ArgenTINA Here She Comes

These past few weeks have been spent packing, amazoning, moving, and preparing for a quarter at an Adventist college in Argentina. YES! I love going to new places! I get so excited that I sometimes forget to pack really important things (a toothbrush, underwear, shoes, phone chargers), or I forget to say goodbye to really important people, or finalize school registration, sign important papers, email professors, schedule flights (not good). I remember packing for my trip to India 3 ½ years ago where I was moving to teach at a boarding school for 9 months. I made a checklist, but only packed half the list and when I got to India, it was good that I packed light because I didn't need much and I lived out of my suitcase. But I wished I could have somehow packed in my bags some extra courage, a pop-up friend, or a teleporting device. Loneliness seemed to be the only thing that came out of my big suitcase. Today I read an excerpt from Henri Nouwen on loneliness: 

Riding on top of a bus in Nepal. 

Aloneness is a natural fact. No on in the world is like me. No one else feels and experiences the world the way I do: I am alone. As Christians, we are called to convert our loneliness in to solitude - not a wound, but a gift - God's gift so that in our aloneness we might discover how deeply we are loved by God. It is precisely where we are most alone, most unique, most ourselves, that God is closest to us, where we experience God as the divine, loving Father, who knows us better than we know ourselves. But the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon -- a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding. The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for the one who can tolerate its sweet pain. 

I read through my journal from India a few days ago, more like cringed through every page. But everyday I had written prayers for "strength and courage to face another desolate, lonely day." And everyday God would assure me, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." 

I know Truth. And I'm ready to live in Truth! 

Tina's in ArgenTINA :) Flying out January 2nd. 

Email me! kristina.rhuman@gmail.com

Skype me! kristinarhuman