I am feeling much better about Nina’s party now.  Since the night of her party when I wrote that post lots of people have been telling me how good an afternoon it was and how much they and their kids enjoyed it etc etc.  I am quite pissed off at myself for getting so stressed about all those more trivial things when I should have been trying to enjoy it.  I guess, as a host, I am a bit like that.  But it reminded me that even when you think that everything is going terribly, maybe you just need to try to see things from another perspective.

There is always hope.

On a slightly less trivial note I read this is the Sojourners magazine the other day.  “Christians are called upon to tell and retell the story of hope, grace, and change that we see acted out in the scriptures. It is through hearing and responding to this story that our own lives and stories are transformed today.”  I am constantly amazed at how often I find my story in the stories of the Bible and how much it transforms things for me.  The little book I wrote, “praying the stories of our lives” is full of such stories and here is another one.

Anyone who has read this blog in the last 9 months would know that things here in Peru haven’t gone entirely as we have planned.  While it has been a truly amazing year, we love so much of our life here and I see this time as such a gift from God for us, we did have so many hopes and dreams about what we would have liked to have done here particularly around birthing stuff and sustainable agriculture that we have not really been able to achieve.  While there have been some little things, that have been very significant to us and I hope to those involved, in general I feel that maybe it’s just not the right time.  I feel like there will be birth justice here soon and that people will start taking sustainability more seriously very soon but we are just a little too early.  After the last birth and a meeting with director I was asked to write a letter with my concerns and seeking permission (again) to attend births.  I have heard nothing in response and imagine that it has been totally ignored.  I have decided not to keep trying.  We have only three months to go now and I want to focus now on the women who I have built up relationships with and their families.  But I guess there is a sense of failure and disappointment particularly with myself and I am struggling a lot with self doubt.

Anyway, I was reading the other day about Moses who after 40 years of leading the Israelites through the desert was not able to enter the promised land.  I have never thought much about this until now but can you imagine his disappointment?  We know the end of the story and that the Israelites do make it but Moses didn’t and in that moment more than I could ever imagine he would have had to trust in God.  All he had was hope.  Of course I am not Moses and my story does not even compare in terms of size and time dedicated etc but I like him only have hope now.  Hope that God will some time choose to water the seeds that we have planted.  We may not not get to see it but that is not what is important.  It is not about us at all, only that His will be done and that justice comes.

There is always hope.