http://vimeo.com/28154713
Monday, August 29, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Si Te Tengo A Ti
Ecuador-Quito, is complex. Far more complex than I remembered. With the busy streets teeming with automobiles, most new and silver cars; with people of many different racial backgrounds, and with the sweet complexity of the poor and the rich and the huge gap between them.
Coming back is always different. I always wondered what I was coming back to. Except for my family, there is nothing here I have ties to, or so I have thought. I always felt more at home in El Salvador, which baffles me for I didn't live there as long as I have lived here.
Quito is the place where I grew up, I guess. It's a place where I found my identity. Where I found God, or my simplified version of Him. Where my best friend and I raveled tales of adventure and romance of ourselves in some far away country. Where I sipped tea with her in my later years, and we discussed the turmoils of college life. So coming back now, and not having her here has been a challenge to say the least. But maybe through it I have seen another complexity of this city I guess I never really knew, maybe because I never bothered to know because after all this didn't feel like home to me.
But God has opened my eyes. To this city teeming with life, with sorrow, with pain, with abuse; and I have also seen joy, peace, love beyond what we deem natural.
As a college student coming back home, one believes one's mind is full of knowledge that is so radical that must be desperately shared with our parents. Unfortunately, one also believes that our philosophies and our "new-found" way of life somehow is better and must therefore be critical of that of our parents.
But in my so-called "new and improved" life, I realized I had not moved at all. I was still the same, young and bitter sixteen year old I once was. Thinking I had changed.
And as I am enjoying the community my parents have here I have begun to notice, the love that oozes from their very pores. They have changed, are changed and are changing. They have begun this new adventure, this new church, that comes with all these struggles, a lot of pain, and tears. And yet I can truly see that they do not do it for themselves. And in my selfishness, I have criticized.
And I, I have remained stagnant.
Coming back to this place where I am automatically drawn to the books of my youth, and the songs of praise I once knew by memory, and the adventure my heart used to yearn for; I realized I have not moved. Barely if anything. I may not snap at people as often as I used to, but anger still had a grip on me, even the in the cold depths of Michigan winters. I just had learned to bury in my books.
And here where life used to seem so pointless, I have seen what love was meant to do.
How it moves people.
I have seen what Jesus does.
And as I spoke with my dad of our struggles and of life, I could hear it clear as day, the love. Jesus' Love in Him for the people of Ecuador. My dad, a foreigner in Ecuador, who has known a powerful culture shock that has made him think more than once about returning home.
Jesus' love for His people has been injected into His veins, and has inspired Him each day-beyond the doubt, beyond the pain.
And he is a changed man.
Not because of anything he could do, but because of Jesus.
Oh that my faith were stronger. Fortunately, Jesus' love is. It goes beyond everything I once knew.
Beyond my anger, beyond my doubt, beyond my lack of movement.
Maybe all it took was going back and catching a glimpse of who I once was and still am, to find hope and inspiration in the Savior who can mold me and move me.
For I have tried, I have tried pretending to be different, ignoring the lack of change, and all to no avail.
So movement, change may be hard for me. But it is only God who can move in me. And I truly believe that I can do all things through God who gives me strength.
Tu Bandera-Jesús Adrian Romero
Como en un pais extraño me encontre sin ti
No entendia el idioma, ni las cosas que vivi
Y corri a buscar sin ver tu rostro entre la gente
Y aun sin conocerte
Convencido estaba de encontrarte a ti, de encontrarte a ti
Y en medio de mi confución se alzaba tu bandera
se enarbolaba como el sol diciendome que fuera
y a ti te siguiera
y asi me refugie en la cruz y en tu bendito amor
nunca imagine la vida que ahora vivo en ti
ni en la gracia que me diste cuando a ti volvi
mas a hora se que en ti yo tengo lo que anhelo
tengo vida plena tengo paz eterna
si te tengo a Ti.
Si te tengo a ti.
Coming back is always different. I always wondered what I was coming back to. Except for my family, there is nothing here I have ties to, or so I have thought. I always felt more at home in El Salvador, which baffles me for I didn't live there as long as I have lived here.
Quito is the place where I grew up, I guess. It's a place where I found my identity. Where I found God, or my simplified version of Him. Where my best friend and I raveled tales of adventure and romance of ourselves in some far away country. Where I sipped tea with her in my later years, and we discussed the turmoils of college life. So coming back now, and not having her here has been a challenge to say the least. But maybe through it I have seen another complexity of this city I guess I never really knew, maybe because I never bothered to know because after all this didn't feel like home to me.
But God has opened my eyes. To this city teeming with life, with sorrow, with pain, with abuse; and I have also seen joy, peace, love beyond what we deem natural.
As a college student coming back home, one believes one's mind is full of knowledge that is so radical that must be desperately shared with our parents. Unfortunately, one also believes that our philosophies and our "new-found" way of life somehow is better and must therefore be critical of that of our parents.
But in my so-called "new and improved" life, I realized I had not moved at all. I was still the same, young and bitter sixteen year old I once was. Thinking I had changed.
And as I am enjoying the community my parents have here I have begun to notice, the love that oozes from their very pores. They have changed, are changed and are changing. They have begun this new adventure, this new church, that comes with all these struggles, a lot of pain, and tears. And yet I can truly see that they do not do it for themselves. And in my selfishness, I have criticized.
And I, I have remained stagnant.
Coming back to this place where I am automatically drawn to the books of my youth, and the songs of praise I once knew by memory, and the adventure my heart used to yearn for; I realized I have not moved. Barely if anything. I may not snap at people as often as I used to, but anger still had a grip on me, even the in the cold depths of Michigan winters. I just had learned to bury in my books.
And here where life used to seem so pointless, I have seen what love was meant to do.
How it moves people.
I have seen what Jesus does.
And as I spoke with my dad of our struggles and of life, I could hear it clear as day, the love. Jesus' Love in Him for the people of Ecuador. My dad, a foreigner in Ecuador, who has known a powerful culture shock that has made him think more than once about returning home.
Jesus' love for His people has been injected into His veins, and has inspired Him each day-beyond the doubt, beyond the pain.
And he is a changed man.
Not because of anything he could do, but because of Jesus.
Oh that my faith were stronger. Fortunately, Jesus' love is. It goes beyond everything I once knew.
Beyond my anger, beyond my doubt, beyond my lack of movement.
Maybe all it took was going back and catching a glimpse of who I once was and still am, to find hope and inspiration in the Savior who can mold me and move me.
For I have tried, I have tried pretending to be different, ignoring the lack of change, and all to no avail.
So movement, change may be hard for me. But it is only God who can move in me. And I truly believe that I can do all things through God who gives me strength.
Tu Bandera-Jesús Adrian Romero
Como en un pais extraño me encontre sin ti
No entendia el idioma, ni las cosas que vivi
Y corri a buscar sin ver tu rostro entre la gente
Y aun sin conocerte
Convencido estaba de encontrarte a ti, de encontrarte a ti
Y en medio de mi confución se alzaba tu bandera
se enarbolaba como el sol diciendome que fuera
y a ti te siguiera
y asi me refugie en la cruz y en tu bendito amor
nunca imagine la vida que ahora vivo en ti
ni en la gracia que me diste cuando a ti volvi
mas a hora se que en ti yo tengo lo que anhelo
tengo vida plena tengo paz eterna
si te tengo a Ti.
Si te tengo a ti.
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