Tico Tuesday, August 25th

Happy Tuesday!

CLM bags and mugs!

Thanks for your prayers for my meeting with the regional leader last week to discuss how to spend the rest of my time here. We came up with a number of ideas! I'm going to come alongside one of the Sunday School teachers whose helpers have all become teachers of other age levels, and perhaps help with another ministry at church. I will also be meeting with several of the other missionaries in the greater Mexico City area to get to learn more about their ministries and how God is using them to impact him. I'm excited, because this is a great opportunity to learn and to see how people who share my interests and talents are putting them to use. I expect this to be useful to me as I continue to grow and develop the gifts God has given me and seek how I can best use them for his glory. I hope to be an encouragement to all the people I get to meet as well. In the meantime, I will continue to work on the missions coach training (which has turned out to be quite a monstruous task!) and help out with special events at the Centro Latino de Movilización. In addition, I am still providing spiritual mentoring for the Avance participants who are back in the States and Canada now, planning my Home Ministry Assignment (HMA--trip around the States Oct-Dic), and working with various people in UWM on determining what my next steps will look like after HMA. So, there is a lot going on! Again, I thank you for your prayers, and ask you to please join me in praying even more for God's guidance in my life and for me to be more in tune with him and keep my heart and mind engaged and focused on him. Thank you so much!
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, August 18th

I'm thankful for a slowly growing sense of community here. Even though I am only here for a few months, I know there are a lot of people here that care about me, and I am deeply grateful for that.

One group of people I feel I have started to bond with more are my fellow collaborators at the Centro Latino de Movilización (CLM). We have started gathering once a week to pray, and now we eat lunch together before we pray too. There is nothing like food to help bond people! And today, some of us went on a brief retreat to the same cold, beautiful, foresty camp (Kikotén) that I went to for the Avance prayer retreat last month. We read an article by the wonderful Henri Nouwen about the need for solitude, which prepares us for community, which leads us into ministry. An excellent read about the need to be rooted in God's love and not expect people to love us as only God can. That is our goal, to be rooted in God's love, to love others, and to practice gratitude and compassion and help others do the same. That is what we want everyone who comes to CLM to grasp and put into practice.
Tomorrow is the halfway marker for me in my time here in Mexico. I feel like so much has happened I should be more than halfway through, but I know God knows each day and what it will contain. I ask for your prayers for me on Thursday as I meet with the Regional Leader here and discuss how I can make the best use of the time I have left here. I will continue to collaborate at the CLM, but will get to know and support some other ministries too. Please pray for guidance and wisdom for this working out of the near future, as well as my next longer term ministry placement. The ball is slowly rolling, and I will continue to keep you informed as things come together. Thank you so much for your prayers! I thank God for hearing and answering them!
May we all continue to learn how loved we are by God and how to better love others,
Carrie

Tico Tuesday, August 11th

It is time for a cultural lesson from Mexico. Today we will focus on a core aspect of Mexican culture: street food.

But first, a word about nopales, prickly pear cactus. Mexicans LOVE nopales. They eat its fruit, called tuna here, and the teardrop shaped green slabs that compose the rest of the plant (once the prickles have been removed). They slice it, cook it and it turns into a sea of slimy green pieces thing that they devour with gusto (pictured).
And with what do you eat nopales? TACOS! I highly suspect tacos are the national food of Mexico. You can find a taquería pretty much anywhere, though they are especially common by metro stops. I can eat these because the meat itself is not spicy: people can add as much spicy salsa as they want, which in my case, is about 0.5cc.
Tamales are of course very common. Thay all have spicy salsa in them and are therefore quite juicy. So if you buy one from a street vendor, you can have it unwrapped and placed in a large bun for you. If you are like me and can't handle much spiciness, you are stuck with a sweet tamal, which is like eating a sweet pink sponge. Too bad it doesn't have creme filling!
Corn on the cob (the white, less-flavorful kind) is another popular item you can find on the street. People here love to put mayo (and chile, of course!) on it.
You can also find people selling potato chips, fruit, shredded carrots, and more, all with chile sauce to dump on to them.
I learned an important lesson from one of the Avance participants in the way she treated one of these street vendors: I often blow right by them, since I'm not interested in their product. But, when I was with her, she greeted a vendor and gave him a little money, even though she didn't buy anything from him. That really struck me. Even though I don't usually to buy from them, these vendors all bear God's image and need to know and experience his love. It is my job to be salt and light everywhere I go. I can give them a smile and treat them like a real human being. It's the least I can do.
Who are some people you can show a little more kindness and respect to? May God give us his eyes and his heart, that we may see and love others as he does!
Thanks for journeying alongside me,
Carrie

A Few Single Thoughts

The wonderful Velvet Ashes blog I follow is doing a series on singleness. I recently read some excellent articles on the Gospel Coalition website about singleness. And here I am, in the middle of Mexico, a single woman, wanting to build into the conversation. I'm no polished blogger and I won't pretend to be, but here goes.
Right now, I feel there there must be something contagious going around: My facebook feed is full of people getting married, pregnant, and having children. I can name you at least ten people I know off the top of my head who are either expecting or gave birth in the past 2 weeks. No joke. Is the water I'm drinking too filtered? Is the air so contaminated here in Mexico City that love can't make it through? Ok, I'll confess I'm not actually looking for love here. I know I'm not in any condition to start a relationship right now. And I know true love isn't caught like a disease. But, I am writing from an accumulated experience of six years on the field as a single missionary, and this is not the first time my facebook feed has been full of engagement announcements, wedding pictures, creative birth announcements, sonograms, gender reveals, baby bumps, and baby pictures. After graduating from college over 7 years ago, I am still single. And that's ok.
A number of these articles I recently read have talked about how being single is different from being married and the multiple unique struggles and opportunities we as singles have. I highly recommend heading over to these blogs and reading a few articles, especially this one about the Purpose of Singleness and this one by my college friend about singleness neither being harder nor easier than married life on the mission field. The first one was an absolute game changer for me. I would like to add some of my own thoughts to Krista's article: how I feel singleness is a challenge for me.
I see that couple holding hands walking down the street. I see that mother with her baby on the metro. All around me, there are couples, families, and children: my dreams. It's easy to feel like they are being rubbed in my face. Sure, there are a lot of people without a significant other or a little one in tow, but of course it's those who do who grab my attention. And my heart cries, I want that! Yeah, I hear ya, girl. I do. I am happy these people have their significant others and children. I'm not angry that I don't have it. But there's just that longing there, hoping that maybe someday... If not, it's ok, due to the reasons cited in the other article I mentioned. The whole idea of fasting as a single really hit me.
One of the benefits of marriage I long for is the ability to dream, process life, and make big decisions with my husband. If you've been reading my blog at all this year, you probably know it has been one of the most difficult, tumultous years of my life. I know I haven't been alone in this time, yet I haven't had that someone to snuggle with at night, whose life is deeply intertwined with mine, who has concerns that must be factored into the decision. Maybe some married people would think it is simpler to be in my shoes. I think it's just another example of singleness and marriage just being different.
It is hard living in a huge city and not having someone with whom to explore it. I have had the privilege of traveling a bit of the world with my mom and so far, she is the best travel companion ever. Exploring a city, enjoying beauty, discovering new places: I'd much rather do so with a buddy. It's more fun, and it is a great way to make memories and bond together. But, she's not here. Again, maybe some wife or mom with littles (or just some introvert, regardless of her marital status) disagrees, and that's ok. I'm just speaking for me, and maybe some other single extroverts out there.
Singleness is a challenge. It can be painful. It can be fun. I'm sure the same can be said about marriage. Let's keep the conversation going and keep learning from each other.