My haze.

Have you ever felt like you're moving, speaking, eating, working in a haze?  Like you know that life is happening all around you but somehow, you can't engage it?  Like you realize that all it might take to get out of it might be one small change but you just can't find the energy to do it?   My haze has been going for several weeks now and I can't decide how to get out.  There are some major changes coming to my life but right now I'm in a holding pattern.  With no students this semester, there is still much work to do but also plenty of time for reflection and waxing philosophical - something I'm doing far too much of it would seem.  But my haze seems to be deep and real, as opposed to shallow and quick like they usually are.

I am completely and totally exhausted - in every possible way.  Physically - I've been sick for the better part of a year.  Most of it hasn't been huge, life-altering sickness.  But chronic sinusitis and ear infection number 7 (which I was diagnosed with this week) make for a weak girl.  I want to work out but I literally have no energy.  I want to read but can't seem to stay awake, regardless of the venue.  I want to go to coffee with friends, but can't seem to get motivated to even call them.  I want to finish some big projects, but can't seem to focus my mind for more than thirty seconds.  I want to blog more - to purge some of what's on my heart - but can't seem to create lucid thought.  I want to talk to friends or family back in the states, but can't seem to even open Skype for fear of having nothing to say.  Emotionally & Spiritually - I'm drained.  I've spent the last four and a half years pouring my heart out on students and local friends, all the while attempting to maintain some semblance of relationship with friends and family in the US.  I've sent out countless updates about my life and been completely crushed to only receive 3 or 4 responses from the 598 people that receive it.  I've felt alone and abandoned and at times loved and cherished.  And though I have prayed and stayed in the Word, I am just depleted.  I'm in a constant haze.

I would love to wake up one morning and see clearly, breathe clearly, function clearly and I am believing for that day to come quickly.  So until then, I'll make doctors appointments and sit in uncomfortable places to read.  I'll force myself to walk up and down the stairs in my house and trade in motorbike rides for good long walks.  I'll reread the sweet and encouraging emails I've received from friends and my loving parents.  I'll make small, but manageable deadlines for projects and load my Entourage with task reminders.  And I'll do what we all do - plug along in the haze until the clarity comes.  Sigh...

My new blog layout.

In a further fit of blog avoidance, I spent several moments (read: more than an hour) looking at new blog layouts. I scoured several sites, trying to work out some major issues: "What kind of tone do I want to set? What do I want my readers to think upon arrival to my blog? Who am I trying to impress? Who am I really?" As you can see, it led me to more pondering and not so much of the blog changing.

However, after much debate and several changes of HTML (I do love to cut and paste), I settled on this one. You might recognize it as the same one I had before. And that's because it is. I decided it worked for me. Peaceful, whimsical, dreamy, simple, easy. "Why the post about it?" you ask? I decided that I'm not that different from anyone else and some days all I can muster up is some mindless internet surfing and a lame blog post. As for witty anecdotes and soulful life evaluation, they're coming.

I told you I might be bad at this.

My hot mess.

I am a mess. I'm ok with it, honestly. I have come to realize in the past few years that not only am I a mess, but I am not unique in my mess. The main difference between me and most other people I know is that I can see (most of) my mess and fully embrace it. Most people do not and I totally get it. It is so much easier to live in blissful oblivion. It is so much easier to think that everything is great and that "I don't do any of the major sins so everything's cool, right?" Well maybe it is and maybe it isn't. But that isn't exactly the point. The point is, we all struggle, we all fail. The sooner we reach a place where we accept that we are flawed and constantly on a journey to something better for ourselves, the sooner we will experience the fullness of relationship with each other and with God.

As I've shared my failures and struggles with people over the past few years, I have been amazed by the amount of times I've heard comments like "wow, you're so self-aware" or "You're so at peace with who you are." Well...yeah. I guess so. I don't think it has to do with being enlightened or even lacking self-consciousness. (I'm a woman. I'm self-conscious about some things. It's what we do.) It's just that life is too short to not embrace who I am. I am not a million things that I want to be. But I am also so much that I didn't know I was. Every day, when I'm challenged by something, I get to find out about something else I can do or that I might just be good at, mostly because I'm not scared anymore about what I'll find. I'll either be good at it or I won't. I guess that's it - I'm not so self-evolved that I love everything about myself. I'm just not scared of me anymore. I'm a mess and I know it.

I have so many issues and I could list them here and feel fine about it - not because I'm proud of them, but because I know who I am and whose I am. I am a child of the King and I am redeemed. And while I do not do it on purpose, the more of a mess I am, the more Jesus gets to save me. He's amazing at it and it seems that no matter how hard I try, I'm constantly in need of saving. And He is such a good saviour!

Most of us like to pretend that we aren't a mess. It's just not true. And so many of us use our issues as an excuse not to pursue the opportunities that lie before us. Anyone ever heard the "I really need to work some issues out before I can really be in a relationship" excuse? My response: "While I'm sure that you have issues, I'm also sure that I do too. Want someone to walk beside you in your mess? I'll be there. You hold my hand and I'll hold yours - we can walk together." Anyone ever heard the "As soon as I get my mess together, I'll [insert dream or passion here]" from someone? Ever used it yourself? My response: "If you're waiting until you've gotten everything figured out and everything 'fixed' you will wait forever. It's not because you are a bad person. It's just that you aren't Jesus. You are not, nor will you ever be, perfect. Don't wait. Just do it." These responses don't make sense to some people and do not make me popular in some circles. But they are the truth, as far as I can tell.

And what about community? Aren't we supposed to share our mess with each other and help each other walk through the pain and immaturity and fear and joy and struggle together? Isn't that why we were created? I don't care about so-and-so's cute shoes or even the global recession. I want to talk about YOU. You are important to me. The things that are going on in your life matter to me and when you share your mess with me, I'm not burdened. I'm honored that you picked me to tell. I'm so glad that I'm not the only one with a mess! I'm so glad that I know that you have struggled through that thing I'm going to deal with in 4 years and don't even know about yet - I'll be back to talk to you about it then. I'm so glad that all of the crap I've been through over the past two years can encourage you to grab hold of what is beautiful in your life right now, because I learned that painful two-year lesson already. This is not where judgment lives. This is not where condemnation lives. This, dear friends, is community. This, dear friends, is what we were made for. This, dear friends, is the Body of Christ, the fellowship of believers. This is good.

The truth is that life is messy. Our expectation of ourselves and others should be that we are all a mess and that the only thing that is lovely or wonderful within us is Christ. I'm a hot mess. A hot, stinkin', flamin' pile of mess. And He loves me. And so do I.

My reusable shopping bags.

This is why I try hard not to accept plastic bags from any vendor at any time:
This is my neighbor's yard. I estimate that there are approximately 4 jillion
plastic bags there. This is only a third of the yard.

I implore you, please stop using these horrible bags. They are
terrible for our world. Reusable shopping bags are cute and cheap.
They come in every fabric, color and with a variety of logos and sizes.
God gave us an extraordinarily gorgeous planet and we are ruining it.
Do we want our world to end up looking
like my neighbor's yard? NO!
Do something small today for our planet. Be a good steward of the earth
that God is letting us live on.

Reusable instead of plastic, please.

My issue with self-help books.

Just knowing this book exists makes me want to cuss. I saw it in a bookstore in Bangkok last week and almost cried...not because I'm not in love, but because this is the kind of book that makes people hate love. This is the kind of book that trivializes something beautiful and makes normal people do crazy things. Have you seen He's Just Not That Into You? Did you see the insane lengths the girl went to to hook her man? Oh, the obsession. It's because of books and movies and messages from every side telling us there is a gimmick to finding love. And before I address the gimmick, let me say this quickly before I explode:

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU (ME) JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE (I AM) SINGLE.

I refuse to play the role of the bitter, single girl because I'm not bitter. I really love my life. Sure, there are days that I really struggle with wanting to be married. But I'm not bitter. Truly. What I am is sick of being treated as if my life is not valuable because I'm not in a long term relationship. I'm exhausted from trying to explain to people why I'm 31 and not married. (The answer, in case you were wondering, is "I don't know why I am single any more than I know why you are married.") And if I have to hear one more person say something to the effect of "As soon as you stop looking, you'll find him" or "When you get to the place where you're OK with being single, he'll show up", I will scream. I realize these comments are meant to be an encouragement, but they are not. They are maddening. And almost everyone says things like this as a married and cusses people that say it as a single. I have a girlfriend who always complained about people doing that to her. She was livid every time. Two months after she got married, guess what she said to me. Uh huh.

Here's the thing...are you ready for the divine revelation? There is no trick, scheme, or ploy to make love happen. There are no cool patterns or legitimate 12-step programs to follow. There is not a single book in the self-help section of any bookstore that will help you create love. I do not know why some people find love and others do not. I have no idea why some people meet the love of their life in the seventh grade and others in their 50s. I haven't got a clue why sometimes even people who believe they are in love do not end up together. But though I am single and have not been in a relationship in six years, I still love love. I am a lover. I love hard and fast and full. And I want to get married, to share my life with someone. But it's not a game.

I stood in a room a few years ago with 1200 single people for a Christmas party. I couldn't believe it, honestly. I watched for several hours as women and men in their 20s, 30s and 40s prowled the room in search of their next date. I've never seen so much hair twirling, lip gloss applying, lame joke telling, or blatant flirting going on in all of my life. But at the end of the night, there were still 1200 single people. And it got me to thinking...what is the matter with us??? We've made it so hard! We approach potential mates with our checklist in hand, ready to dismiss them as soon as they don't live up to the impossible standard we have applied to "The One." Did it ever occur to us that we, ourselves, could never possibly live up to that same standard?

"Dear God, I'll have a tall, super hot man with kinda dirty hair, kind of rocker-style, and intense eyes. He needs to be incredibly spiritual, while not being boring or judgmental. He should play the guitar, sing like Josh Groban and will obviously serenade me to sleep each night with original love songs he will compose daily because he'll be so entranced by my beauty. He must be hysterical, but not needy in his humor - every one will love him and I'll beam with pride as he takes the center of attention in any room. I'm sure he'll want to travel the world, helping the poor, oppressed and sick and he'll never want any praise. He'll, of course, be independently wealthy, but very down-to-earth. He'll write me poetry and be the best father in the world. Oh, and he will have to dance. Oh oh, and cook. And do laundry. And..."

NO NO NO NO NO!!! I am not these things. Well, I may be some of these things but why do we do this to each other? We are so attached to the idea of what we do or do not want in a person that we probably wouldn't even know it if something great, if not unexpected, was staring us in the face. We all decide what we want and we call it independence or confidence or any number of other seemingly positive, but often negative, words. What's wrong with depending on other people? Maybe there's a point where confidence in ourselves blinds us to the greatness in others? But if I'm looking for Mr. Perfect, I'm never going to find him. What might happen if I (read: we) stopped listening to the negative messages all around me? What if I stopped acknowledging the insane voice in my head that forces me to obsess over a phone call or what I'll wear to a party in case "The One" might be there? What if I was actually open to the possibility that love is all around me (Go watch Love Actually immediately!) and that I, in fact, might be my own worse enemy in this scenario? What if it's me that is afraid to commit, only I don't know it because I push people away so that I don't have to end things? What if I am the one with baggage from relationships past? What if I am so terrified of being fully known and loved unconditionally by another human being that I am the one sabotaging everything that comes my way because it's safer to be single than vulnerable or worse...known? We are all a mess and acknowledging that is so important to loving and being loved. We can't expect perfection from others - we don't expect it from ourselves. Nor can we expect members of the opposite sex to complete us in any way, though many of us do. (By this I mean that many people believe they will be happy, fulfilled, safe, secure, confident, etc. once they finally get married. Maybe that's a blog for another day.) There are aspects of loving flawed people that are difficult. But love in general just isn't supposed to be this hard.

Love is patient, kind. It doesn't get jealous or arrogant - it isn't proud. Love isn't rude or self-seeking and it doesn't get mad easily. It doesn't keep a list of wrongs. Love rejoices in truth, not evil (aka. self-help books preying on innocent, albeit misguided, men and women who just want to not be alone). It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. Not this kind anyway. I love love. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I believe in love and want it and love love. Really.


* I also love the use of italics.

My musical absence part 1.

I was reminded this morning of the pain of loss and how it keeps us paralyzed, often unable to move past it. Let me explain:

From as far back as I can remember, I was always singing. I sang at church. I sang at school. I sang in the car, the shower, my room, the yard, the street - it didn't matter. I loved it. And because I had also always been overweight, I believed that music was the only good thing about me, the redemptive quality to my otherwise meager and unlovely existence. I never got compliments on my looks or my clothes or my contribution to class projects. I was a singer and I felt good about that. And then I picked up the French Horn and excelled. My parents musical abilities were passed on well and I found my identity in that microphone. And honestly, I loved the attention it got me and the compliments that I didn't get anywhere else in my life. When someone asked me to sing for an event, I would throw my hands up in mock protest, knowing full-well they were going to ask me - why wouldn't they? I ate it up. While all of my friends were getting asked on dates, I was getting asked to stand in front of people and sing. It didn't take effort, it just was.

In college, I performed in a musical ensemble with Campus Ministry and quickly took the lead role from the group's shining star. I won't lie, I loved it. And when I quickly learned to play the guitar at the end of freshman year, I was asked to not only sing but play. All of a sudden, my stock soared and I was very popular, from weddings to retreats. It was tiring, being in the limelight so much, but I adapted quickly. And then, it happened. I met First Love. He sat next to me on a retreat and sang with me and quickly asked me for guitar lessons and singing pointers. He was beautiful and popular and I couldn't believe he was interested in me. Yet somehow, our relationship developed over lifegroup guitar sing-a-longs and late night movies. We dated for the better part of two years, singing and playing everywhere together. It was some of the most amazing times of my life to that point. It seemed perfect and I knew we would get married and be traveling musicians for the rest of our lives. Like Waterdeep. But as you would expect from his blog moniker First Love, he broke up with me. And my world fell apart. Two days after we broke up, I had to sing and play at our weekly bible study and, with exception to a few weddings, it was the last time I performed publicly. It was 1999. Something died in my soul that day and it's only over the past few years that I've been able to name it and begin healing from it.

From years of observation, I'd say most breakups work like this: guy seems to move on quickly, girl sits around for months trying to figure out what she did wrong. I am no exception to this pattern and spent the next few years (yes, I said years) trying to explain to myself that I was, in fact, lovable and that I would someday find "the one." In that process and in that place of deep insecurity, the questions that would haunt me for years surfaced: "Did he only fall for me because of my music? Did he just love the idea of me because of the musical roadshow we would rock all over the nation? Wasn't there something more to me in his mind than 'Girl Who Sings'?" (Interestingly, my next boyfriend would, very sweetly, give me an old book of collected poems, one of which was entitled "My Girl Who Sings" and I couldn't breathe.) These questions and others like them kept me from sleep at times, from beginning new or substantial relationships, and from singing. I'm not sure I picked up the base guitar again after that, until I sold it to move overseas six years later. I didn't want to play the guitar anymore, where I had once sat for hours in my apartment, fingers bleeding, heart full, Jenn Knapp lyrics belting their way into my neighbor's living room.

At some point in the midst of all of that, music lost it's joy for me. Or to be more specific, music for the joy of music disappeared. I still loved to worship and continued to be on worship teams for Campus Ministry and Barn Church. I even lead in North Africa for our team worship times. And through all of that worshiping, I was learning how to become an "Invisible Worshiper" like Matt Redman reminded me to be and God was transforming my heart. It wasn't about me, but how I could usher people into His presence. And I almost forgot that I used to write songs and that music used to overflow out of every part of me. I tucked away that fear that I was only as good as the notes that came out of my mouth. And I never thought about First Love or how deeply our relationship had wounded me years before. But then I met someone who ruined my life, in an incredibly painful but beautiful way. After knowing me for about five seconds, he had more insight into my heart than I'd had in years. He said, "You have to let go of the fear that you're only worth that. There is so much more to you than music, though it's an incredible gift. And it's not that you're prideful and it's not that you aren't hurting, but you have to let it go. You have to sing." (That's an incredible generous paraphrase as I don't remember exactly what he said. But that's what I remember about it.) A few weeks later, his close friends even prophesied over me in a sports bar, having met me two hours earlier over tapas, that I had a new song to sing and that I had to keep singing. I have never felt more exposed. Trying to deflect the conversation from me and my issues, I told him he needed to paint, that there was creativity in him that needed to come out on canvas. He said, "As soon as you write another song, I'll paint." Crap.

That was more than two years ago. No song, no paint. Just the healing remnants of a broken girl.

My 25 things.

Since the last post was somewhat painful, I decided to share a bit of myself with you in a more lighthearted way. Enjoy.

1. I am a total homebody. I'd rather eat dinner at home any night of the week than go to a restaurant. Except for Mexican because I don't have enough of the Latina in me to make good tortillas. And while I do enjoy going out with friends and doing things at other people's homes, I'm just as content to stay home and read or watch a movie.

2. I often surprise myself with my athletic prowess, because I never thought I had any. My best sport is roller skating, not blading. But it turns out, I'm pretty decent at many sports including: ultimate frisbee, volleyball, freeze tag and chase-the-kid-to-get-my-key-back. And I can dance.

3. I hate when people misuse words or when they look at me all crazy for correctly using a word that is more commonly misused.

4. I love water. I love to drink it, sit in it, swim in it, ski on it (frozen, that is), kiss in it (rain kisses are excellent), get clean in it. I do NOT love when it melts in my Diet Coke.

5. I think people who give themselves nicknames are lame.

6. My favorite scent is Lever 2000 Antibacterial soap. After a shower when I catch a wiff of myself, all is right with the world. (I'm a simple girl.)

7. I am drawn to raw honesty and repelled by anything fake or contrived.

8. I love strong discussions with someone passionate about their beliefs. I do not love people with no opinions or worse, those that don't share their opinions because they are either apathetic or scared. It's ok for us to disagree. You're probably right. The Good Book didn't say we had to agree on everything or even like everyone. We're just supposed to love each other in spite of all of that. Let's debate!

9. I still dream of singing the National Anthem at a Rangers' game.

10. I love tattoos. I have three, am getting another soon and totally love this tattoo, which is not mine. I do not love this guy. And it gets worse.

11. I call myself a theoretical linguist. I mean that, on paper and in theory, I'm awesome at languages. I am excellent at grammar and all of the parts of language that most people struggle with. (I made 4th on the National Spanish Exam in the 9th grade - all written.) Because I've been a musician most of my life, I hear tones and mimic well so I'm generally great at pronunciation. I'm terrible at speaking, mostly because my memory is awful. (I grew up by enormous power lines. No really.) I understand far more than I can actually recall. So Arabic took awhile, but when I got it, people often confused me for a local, though that happened more on the phone than in person. Southeast Asian Tonal Language beats me down on a regular basis.

12. I love trampolines - big ones. We used to sleep outside in the backyard under the tramp fort we would build. Occasionally, we would cover it with liquid soap and turn the sprinklers on under it. It. Was. Awesome.

13. I always believe in the goodness in people. Sometimes I get burned. But I think I'd rather get burned every once in a while than live believing that people are always awful or mostly untrustworthy. That hurts my heart.

14. I'm pretty sure I'm not the best at anything. And I lack discipline to be the best, especially if someone I know is better than me at that thing. It's not about competition. It's more like "they're already really good at that thing, I'll be their biggest fan."

15. I love my hair. I realize that as a woman, I'm supposed to not like anything about my appearance, but I love my hair. So there.

16. I am addicted to Web Sudoku.

17. I spent most of my high school and college years deeply insecure and as a result, built a wall around my hardened heart that couldn't be penetrated. Now, I bruise easily and am far more sensitive than I even think I am. And I'm totally fine with it.

18. I am often overwhelmed by the horrific need and injustice around me and am disappointed in myself and others for doing so little about it. I cry a lot.

19. I love watching people discover things - new places, new cultures, new foods, new depths in their own hearts, new ability to love. Love it.

20. I hate excuses.

21. I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I love the life it affords me and I hate it when it doesn't work.

22. I do not receive gifts well. I want to give you a gift, but I don't want you to give me one. I know you love me because you spend quality time with me. Also, hugs are better than gifts. (What is your love language?)

23. I hate money.

24. I am completely happy to let someone help me with things I can't do. I don't have that innate "NO! I have to figure it out myself!" thing. I don't have time for all that.

25. At my core, I just want to love people and be loved back. Sounds simple, right?

My action.

For a few years now, my heart has been particularly burdened for victims of injustice of any kind all over the world. Via the media, I've watched helplessly as thousands upon thousands of my fellow humans have been enslaved or killed at the hands of merciless men and it has turned my stomach and started the flow of tears every time. And now I live in a part of the world where enormous injustices happen around me daily. I see handicapped men crawling down the road to the cardboard box they will sleep in. I see children sewing cargo shorts in a congested shop and stifling heat for $1 a day. I see fathers pimping out their five year old daughters from their taxis. I see atrocities that I don't want to talk about. And I wonder where God is in the midst of these things. I struggle to understand what my role is in following the God of justice. God loves these children, so I must love these children. Every day, men and women around me are being oppressed by communism, buddhism, poverty, horrid water conditions, rivers of sewage, relentless civil war. And I believe God hates it. So we must hate it. And we must do something about it. I must do something about it.

I spent the last two weeks trying to see firsthand what is being done to prevent or end the trafficking of children and women in Southeast Asia for sexual exploitation. After spending a few days in Dirty Town, I traveled eight hours with my team to Border Town. My understanding was that it is the place for seeing the truth about trafficking. What I found there broke my heart. There are a number of NGOs and even Christian organizations working there - encouraging. There are some really great projects going on to educate communities about traffickers' schemes and how to report suspected traffickers - encouraging. There are schools being built to keep border kids from going across into Other Country for work, making them more vulnerable to being trafficked - encouraging. But there was only one organization in the city that was working directly at protecting or rescuing girls - distressing. How can these organizations see and feel the evil that is apparent from the main street to the Red Light District and not do anything to help? My heart broke.

As we met with people from different organizations, hoping to find someone to partner with in the future, we continued to hear the same things: "Well, we don't really have anything to do with trafficking per se..." or "Yeah, that's a really big problem here." We even heard someone from Prestigious Worldwide Christian Organization say, "Well, once they get here there's not really anything you can do anyway." Broken heart. Enraged heart! Where is their rage?? Where is their disgust?? Where is their contempt for these villains who steal lives for profit?? I do not understand. It's remarkable to me that anyone in Border Town can sleep, let alone function, apart from trying to get help for these victims. The evil is tangible there, hanging like a shroud, ready to choke at any minute. I walked 200 meteres down the street alone and was so overwhelmed by the oppression and what I can only imagine were propositions spewing from mouths of drunken men that I hailed the first motorbike taxi I found and returned to the safety of my team.

Trafficking and prostitution are just parts of life here. It is completely acceptable for men in many parts of Asia to have extramarital affairs with prostitutes - the younger the better for most. Virginity is sold at exorbitant rates and girls are sewn up and forced to have sex again before their wounds heal so that the bleeding makes their fake virginity seem real. Children as young as 5 stand in rooms crowded with their peers and battle to perform oral sex on customers at $5 a piece. Men from every corner of the Western world travel to Southeast Asia to have sex with young boys - the sex tourism industry flourishes as the demand grows daily. The sex trade provides revenues of $42 billion annually some reports say. It's so much a part of life that girls who are freed return because of the lack of opportunity or acceptance of what they see as their fate.

It's disgusting. When I'm not wanting to throw up, all I want to do is cry. But my tears won't change anything here My concern does little for the 2-4 million people trafficked annually worldwide. My interest in the issue is of little concern to the trafficker who laughs all the way to the bank. I can pray all day and I can give all the money I have and both of those things are great. But I keep thinking that my action has to matter. My action has to matter. My action matters.

ACTION: the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim; a thing done, an act.

My bug.

Since we returned from Christmas, we're pretty sure our house is bugged. No, not beetles or roaches or ants, though any of those would be better. Bugged as in "are you freaking kidding me someone's listening to our conversations??" bugged. Wire taps. Not having any of the required electronic detection equipment to check for said bugs, I have thoroughly inspected my bedroom and the living room with my headlamp and have found nothing. I've considered screaming at the top of my lungs continuously for a few hours in the hopes of either breaking the devices or driving the listener to the hospital with a busted eardrum. I'll do it. But wait, there's more.

A few weeks ago, Community Cop (of Comm Cop for short) showed up telling us that we hadn't registered our students as guests in our homes in a timely enough fashion and that the fine was roughly $300. Uh huh. The fine for people not registering their guests in a third world country is $300 - everyone can pay that, right? Interestingly, two months prior he had told us that he needed $300 to buy a laptop. We weren't really sure what to do and though $300 is a lot of money, $1200 is a whole lot more. ($300 x 4 students) We asked our friends, then did as they suggested and went to the main neighborhood station and registered with Big Dawg. Comm Cop was not pleased - we got him in trouble. While on our last trip, I received an email from our friend Teacher Man saying that he had been called into the police station four times in two weeks. He was first questioned as to our jobs, agendas, and motivations for being here and then questioned about his own job and other personal information. A few others have been questioned as well. And we've been told our rental agreement is void. And Shifty Motorbike Man was sitting outside our house this morning for an hour, not moving...just waiting. Waiting for what, you ask? I'm not sure but I don't like it.

We've heard stories from several foreigner friends of calls being monitored. Scottish Bloke was speaking to someone at the phone company and heard something in the background. When he stopped speaking, he realized that the voice he was hearing was his own - a conversation he had with the same office the week before. It had been recorded and accidentally played back. Perhaps Phone Call Monitor hit play instead of record? But one of our students complained today about the weird voices she could hear when she made a call earlier. Perhaps something similar?

I knew prior to moving here that the chances were good that I would be "monitored" but I'm sure in the back of my head I believed it wouldn't be true. Surely there are much more interesting people to monitor. Surely there are much bigger things going on than what happens in my house. But groups gathering "in private" (meaning anywhere) are assumed government conspirators. We gather daily in my house. All foreigners, particularly those of my nationality, are monitored, watched, followed, tracked, kept under surveillance. I wonder if I need to constantly be watching over my shoulder.

Though we believe that Comm Cop is doing all of this out of spite, it's possible they were on to us all along. Perhaps our days are numbered, perhaps we'll be around for years. Who knows. What I do know is that anyone with any kind of wiretap detection device should board a plane immediately, bound for Southeast Asia. But please, make sure you wrap it in socks, duct tap and plastic before shoving it to the bottom of your incredibly large hiking pack.

My explanation.

Why "daring love" you ask? I love the idea that "Life is a daring and bold adventure or nothing at all" - thank you Eleanor Roosevelt and Jerome. And I understand that. Daring + Bold + Life = Good. But add love into the mix and I'm thrown for a loop. We all want love and we should all give love but do we even really know what it means to love or be loved fully? Do we know how to accept it when it's offered and do we even recognize it when it's available? And even more, what do we do with it when we get it?

I've always loved the idea of love. But simultaneously, I think I've been terrified to fully allow myself to have or hold onto it, with few exceptions - my family, my First Love in college, Best Friend and the more recent Incomprehensible Mystery.* I feel like a lover and I want to be known as a lover, but I'm not entirely sure I can do that unless I really grab hold of love in its fullness. I want to know and give and feel that kind of love from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I want to revel in it, wallow in it, and bask in it. But if I'm honest, I'm terrified of it. I want to be known and loved, but am also scared to fully be known and loved. What if I fail? What if I hurt someone or worse, lose it? It's easier not to try, right? The answer must unequivocally be "NO!" But why is it so hard?

All of us are surrounded by people day in and day out that are longing for love, aching for it. I want to love them in a daring way! I want to love them bold and hard and full. I want to love the poor and oppressed, the corrupt and the scandalous. I want to love the unlovable and the forgotten and to do this, I'm going to have to be daring. There's no way around it. If I'm going to be fully loved by people, it's going to take some daring there's no doubt. If I'm going to even presume to understand the sacrifice of love that was made for me, I'm going to have to be daring in my faith. Daring love. I want it. I need it. I want to give it and live it. Perhaps what Eleanor meant was "Love is a daring and bold adventure or nothing at all."

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent or guilty, as the case may be.

My promise.

Though most people that know me would probably argue the point, I've never felt like I had enough to say to actually have my own blog. And though I've traveled extensively and lived outside the US for the past four years, I've never felt interesting enough to blog. Don't get me wrong, I like blogs. I'm addicted to a few and even have a daily craving for some of the laugh-out-loud stories and unfathomable intelligence behind their observations of life, but I'm so boring. What on earth would I talk about? How would I ever live up to the incredible pressure of having something witty and/or poignant to say on a regular basis? Could I possibly have anything of value to impart to my fellow sojourners? Would I ever be disciplined enough to be a faithful blogger? Would anyone want to read it anyway? And truly, I don't know.

I'm only confident in one thing at this point in my life and it's that I have no idea. I don't know if I'll be a good blogger. I certainly can't promise I'll write about big, life-changing revelations or dazzle you with my comedic genius. I'm sure I won't. You'll probably laugh more at me than with me. There will be days that you'll roll your eyes and days you'll question my sanity. You will want to argue with me and I'll like that. I will very likely go for weeks at a time not posting anything, followed by several weeks of three posts a day - I'm a journaling binge and purger. But I promise you this: for better or for worse, you'll get me - my thoughts, my frustrations, my perspective, my experiences, my joys, my struggle to understand the world around me. I don't know what else it will be, but it will absolutely be me - messy, vulnerable, and honest. That I can promise.