Challenging Moments

This is not the first time (nor the last time) that I have talked about Maria de los Angeles. As some of you know, she recently went to Bolivia to do her thesis. As many do not know, she had a hard time from the beginning. She was supposed to be living with the nuns in a convent and then decided that that would not be best for her spiritual walk and bailed out to live with the rest of the students.
This caused her problems on two ends… the nuns decided that they did not like her because she bailed and the students decided that she was a “nun” because she was supposed to live with them. This was just the first of many things that have happened to Maria in the past couple of months with the most recent being problems with the university she is working with. She was meant to go and help teach some of the poorer people in the area how to produce and sell their own food, but is currently teaching Biology and Chemistry instead. Needless to say, she is very frustrated and I received an email a couple weeks ago telling me she desperately wanted to come home.
Yesterday I was able to chat with her on-line and was overjoyed by what she told me. Not one of her circumstances has changed… she still doesn’t like her job and things are still very difficult, BUT because of all of this she has grown very close to the heart of God. She told me that HE has been the one sustaining her through all of this.
As I inquired as to what she had been studying (since there isn’t a Christian church in her city, to my knowledge) she said she was studying Romans and that she LOVED it. As we talked she asked about a passage in chapter 10 that was confusing her. I looked at the passage to see if I could shed any light on it, but found myself also quite confused. So we looked at it together and came to an answer… SHE challenged ME and I learned something new about the Word that I had never seen before. How awesome is that?! The Holy Spirit is teaching us both through his Word.
I miss her desperately (me and the girls took the above picture to show Maria where she “should have been” at a recent birthday party :)) but am so excited to see what the Lord is doing in and through her life. He has awesome plans for her there in Bolivia and one of them is definitely to grow closer to Him.