“But, Katie-Jane, you can’t ensure those things,” Emilianne observed. “You can’t ensure a blockade won’t cause a shortage of things they need, that you’ll personally be able to continue doing what you do, that they won’t leave Familia Feliz. You can’t guarantee anything for them.”

So I’m letting it go. I’m letting the girls go in the arms of a God bigger than me. I’m trusting in the someone else that He sends next.

And I’m letting my life plans go. I’m telling God that I’m going to walk forward in my original plan the best that I can; He will just have to slam doors and open other ones really wide for me to know where to go.

For Life

The SM department was struggling to get enough people to sign up for next year. Steven kept asking us to pray for student missionaries. In February, he said there were close to no interests. Big problem.

Why are SMs spread so thin that in the Philippines there are two nurses alone in the jungle caring for an entire group of dying people?

Why is it so hard for places like Familia Feliz to find permanent, long-term volunteers?

How do you convince an entire generation of comfortable Adventists to go out?

How do you connect an entire generation of kids with mostly-complacent parents to a living Jesus that calls them to GO?

“When the character of Christ shall be perfectly reproduced in His people, then He will come to claim them as His own” (Christ’s Object Lessons, 69).

We’re not waiting on Jesus to come.

He’s waiting on us.

See My hands and look at My feet;

it's okay if it's hard to believe.
I have faith you will do greater things;
It's My time to go but before I leave:

Go tell the world about Me.
I was dead but now I live!
I've gotta go now for a little while,
But goodbye is not the end.

Don't forget the things that I taught you.
I've conquered death and I hold the keys.
Where I go you will go too, someday,
but there's much to do here before you leave.

Go tell the world about Me
I was dead but now I live!
I've gotta go now for a little while,
but goodbye is not the end.

End of the journey, the end of the road,

My Spirit is with you wherever you go.

You have a purpose and I have a plan;
I'll make you this promise:
I'll come back again but until then,

Go tell the world about Me.
I was dead but now I live!
I've gotta go now for a little while,
but goodbye is not the end.

But goodbye is not the end.

(“The Commission” by CAIN)

Love from the hardest thing to leave,

Katie-Jane

🤍