Jumblelaya: Thoughts That Think

• It has officially been a month since I came here. Today is July 1st.

• It is also a week before my 24th birthday. Funny though.. nearly a year ago, I was "planning" my next birthday to be my Golden 24Kobe Year.. especially after starting off my 23rd year being quite a hotmess in front of my closest friends & family. Man, what a shame... if I knew I would be spending my 24th, away from home, let alone Afghanistan, I might have acted more accordingly that day one year ago... haha, probs not.

• Well, I guess have to throw out the gold-themed extravaganza I was planning on having... perhaps this year is meant for something less glam, more basic. Yeah. That is pretty much what I have to be grateful for here. I am living in a third world country yet I am living in luxury, in terms of what people in surrounding areas have in comparison to me.
  
  What I have here:
  I have three meals a day (even if my stomach rejects it all), I have working electricity (most of the time), I am able to take a warm bath every night (I downsized to one plastic tub of water from my first week here.. go me!), I have 4 pairs of pants & 8 tops to choose from every day, I have access to internet (even if it feels like 56K) that lets me Skype with my family every day or so, I have a Dari language tutor that I pay 100 Afs/hour for (45 Afs = $1).

• Geez, looking at the things I listed above... living in America automatically labels my life as 'Spoiled'.
  
• A month is too early to say, but I am still waiting on Him to see what I came out here for. There have been a lot of running thoughts in my mind.
• Before I came out here, I said that the only reason I would go back home, short of my yearlong commitment, would be if I felt uneasy about my safety here. I guess Osama's death kind of jacked it up for my arrival here because I do not think I have felt safe since the day I got here. 
• People in the US all heard about the hotel attack in Kabul earlier this week, which was a big attack & quite intricate. But only about 21 people (9 bad guys, 12 good guys) died. I say only as if I am not phased by these things happening around this country, every day... but it is true. The other day 35 women & children were killed in a maternity ward of a hospital, with about 20 more injured on top of that. That kind of stuff breaks my heart more.
  
  
                      Looks like a scene from a Hollywood film
  
• I live next door to a police compound that was placed here as headquarter for the Parliament building across the street a week or so before I came here. We share walls with the unit and it honestly does not make me feel so good. I always hear them talking at night, along with the army helicopters that run all night.. and then add the 12:30AM & 3:30AM Muslim prayer time. I sometimes hear a single gunshot noise somewhere in the distance.
  
• I am pretty lonely here. I share a house with M/M Pae who are great to me and I have no complaints being with them. But our times are limited to meal times. Besides that, I am alone. I think it took me a while to accept this, even though it is one of things I prepared myself for before I came out. It was on my list of P-requests and I know a lot of people are P-ing on my behalf. Maybe that is why I was denying and holding it in, even from myself. I did not want to disappoint the obvious. After spending 90% of my waking hours alone in the past two weeks, I had no where to hide from the rather large elephant in the room. 
• So I did it. I cried last night. I was walking around aimlessly in my house and then it just went off. I cried for about 3 hours; in the bathroom, on my bed, at my desk. I just let it out to Him. I felt like I had to, after a month of suppressing it; it was the only thing left to do. I wanted to do it without feeling guilty, for the people who were supporting me & my pride that always seems to act stronger than I really am.
• Of course, this is nothing new to the One who brought me out here. He knew I would be like this as it happened a year ago in Spain. He embraced me. He reminded me of Hosea's wife, just as it was revealed to me then, in a different place/time in my life. "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." (H. 2:14) 

Anyway, I am just running off on a million thoughts. A lot of people are P-ing for different things for my time here. Some are asking for Him to release me early, some for me to do amazing work, some neither, some etc etc etc. I had a long talk with my Leader from Hillside. He reminded me to not to stay here or go home for my own set goals or for the expectation of those who sent me.. It was a much-needed reminder. I will be more intentional in my p-time and seeing what really is meant from all this.