Daring to Dream

As many of you may know from facebook and instagram, I decided to take up guitar this week. As a result, typing this is very painful. For those of you who haven't played guitar, the first week or two is very painful for your fingers because you must form callouses in order to play painlessly in the future.

Lately Papa has been giving me the ability, the passion and the drive to dream again. Losing weight and taking up swimming as a new sport was such a big achievement that it gave me new perspective on my desire to have children. It helped me to see that I could still start and become good at new things. It reminded me to not take this time for granted. Because if children do come, things will change a lot. Through this journey I have shed 20lbs and I'm going for another 5lbs by our 6 year anniversary, November 17th, and a total of 10 more pounds by Christmas :)

Learning Russian was another such achievement. It seemed so big, unthinkable even, to be speaking Russian as fluently as I am now; translating for team meetings, as painful and embarrassing as that is at times; and just being able to be me in Russian is such a relief and a big stress off of my life here in general.

It's really good for me at this point in my life to have goals other than becoming a mother someday, because I am not sure if that is even a realistic goal. I don't want to let go of the hope that it could someday happen, but as a goal, it stinks, because I have absolutely no control over it. Even if there are certain steps I can take to possibly achieve that someday, if it is my entire focus and it never happens, it will ruin me.

I guess I have always known that, but I kept thinking it would happen soon and I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I must stress again, I'm not giving up here. I am just evaluating where my focus is. Of course it must be on HIM, but he gives us permission to dream within his will. Right now his will is not what I dreamed before. But He is giving me new inspiration to dream.

One of the biggest surprises was recently, when He made one of those dreams learning another language. Why do I need to learn another language you ask? Well, there are actually two main languages where I live. One is Russian, and about 99% of the people here know Russian. But about 75% of the people's heart language is Kazakh. 

I have absolutely fallen in love with the Russian language and on top of that Russian culture and Russian people. But that leaves out about 75% of the population in the city I live in. There is definitely a very special place in my heart for Kazakh people, but I have not fallen in love with them as I have with Russians. I had been giving this to Papa and asking Him to help change it. He spoke very clearly to me, He asked me one thing "How did you originally fall in love with Russians?" and I knew the answer was language.

I immediately understood that this meant that He wanted me to learn Kazakh in order to have a deeper love for that 75% of the population. It seems to be a common theme among the foreigners who stay here long enough. You fall in love with one culture and one language and Papa shows you that you need space in your heart for the other language and culture as well.

It's not an easy goal. Studying language is not my favorite. I do know quite a bit of Kazakh just from being around it, but I'm not excited about the word order. I do know one thing though, in the wise words of Tom Hanks (aka Jimmy Dugan) "It's the hard that makes it great."  

So I will continue to dream about doing hard things and glorifying His name through it all. It would just be too easy for me to give up on life and say that I dreamed and didn't get what I dreamed of, a family. But that is just a lie from the pit of hell. Seriously. He made me to dream, even when things don't go as planned, so I guess the message is, never give up and keep on dreaming. I sure am.

an education

Thanks to all that responded to my last post. A lot of people asked to hear more about what I am learning and it just so happens that I will be writing specifically about that, with a little bit of every day life mixed in :)  

I really appreciated what my sister-in-law said, “I really think you should write what you want to write. It should be a reflection of you, whatever you are going through, feeling, enjoying.” 

It made me realize that as I looked back over my previous posts they were a reminder of the things that papa has been doing in and around me on my journey here. It is also a great way to process what is happening and how I am feeling while allowing me to share life with those of you who are so far away.

Right now I realize that papa is giving me some amazing gifts that I never expected. I am learning so many things that I never even imagined would be a part of my life. 

A couple things...

The first unbelievable thing that I am learning is the art of verbal translation. I would have never imagined just a year ago that I would be in this position. But right now there are not many native english speakers on our team who can translate from Russian to English in our team meetings, so I have started to do this. 

It is a disconcerting experience because when I hear Russian the first thing that comes to my mind is Russian. 

The first time I translated it was so difficult to get the english words out of my mouth. I knew this before, but at that point I truly understood that my brain switches to Russian when I hear and understand it. It is quite the stretch to get it to hear Russian words and then quickly translate into English what the person is saying and make it sound halfway decent because if you translate directly it will sound strange.

A few weeks ago I was translating for our feeding the homeless event. They were giving directions on how to divide the food and the word for divide in russian sounds like ‘delete,’ so I said “we are going to delete the food.’ It was funny, we all laughed, and I realized how sharp I must stay when I am translating, it’s definitely not second nature yet. Language is a crazy thing. 

The second thing that I am really excited to be learning is story writing. I took a couple screen writing classes in film school and I really enjoyed them, but aside from that I haven’t studied the art of story telling. 

One of the main things I am part of right now with our organization is the communications team. We have a newsletter that goes out quarterly and we would like to push that up to once a month eventually. In the newsletter we always share a story about people who have been blessed by goods given by our organization. 

The man who usually writes these stories is a really great writer, but he will be leaving in a few months and won’t be returning. Right now he is teaching me to develop into a better writer through writing stories and trying out different methods, writing from different view points etc. 

It may sound boring to some, but to me it is quite exciting and has really stirred up a passion inside of me for the lives that are being effected through what we do. 

I am so excited about what Papa has had me involved in lately. I am learning such a wide variety of skills here, managing a cafe, baking and developing recipes, writing, translating and so many more life skills.

I could write for days about what I am learning and I will continue to try to share more of it since that is what encourages me and apparently others as well :)