the last blog post...

If you keep up with my blogs, then you read previously that I was going to have the baby here......well plans change & we made the very difficult decision that it's best for me to go back to the States.....permanently. I will be flying back August 27, alone. Mauricio and I started the immigration process back in February and have been actively working towards residency. Thus, hopefully sooner than later, he can reunite with us later this year once he has a visa. We can only ask for continued prayers and support as both coming back to the States & being separated will be very hard for the both of us. However, we know this decision is what God has placed on our hearts and ultimately what is best for our little baby.

With saying all of this, I have one more month of volunteer work & we have started slowly packing up our house. Mauricio will live with his family once we finish our lease and I need to figure out how to fit everything into two suitcases and a bookbag. It's amazing how much stuff one person can accumulate in three years.....

I'm both excited and sad to be transitioning back to the States. I knew that leaving would be just as hard as when I came--who knew I'd be leaving married and pregnant! I feel like I am expecting myself to give a poetic account of my time here. To share how the experiences and people shaped me, inspired me, and effected how I will continue on. However, just like my feelings of leaving, it's this messy mix of joy and pain. I think about falling in love here and the fruit on the trees, but also all the times that I felt deeply alone. Of all the times that I suffered with parasites, stomach infections, body rashes, and God knows what else. I reflect on speaking broken Spanish and struggling to express myself, but also the unspoken language of teaching students through art, music, and smiles.

The nights spent with Marta as we watched the rain fall. The parakeet birds that she allows to roam around her patio--somehow they don't fly away, this I will never comprehend.

The fact that we started a bread business from nothing and have watched it grow significantly through the past year. How the long, tiring nights of working bread taught us discipline and humility. That we got married under a lime tree in a backyard, and now as I grow this little baby, we harvest limes from our own tree at the house. A giving and taking, an expecting and not receiving, and then abundance.

El Salvador, "The Savior." It's a metaphor. This place, my experiences, have all led me closer to my Lord. The crying, the trust, the moments of anger, the laughter, the being sick, the heat. All of the moments that were so unbearably hard, but yet I still had peace and that tiny little voice saying, "stay." This is what kept me here, and this is one of the biggest things people back home will not understand--why I stayed. Most of the times, I don't understand it either, but the time has come where the voice no longer says, "stay," but, "trust me, again."

It's easy to plan our lives, to want to control where we go next, whether we commit to change or stay put. The jumping blindly is what is hardest. The life we often picture/imagine is only a fraction of the joy for the one God provides. He never promised a life without pain or struggles, but he does reassure us that we are exactly where we need to be and gives us the strength to get through it.

The other night, Mauricio and I went out to eat pupusas and as I was reflecting on my "nastiest sick moments." He asked me at what point I realized that he wasn't going to leave my side. I took a moment to think. I remember not trusting anyone here--especially a cute boy, and I recalled all of the times he took care of me, stayed until I was ready to sleep, killed all the scary insects, etc. However, me realizing that he was never going to leave my side and the trust came before all of that. When I moved in with Marta, Mauricio and I lived very close. Each morning he would get up, wait for me outside of his door, and walk with me to work. It never mattered how late he stayed up the night before or if he was tired, there was consistency. He always got up, and still does.

I find this relevant to share because even when I did feel alone, I never truly was. There have been people, one of the most important being Mauricio, who have never left my side. Marta is also included in this list. She opened her home to me and not only gave me a place to sleep, but a place to heal. On the nights that I felt anxious, she always told me to wake her up and that we could just look at the stars together. In a way, I know I helped heal something within her as well. She now calls me daughter, and I know she means it.

In the end, perhaps this was my poetic account and an ode to all of the people and experiences in the past three years. A true love letter to the mangos that I'm highly allergic to, the extreme heat, the cobblestoned streets, parasites, the language, my students, bathing in cold water, and every beautiful, ugly, and hard thing in between.