Hard Questions...

I've now been in Bolivia for 3 months - in some ways it seems like the time has gone very quickly and in others it seems like the longest 3 months of my life. This experience to date has not been what I bargained for and that has been painful and has caused me to reflect and re-evaluate why I wanted to do service in the first place and if I need to re-adjust those expectations.

I am an idealistic person - a peaceful revolutionary even. I like to think that I live in solidarity with the people - that I am a common person and live with the common people. Choosing to do service, for me, was a deliberate choice to be more intentional about living in solidarity - working side by side with the marginalized. However, that is not my reality here. I am marginalized from the marginalized and any contact with them will require me going against the grain - an intentional choice to invest energy outside of my job to do what I thought would be an intentional part of my job.

But making such a choice is hard to do when your energy is like fossil fuel (in high demand, but short in supply and not being renewed). Although I know I have support from my church, friends, and family back home, the support I receive is still from a distance and not the same as having warm bodies on the ground here to support me. Sometimes the loneliness is overwhelming, even when I'm surrounded by people. So my job takes energy out of me, but doesn't put the energy back in and I wonder about the sustainability of making this a meaningful experience for myself when I struggle so deeply with the disconnected life-style my job implies and my own inability to connect with the job itself.

I do have people who support me here, but outside of seeing people at work, I have no contact with anyone except other MCCers who are going to be leaving in the next two months. My goal in that time is to radicalize my existence here - to change where I live and to find a church that doesn't drain the life out of me (to this point going to church here has been such a painful, life-draining experience that I've stopped going). I'm even considering volunteering while volunteering to try to find some kind of connection with the poor. I did not leave my friends and family for 3 years to live a posh gringo life, or to just survive MCC Bolivia. I was prepared to be challenged and to be pushed outside of my comfort zone, but I never dreamed that would mean being uncomfortable with comfort, or fighting off apathy and working to break through a bubble that makes the poor of a third world country invisible to me.

I'm going to borrow the term "word vomit" from a friend of mine. This is word vomit, but I need to put it on paper. I can be happy here, but I cannot be content with the death of my service ideals. Please pray for me, that God will give me the strength and energy I need to work for change here even if I don't get to enjoy it myself, and that God will help me find a community that gives me the life-energy I need to do so.