breathe

hi, the last few days of my life have been especially crazy. let me fill you in. last week i began to really fill my days and make friends. the friends God DEFINITELY knew i needed, i had never experienced a loneliness quite like this one, and im sure the God who is all knowing knew the toll it was taking on my heart and mindset. on friday and saturday i was lucky enough to be invited to two birthday parties, and on sunday after church i went to dinner with a about 10 people from the church. those moments were so so special to me. on monday i went on a hike to a waterfall with a family closeby, i was starting to get the hang of my social life around here. Praise the Lord. however that monday night i started not feeling great, i thought it could just be a little sickness so i slept on it. but the next morning i woke up feeling the most miserable i had ever felt in my life. after trying to wait it out as long as i could i decided to go to the hospital. as you could imagine this situation escalated very very quickly. they put me on IV fluids and took my blood to be tested and after 5 hours of waiting, my blood test results came back testing positive for an infection in my blood. so what happened is that i got food poisoning, my immune system couldn’t regulate the infection itself and got overwhelmed, so that infection then got into my blood stream. nonetheless i survived, they gave me some antibiotics through my veins. and to be honest im very confused about the diagnosis i was given because it was all in a different language! but let me TELL YOU about how much Jesus came through in those long 8 hours in the hospital. because i know i would not be finding any joy in this trial if it weren’t for Him. allow me to share one of my biggest fears: needles. and when i say fear i mean TRIFLING fear. like if i know im going to go get a shot in two weeks i will cry every day in fear until then. true story by the way. well i had to be prodded 3 times with needles in this hospital. and as im about to get my blood drawn, im doing my normal procedure where i freak out and as i am overwhelmed by this fear, a mom who was sitting with her daughter walked over from across the room and held my hand. to give a little back story i did not know this woman, in fact i hadn’t even said a single word to her. but she was the hands and feet of Jesus to me in that moment. and my tears of fear quickly turned into tears of gratitude for a God who never expects me to have it all together. in fact i know for a fact that God wasn’t looking at me in that moment thinking to Himself “oh jeez claire get it together you’re a freaking adult for crying out loud.” that women reminded me that Jesus bent down to hold the hands of people who were frightened and became lowly to experience peoples suffering with them. and He didn’t do it with a sense of condemnation, but a sense of hope. and i don’t think that woman will ever know how much i deeply appreciated her in that moment. which leads me to my next point, i think i’ve discovered a lot about serving in these last few days. i’ve learned that sometimes serving looks like just showing up, or holding someone’s hand in their crisis, or even making a simple american dinner for the family you’re living with. serving can look like anything you do that points someone straight back to the heart of Jesus.

fully seen. fully known.

many of you have prayed me here, and now that i’ve spent three days in this new place, i can’t wait to share some glimpses of what life looks like so far. i’ll be honest with you. the first day was really what felt like one of the most difficult things i would ever have to do. i was arriving to a familiar place yet this time i wasn’t with a team, i was by myself. i knew somewhat of landmarks and what my space was going to look like but it was still challenging to move into somewhere that didn’t feel like home. the first night was full of ups and downs, mostly downs. but in those downs is where i saw Gods full faithfulness. let me tell you a story. i’ll keep this quick (if you know me you know i have a habit of making every story twice as long as it needs to be). my second day in Nicaragua i woke up feeling good but not great, i knew that it might be a long day ahead of me but i had a friend by my side with every step. and His name is Jesus. i had been praying more than i ever have in my life, it has been my LIFE LINE these past few days. i was starting to get good at praying often in the USA, but when prayer is all you have it is mind boggling how much a difference it makes. more on that later. on my second day we went to have lunch with some people from the school, during this lunch everyone at the table was speaking spanish. so i would like you to humor me by taking a moment to picture an a girl (this is me if you didn’t catch the memo) sitting at a table with people she does not know, and cannot communicate with, and then sits there for an hour. it probably really just looked like i was there for the food. nonetheless, i was clueless. after this i headed back to where i was staying, i then had over 6 hours of free time to myself. in my head this seemed nice, but i knew i would get lonely very quickly. after about an hour of reading my bible and journaling, i was bored. and right when my thoughts started to overwhelm me someone came walking right into my apartment, this someone was a little girl that was the ripe age of 7. she walked in with a confidence i’d never seen, with a joyful voice that said “hola” and came over to give me a hug. she sat down next to me and started talking to me in spanish and i just sat there absolutely baffled. there was no doubt in my mind that this was not a sign of Gods love. and here is my first conclusion from this encounter: i am fully seen. the God that i trusted to pave a path for me to be able to get here saw how broken my heart was being away from everything i knew and sent me a comfort. not only was i fully seen, i was fully KNOWN. God knew exactly what would cheer me up. that thing being a little girl named Nashley. soon enough me and Nashley went out to the trampoline outside of where i was staying, after this we went to go play with her toys. when i say we went to go play with her toys i mean every toy she owned, which if your wondering was one tote bag worth. she dumped them out in the dirt in front of her home like this was her normal routine and i realized how many kids in america have more toys than they can even begin to count. and this little girl was content with making make-believe food with her mini kitchen set in the dirt. i looked over to see her mom rocking a newborn baby to sleep in a hammock, no automatic swinger, no sound machine. just a baby being held to sleep with a bunch of chickens as its white noise. me and nashley played in the dirt for a good hour and a half, while she told me all about who knows what in spanish and i sat there nodding my head and saying “Si” every five minutes or so. after this we went back to the trampoline and played goalie with a severely deflated ball. she insisted on coming back up to my place with me so we headed back. we sat in the silence for a little bit, both of us so sweaty from not just the heat but the workout that being goalie was. i went and grabbed my nail polish and painted her nails. having painted nails is a huge thing down here because it’s fairly new to them. i let her take a nail polish home with her because she seemed to love it so much. so 3 hours was passed by in the best way i could have imagined. and none of it was by my own doing. God knew i needed a friend. so there’s my first story for you. maybe that was one of your prayers coming true and i hope it was. i’m so grateful for all of your prayers more than i can express, so if you’re reading this, know that im praying for you too. i’ll be back with more updates in a few days :)

a little bit of His grace on the first night.

this moment was heaven sent, i will never get over it.

all the toys me and nashley played with, no toy was left untouched to say the least.

day of departure ✈️

i wholeheartedly believe that if you were to tell me two years ago the ways that God has moved in my life and where i am right now, i would have laughed so hard in your face. but as i’m sitting in the airport awaiting a flight to nicaragua where i’ll spend the next semester, i’m confident in the God who really did rescue me from all my hurt and worldly ambitions. thinking about who i was two years ago… the girl who would never believe she was enough or that if she was, she always somehow overdid it and was too much makes my heart ache for how lost she was. but a heart that was reflecting this world instead of Him couldn’t see how a mission trip or anything involving glorifying something other than herself would be any good. and most of all that heart couldn’t see where selfishness ended and where obedience began. thinking about the girl who walked into an informational meeting two years ago with absolutely no motivation, a broken heart, and a lack of any form of identity outside of this world. i wish i could shake her and tell her that her whole entire WORLD was going to be flipped upside down, all because God moves. that after a trip so out of her comfort zone, there was no way for her to rely on anything other than Jesus. how His love transcends cultures, every language, every circumstance, she would come home so radically changed that she would never live life the same. to go from someone with no intention of living a life worthy of Him, to working two jobs senior year to travel and go to those places where you could feel His presence like no other. to a land where unicorns get painted on faces, where kids play in the dust and find joy in the simple things, where everything is twice as hard to come by but that makes it twice as valuable. a lot like Gods love. because heaven shouldn’t feel like miles away to anyone. praying and praying that a heart that only wanted to be closer to Him would be enough. well, that heart and prayer would soon become the basis of a faith with such a faithful God. and if there is one thing i can promise anyone reading this it’s that the same God who has moved mountains and changed hearts is working in your life. and right now as i step into the extremely unknown, that is really one of the only things i can take comfort in. that He is ALWAYS present, always faithful, always open, always for me, always sufficient, and always always ALWAYS GOOD. so i pray you take comfort in that, bc no matter where you are, if you are living for Him… you too are a missionary.