Muy Caliente..

Sorry for no blog yesterday, I just didn't have the energy. I'm fully healed from the hellish misery that I was sick with for about 24 hours thanks to some antibiotics and rehydration fluid that tasted like a mix of salt water and warm milk..Delicious, right? Now I'm listening to a medley of the Decemberists, Rilo Kiley, and my girl crush Tifah and pondering what to share with our devoted blog readers...

Yesterday was pretty relaxed. Scottie, Alison, and I attended Church with a sweet cab driver named Roy whom we were introduced to by Scottie. The Church service was all hellfire and brimstones with the message consisting of the pastor shouting repeatedly as if he was angry about the matter that "JESUS WAS COMING BACK!!!" The music was painful to the ears, but the people singing sung with such passion that it made it bearable and left you with a smile on your face. Also, Roy was so excited to have us joining him that it was a pleasant experience that I'm thankful we got the opportunity to participate in. We also got Bojangles for lunch, it's pretty much soul food and is a nice alternative to rice and beans, eh?..and yes I just said eh like I'm from Canada..

Speaking of Canada, Ryan and Taryn, the awesome Canadian couple here that we home school with, got a much needed 1.5 day break so Alison and I had all the classes today! We were both nervous about the whole thing and, to be honest, dreading the entirety of the morning. However, things went over fairly smooth until art came. Those boys just don't like behaving during art and so I have given them the task of being Alison and my art teacher the rest of the week and we will act as their students..should be interesting, if it works out. We'll see..

Tomorrow is our day off and we're both very much looking forward to the break. I definitely feel the need for some time away to refocus. I feel like I only catch my breath enough to lose it again moments later. I'll leave with you with another excerpt from Rob Bell that still has my head spinning. I still have not completley digested all that I read in Velvet Elvis.

"I am not defined by what I am not. And understanding this truth is a huge part of becoming whole. I had to stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull me forward."..

I am often times trapped in trying to figure out how to be the things I fall short of being. I feel defined by my flaws, my insecurities, and feel I'm constantly trying to fix those things I'm not, therefore living in reaction, which is a vicious unheatlhy cylce to live in. It focuses on creating someone I'm not rather than focusing on developing the things that I am.

I am constantly observing the now only eleven kids I live amongst. I see them consumed at times by what they don't have rather than thankful for what they do. Struggling to figure out who they are and so lost in the matter of even where to start. Grant it they are children and adolescents and being content let alone knowing themselves is far from expected, especially due the circumstanes in which they have been exposed to growing up in. But what about me? Am I content with life? I'm only 19 and it's not unusual that I don't have "it" figured out, but I'm at times not even sure I know right from left. I offer these kids love that I work at giving agenda free. But, what else do I offer? What will I go home with to offer to myself and to others? Perhaps I'm just rambling and I'm super tired and ridiculously hot...

peace & love,
naseem
p.s. we didn't die from sickness, but heat exhaustion may take us in the night..