The flight into the sunset, arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The combination of yesterday and today has probably been the longest two days of my life. I had slowly been in the process of realizing more and more about where I was about to go and how far away that is from home. I always love this idea of just going, of just being out of Knoxville and experiencing things that most people either choose not to experience or have not had the opportunity to experience yet. Mind you, I still do think this, but I’ve never been more scared and nervous then I was yesterday and how I still feel right now. On the way to the airport I think I legitimately wanted to throw up. Getting on a 9 hour flight, to a place I barely knew where it was on a map….if that doesn’t sound scary I dare you to try it. There are millions of reasons I think God has sent me here and it’s pretty cool because I kept thinking that I knew some of the reasons and the more I have sat today by my lonesome the more I keep realizing reasons and the more I keep realizing I don’t have a clue why I am here. The two obvious reasons I am here is to learn Spanish and to learn more about medicine. But I strongly believe that God has me here for way more than that.
Yesterday getting on my flights were easy compared to today. Today I got off the plane in this foreign airport and I kept thinking to myself, I sure hope no one can tell I am a small American girl all by myself. All I want is for people to leave me along and not take advantage of me, but honestly, I have no control over that. My Spanish is mediocre and thus, they have the advantage. I got to the apartment I am staying at and the woman I am staying with is as sweet as can be. I already love her. She knows some English, but wants more than anything to help me with my Spanish. We walked to the school I am going to be going to for these six weeks and then she basically told me to do my own thing. My own thing…in a huge city. This city looks like San Francisco, but more worn down, dirtier, and everyone speaks another language. If you don’t know what San Francisco looks like, it essentially looks like a maze of streets in an aerial view, but down at the corner of a street all you see are tall buildings and they all look the same. It is both easy to get lost and easy to find your way again since everything eventually connects. The thing is that I don’t want to look like I don’t know where I am going, but I don’t and it’s scary. I don’t think I can describe enough the loneliness I have already felt. It is exactly what I was fearful of but exactly what I have been looking forward to. In loneliness I strongly believe that is where I am going to find God the most. I have to, where else am I going to go? I can’t truly communicate with any of you in the good ole U.S. of A and I can barely communicate with these foreigners….welp locals really, I am the foreigner! I go to the school tomorrow and I will be meeting people who are in the same boat as me. Yes, people who speak my language! But part of me is fearful of that too, I don’t want to not be lonely. I want to continue to feel what I felt today so I can continue to be drawn closer to the Lord.
This has been sucky and wonderful today. And away I go into this journey that can only shape who I am and challenge my faith.
