Hello all!

I don’t have much to share about this week. It was a bit of an emotional week for me and I would like to keep most of it in my private journal for myself. I will say though, I was feeling quite homesick. This is the second time I’ve been homesick during my time here in Peru. Of course, I’ve missed my family and friends, but it has only been homesickness once. I am grateful that I have been able to be so strong and that I have held myself together so well emotionally. I have been away for almost twice as long as my record time being away from my family (five weeks), so I am impressed.

I also spent a lot of time this week doing a lot of personal reflection. About who I have become, who I am, and who I am becoming. I have been thinking about my goals that I set before coming here and when I realized that I’m not quite doing as well with them as I had planned I naturally was a bit hard on myself for it. I am always striving to better myself and I get disappointed in myself easily when I don’t pursue this goal as actively as I think I should.

Another thing that has been bothering me is what I want my future to be. I think about this periodically and sometimes, like this week, I get kind of anxious about it. I am a girl with a plan, and when I don’t have a plan, I feel slightly lost. The issue is that I have a lot of passions and I want to pursue all of them, but there isn’t really a way to do this, at least not at any one time in my life. One thing that calms me when I get anxious about my future is that I have developed a way of thinking in that my life is a book. I have many chapters, and while I may not be able to pursue everything in one chapter, I may be able to dedicate certain chapters to certain areas in which I am passionate about. The biggest thing that always gets me is music. Music is my main passion in life. I can easily spend hours at the piano, playing and singing, and it will seem like I just sat down. If it is my main passion in life, shouldn´t I be pursuing it? I wish I thought of this sooner because maybe I would have studied music education, but it is too late to turn back now. So my solution for now is to add a minor to my degree. At least, that is the idea I am toying with. I will need to do some serious thinking about it.

With all of this personality confusion, I have been polling my friends to see what they imagine me doing. I told them to pick from all of the possible careers in the whole world. I don’t know why I didn’t think to get others’ opinions in the past when I’ve struggled with what to make of my future. It was really an interesting survey. I was given responses of both careers I’ve considered and also ones that had never crossed my mind. I got responses from psychiatrist or music teacher to youth group leader or flight attendant. I appreciated everyone’s input greatly. My favorite was suggested by one of my closest friends in Peru. And that was youth ministry. She reasoned that I would have the potential to use my love for children, music, Jesus, ministry, advice-giving, and administrative and organizational tasks. She was so right! It sounds great! I have always seen ministry in my future, but never like this, so I liked having my eyes opened to another possibility.

Anyways, there’s a little emotional check-in for you! I hope you’ve enjoyed the glimpse into my crazy brain. That’s all for now.

Hugs to everyone back home!

-Abby