Date Brillo cadenita que tu mojo llega - Shine now for your day will come

Hey- I found a web site of "Dominicanisms" and I love the one above.  

I do want to Shine.  And I don't even know completely what that means.  I know I want to LIVE, really LIVE and be intentional about it.  I want to be full of LIFE, and be life-affirming and life-giving.   I want folks to see what Jesus has done for me and continues to do in me, despite me, and around me.    I want to stop sweating the stuff that doesn't matter in the long run.   I want to listen and understand what folks are trying to say to me, despite the fact that I probably understand maybe 20-70% of what I'm hearing in Spanish.    I want to have FUN.   I want to help and serve and watch people start to see the Big Picture of what God IS doing and IS about to do on this ridiculous ball of mud.

I loved today.   I loved every minute of today.  I'm sure that some of my time here is going to be difficult and hard and lonely and confusing.  But it wasn't today.   Not today.  Today I returned to El Cercado and stopped in to check on a friend who had been sick.   In fact, I have been worrying about him for the last few days.   K is a 20 year old paraplegic who lives across from the clinic.  I met him several years ago when I lived in El C soon after his accident and I've stopped in to see him a couple times since.   When we were at the El Cercado clinic on Monday, his mother came down and told me he'd been feverish and sick.   He was unable to come to the clinic (his wheelchair was malfunctioning and he was living in his mother's bed) and so on our lunch break, I took one of the docs up to see him.   He WAS sick, burning up and looking pretty bad.  We left some oral meds for him and decided to check on him the next morning and bring some other medications at that time.  Tuesday morning he was only mildly improved so we gave him an injection of Rocephin and set off for another clinic.  Tuesday afternoon when I stopped to check on him he was much worse and I was getting nervous.   However, the doctor ordered some tests at that time and we were still assuming it was a UTI.   I was soooo happy to see him this morning, up, out of bed and in his chair again, grinning and reporting feeling "SO MUCH BETTER".   We sat and had juice and talked a while.  

The trip to El C was an interesting one anyway.  I started off on a guagua (public bus) from the San Juan clinic and informed them I wanted to goto El Cercado, knowing I would have to change buses in Las Matas (the half way point).    Apparently 15 minutes later the driver realized there was another bus behind us going straight to El C so we flagged it down and I was kicked out of bus numero uno and hopped into Bus numero dos.   Then, about 2-3 miles from El Cercado, there was some sort of "protest" which I believe has some sort of political agenda and a bunch of these protesting folks decided to dig huge ditches and holes in the road and chop down huge trees and place them across the road.    It was sort of like playing a video game, swerving around enormous trees and stuff.   The driver asked where I was going and when I told him where I wanted to get off, they kicked me out of Bus numero dos and put me and another dude and our two bags on the back of a motorcycle.   Ahhhh always an adventure taking public transportation.  But nonetheless, we squished onto this itty bitty yamaha and 5 minutes later I was visiting K and his family.     1 hour, 3 modes of transportation.

I walked to my "family"s home then, stopped to visit some other friends on the way.   And I spent the rest of the day giggling, holding babies, making parachute troopers for the neighbor kids, eating insane amounts of arroz y guandules y carne (Gracias Mariel!), chatting up life with Yudi and Lorenzo and Victor and the girls and the chilluns and the neighbors.   Of course somehow I lost track of time until it was almost 4, when I was supposed to catch my bus back.   I was speedily rushed to the bus stop, where apparently it was up in the air as to when the bus would ever return???    Next stop, the public cars.   I hopped into a SMALL Toyoto with 7 other people and we were off.   In Las Matas I was dumped off at the next station, where I sat in another public car for about 20 minutes until I was driven a HALF OF A MILE to jump into a van which apparently was left over from The A-Team.  It didn't have a door.  There were 8 holes in the windshield ducktaped together.    The driver was possibly 98.  However, I had a WONDERFUL ride as we drove maybe 35 mph for the next hour to San Juan.   I had an enormous view out the entire passenger side of the van and I could see how brightly the sun was shining on the mountains and fields and palm trees.    I kept thinking to myself "Don't forget this minute....impress this picture on your mind" and then I remember how many times I've told myself that and it just washes away and I'm equally as blown away when I see it the next time.   I felt full of life.   I felt like everything was right in the world for today, that God was slaying all my dragons for me right now, that He was laughing at the A-Team van too but so grateful for the great view out of the entire passenger side doorway.  

It might not last, this feeling.   And hey, I know faith isn't about feelings.   I've made this choice in my life, that I want to be with and about Jesus and I'm IN forever and sometimes it "feels" great and other times I "feel" like it's soooo hard!    So feelings...yeah, whatever feelings.   But today was good.   It was pretty darn perfect.   And now you've kinda shared it with me.

So you know.. Date brillo cadenita que tu mojo llega.