jump in?

so

many

things

to

complain 

about...

...but what's the point?

I went hiking yesterday to the Jimenoa waterfalls - one of my most favorite hikes here in Jarabacoa.  After a good 35 minute uphill hike, we finally reached the beautiful second waterfall.  The water was clear, almost turquoise, and the sun was hitting the rocks and water in all the right spots.  Just BEAUTIFUL. I was with a bunch of people who wanted to explore the area a bit further than I had before, and we ended up following the water flow down some smaller falls into other beautiful natural pools.  There was one part where it was required that you jump off a rock into the water - only about 12 feet high.  But...

I panicked. 

I absolutely couldn't do it! Something inside of me flipped my insides around in my stomach and made my legs freeze every time I built up the courage to jump.  I kept thinking to myself  "Jess. You've jumped from higher rocks before, stop freaking out! Everyone else did it..." But i stayed frozen.  

This month hasn't been easy.  Things at work are a mess.  People I'm surrounded with are becoming more and more negative.  Emotions are flying everywhere.  It should be so easy to jump into that pool of negativity and messy emotions, right? I've done it before....

Honestly, things with me personally have never been better.  I'm in love with my life, and I'm in love with God for giving that life to me. I was telling someone the other day that if I were a child and been asked to draw how I feel, I would draw me in the middle, surrounded by a yellow ball of light, but on the outsides there would be black. So, what in the world am I supposed to do with this? 

I'm not saying I don't dabble my toes in negativity with frustrating situations, but something inside of me churns and I stay frozen from heading into a negative spiral. 

Thank you, God? Yes. Thank you, God. 

 

"so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light." Colossians 1:10-12

Good verse, huh?

(oh, and for the record.. I didn't actually jump)

CONTENTMENT.

Wow. Can I just sum up the last month of my life in one word? 


CONTENTMENT.


I came back the Dominican Republic jumping back into the life I left off with in June. But after traveling and taking EIGHT planes in the span of 5 days, I was ready for a little rest. HAH! 
I had about one day to decorate my classroom and the day after was the first day of school.  I started the year thinking I would have 15 students, but this slowly grew to 18.  So now I have one of the largest classes in the school...again. But we don't get thrown anything we can't handle, right? 

all the boys

It's fun. My class this year is made up of 9 boys and 9 girls, where the class dynamic is very much different than last year. A good different. The problem is that they are all friends and get along a little "too" well - but I guess that's a good problem to have, right? 

all the girls

Luckily, it seems God understood my need for rest and sent Hurricane Irene our way.  We got lucky and only had a ton of rain the first day, and hardly anything the second day. The best part--> NO SCHOOL for two days! It was awesome, and rest well needed!

I decided to become a YoungLife leader again this year. We went on a leader's retreat for a weekend, and while I was still hesitant to decide if I really wanted to make the commitment for the full year this year, I felt a complete sense of peace with the other leaders.  When we had our first club (youth group type thing) I felt contentment that I was making the right choice. So, it's back to YoungLife this year! I'm puuuuuumped :)

I think I found my "home church" here now. There's this school/church out here called Escuela Caribe, which is a boarding school for rebellious American teenagers. They just got a new pastor, who is aMAZing (and the best part of this church...its all in ENGLISH!). Last year I got incredibly burnt out from surface level preaching, let alone surface level preaching in spanish, to the point of me never caring to go to church.  However, the people at Escuela Caribe are incredible and have such great hearts for God.  I am always so inspired every time I go there by who I encounter while I'm there. I've also become a little more fond of someone that works there, so that's fun too ;)


I am incredibly content with where I'm at in life right now. Maybe God is putting this peace into my life as a hint for future plans? I don't know... I've learned my lesson so many times not to have high expectations about anything, so I'm simply taking each day as it comes.  Who knows!


Please pray. Pray for my class and Jarabacoa Christian School. Pray for my roommates and friends. Pray for finances.  Pray for safety (our house was broken into two weeks ago).  Pray for relationships being built and strengthened on the foundation of God.  And pray for this contentment to continue, God-willing.  Prayer is so powerful! 




...Thank you :)