Just Shine Already..

I want to be someone different. We here that line a lot don't we..what does it take to make someone different enough? The number of piercings on their body? The kind of music they listen to? How many times they can hop on one foot without needing to go to the bathroom? Everyone wants to be recognized and fill that void inside them that strives for the need of attention for other people. Everyone is different, but the road to complancency is actually well traveled.

I don't want to grow old one day and have to say to myself, "..wow. I really wasted my life milling around with my friends, feeding my hamster and watching the final episodes of Gilmore Girls." I want to do something. But that's the thing. Everyone wants to do something "extravegant." The little things count too; I have to remind myself of that sometimes. God does care about the small stuff. I am realizing that I don't just want to live my life my own way, but God's. I want to live my life for Him and see what He has to offer me..cause I don't want to miss out! I want everything He has for me..even if I might be scared right now to go chase after it. I want to be someone different, and thanks to Jesus Christ, I can say I am someone different. I am made a new creation in Him, and no one is able to take that away from me. :-d

Thank you Brenda.

So the other day i was looking at my list of goals I want to accomplish in my life. Among them is my goal to be pretty fluent in spanish by the time I graduate from college. As it is so easily to put some goals aside, i learned yesterday that I want this goal so much more.

Shopping with my mom at Ross, I walked up and down the aisle to see if I wanted to try anything else on. As I turned towards the way to the check out, I saw a little girl about to cry, yelling "mami mami!." As i turned towards her, I heard her cry out with tears, " donde?" I froze. Oh no, she speaks spanish, I thought. I bent down and held out my hand. She took it and I immediately led her down to where the fitting rooms were to get some assistance.

Apparently Ross has no "missing child code blue" or whatever in place, so they stared at me blankly when I told them that this little girl was looking for her mom. "What is your name?" she asked the girl. She stared at the older woman blankly as I told her that she spoke spanish. As the employee and my mom were figuring out how to talk to her, I frantically searched my brain for answers. You have to at least know how to ask her name in Spanish! Four years of Spanish and 11 days working with a Spanish church and you can't remember how to ask for a name? Shame on you! Nombre? Ella? something with "la" at the end, right? The employee beat me to it. Her name was Brenda she replied. As words slowly came back to me, I began talking a little with the girl, pointing and smiling at toys she liked and using adjetives such as " favoritie, pink, pretty." Although I was frustrated with myself, I was happy to have gained confidence and have her look at me as I was trying to speak another language.

As one of the employee's announced Brenda's mom's name on the loudspeaker which I got out of her, I continued to watch and talk with her in the toy aisle. Thankfully, a spanish speaking women came over to me as the fuss was going around about a child missing a mom. She asked Brenda again what her mom's name was and gotten the same response we all had, "Dina". Finally, Brenda's dad came along 2 seconds later, saying in spanish to the women how he had let his daughter go play with the toys while they shopped. Some parents are so stupid.

I learned a lot in that hour. Number one: I want to be fluent in spanish..I was obviously jealous of that lady (well, she was of Mexican decent I think) who was able to speak to her in Spanish. I want to be able to help people out..even little kids. I want to not freeze up when a situation like that happens. I have had whole conversations in spanish..and I could not remember how to say "what is your name?" in spanish. That embarasses me. Number two: I want to stick to my goal. I honestly want to keep on reviewing my notes, doing spanish activities online, and even watching movies in spanish with subtitles (Finding Nemo is going to be my first one!). Number three: I will never leave my kid unattended in any store. She was scared out of her mind.

As I walked down to the check out, I passed Brenda who caught my eye and said something in Spanish like, "Look, I found her!" I gave a smile and replied, "Bien!" Even though I am not fluent in Spanish yet, I'm so happy that I was able to offer my hand to her and do what I could to help her out. SEeing Brenda for the last time with her looking out her black SUV window smiling at me made me want to accomplish my goal now more than ever. I want to go back to Nicaragua and go talk with all of my friends in Nicaragua in their native language and be able to help people that do not speak English that well. Mark my words babble blog, I'm going to complete it.

Bright Lights in the City World

It snowed for the first time today! Knowing that I had to study for finals this week, I headed to the library to get some work down. As the snow accumulated onto the ground, I watched from the library window thinking how gorgeous it looked. Everyone gets so excited when the first snowfall hits..but..as I learned later that night, some people probably dread the snow.

In the afternoon my friend asked me if I wanted to go to Philly tonight. Last week we handed out coats to homeless people since her church did a coat drive..and it was awesome (even though we almost got arrested for giving out coats considering it's illegal to give anything out in Philly..but that's besides the poingt). Reluncantly, I said yes and went downstairs to sort out all of the coats. It was a long, slushy drive into the city and there were a couple points where I wondered if I actually should have gone. As we parked the car, I noticed the blue lights on the Christmas tree in Love Park. Even in the dark of the evening and the rain, that tree shined so brightly and seemed to give the night a glimpse of hope.

My three friends and I decided to head downstairs by the subway since we figured a lot of people would be down there for the night considering the weather conditions at the moment. And we were right, as soon as we opened the doors, we saw people eyeing up the trash bags. "What you got in there?" they asked. "Coats, you need one? Come on, come get one. We even have hats, scarves, gloves." Enough said. Men and women came and were grateful for the donations that we were offering to them. Caught up with telling a woman that she honestly did look nice in this one black coat, I noticed a friend that was preoccupied with another woman. All of the sudden Amber shouted at me to use my phone and as I turned I saw blood on the ladies hands. I walked towards them and she had a big gash on the side of her head, blood covering the side of her face. Quickly, I gave Amber my phone as she called 911 and I handed the lady a sweatshirt to stop the blood. A police man came after a few minutes and told everyone that a medic was coming and we should all just go away..I think he really just wanted one of the homeless guys to stop talking about how he was going to beat the person up who beat this woman up.

All of us grabbed the bags and scurried out of the room, hoping the policeman wouldn't ask about the contents of the black trashbags. We all laughed nervously and agreed that there always seemed to be an incident when we came here. As I pondered that thought, I realized that they may not be a bad thing though. Sure, last week we had 2 cop incidences, but we were able to give out a lot of coats to people and didn't get arrested or anything. This week, we just happened to be in a place at the right time..with a working cell phone on hand..to call 911 for this homeless lady who had just been beat up by a group of men. I am so grateful now that God placed us there at that moment. Who knows what would have happened to her. I feel like everytime I go and I talk to the homeless or interact with them, it just makes me so much more grateful for everything in life..I just hope God can help me shine as bright as that Christmas tree; bright lights gleaming into the dark, shouting out against the world that surrounds it.