Humility and so much more to learn.

When I first came to Bolivia I was high on my soapbox, feeling built up with pride that I had been out of the country before, could communicate with little to no problems speaking spanish, everyone knew my name by day three, and I felt that I had so much to teach the people of Trinidad. Little did I know, the biggest part of this mission trip was not what I could teach others, but what they could teach me. Week 2 I was kicked off my soapbox and my pride deflated as quickly as it was puffed up. Week 2 was at the Camp in Chaco and was full of struggles for me; not being able or willing to eat most lunches and dinners left me weak with little energy, waking up at six am for exercise every morning after going to be at 11:30 pm, struggling with daily headaches and going to bed with wet hair after shower time at 5;30 pm left me with a sore throat and sinus cold.

In a previous blog, I wrote abouthow I, along witha few others, had been chosen tolead a small group for devotions during the week. My group consisted of five 8th grade girls who were eager to correct my langauge errors and treat me like I didn´t know anything. My feelings were a little hurt during our first devotional when I passsed out the passages and questions they were to read for the day and they participated little, failing to connect with me as theirleader. Day 2 of devotions kicked me off my soapbox into a hard fall that I haven´t experienced in a long while. My girls were little interested in the devotionals for the day and even less interested in listening to my attempt to carry on a deep and meaningful conversation about God´s faithfulness in my broken Spanish. One student´s repeated condecsending corrections over ever misphrased or mispronounced word almost brought me to tears on the spot, making me nervous and angry at her lack of empathy or patience for my attempt to make a deep connection. I finally asked her, in English, to please not correct me in such a manner becaue I really didn´t like it and that it only made me more nervous and upset. I asked if her English teacher did that to her and she replied no, with a half-hearted apology following. I then, later, asked to read what she had wrote for question three of the answersheet and she responded, ¨ You probably can´t read it anyways.¨ At this point, I was officially kicked off my soapbox and struggling to find firm footing on the ground. I was hurt and shocked at the condescending nature of my student´s interaction with me.

I spoke about the matter with our main guide, Stephen, and he shared my concern and hurt admitting he´d experienced the same blunt and harsh criticism as he first learned spanish as well. He spokewith my group asking them to respect me and realize what a gift we volunteers are in their lives. Even after their apologies and hugs, I still felt shaken to my core. Shaken from the inside of my personal security blanket, the one that I held onto as a confident leader, spanish speaker, and follower of God. I realized that I was out of my comfort zone at this moment because Iwas being called to play a different role than I am used to. In SLO and Ukiah, I am leader in a lot of areas of my life. I´ve always played the role of being president, head director, peer minister, and coordinator in virtually all aspects of my life. I was used to leading Bible studies and feeling God work through me to inspire others. I always felt I grew by being a leader because I could feel God´s love, grace, and abundant life as He worked through me. However, here in Bolivia I didn´t know how to be a leader, the same type of leader I am in California, without using my words and having the ability to communicate freely. I realized how much I emphasis I put on my words. I majored in English and minored in Linguistics and Spanish, so it was engrained into me throughout my college career to focus on words. Words aren´t spoken or written for no reason. Every word has a meaning and is chosen specifically by the author or speaker to portray a certain meaning. Words hold great power and I always put emphasis on the words I speak. Here, I cannot rely on my words as heavily. For as long as I´ve spoken spanish, I still cannot have deep conversations about my beliefs, how God has changed me, or express myself in the same manner as in English. I could probably find a very broken way of getting my point accross but itwouldn´thold thesame eloquence or sophistication as my English words might. This is terribly hard for me to admit because Ifeel I have higher expectations for myself but it is the harsh truth I can´t ignore.

I realized that my actions were goingto need to over compensate for my lack or words. That i was calledto this place not to be a leader, but to be a follower, a follower of Christ. As I slowly broke down, I leaned on my support group to build me up. We met during the day at camp, taking time away from playing sports to make time for each other, and their words of comfort and love edified my heart. We all confessed our struggles and used God´s Word and love to build each other up in Him. At the end of our pow-wow, we held hands and prayed. I startd the prayer and was quickly moved tears, beautiful tears of a broken and humble heart asking for God´s guidance, support and wholeness. The beauty of God´s callings are that they may be some of the most difficult times in our lives but God´s always there, ready to rebuild our hearts stronger than they were before breaking. The prayer brought each of us closer together and closer to the one who called us to this foreign place. I can now look back with a thankful heart for all the week´s struggles because they humbled me in a way that cleansed my soul. I´m thankful for my teammates and their love and support for one another as we each experience a variety of different emotions on this trip.

I now feel like I have a new mindset as a to why I am here in Bolivia. I feel that the question is no longer, what did i do for the people of bolivia? But, what did they do for me? Letting go of the pride, that sense and feeling that I knew the best and right way, that I had all the answers and that I was the one who needed to do all the teaching, was difficult until I realized how much more open my ears were to listen, willing my heart wasto bemoved, and non-judgemental my eyes were to see when I let go of that pride. Humility is a hard thing to trade in for pride. Pride is comfortable, it´s a false sense of security but I believe that God broke me down to rebuild me up with a humble and servant heart, ready to follow Him and learn from the wonderful people here in Bolivia.

Love,

Carli