You Are Loved

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart.” Jeremiah 1:5. I love this verse. It is my absolute favorite verse in the Bible. It is a very beautiful message and it ‘hugs’ me per say. When I read it, I feel as if God is here and actually telling me this.

Everyone wants to feel loved. Everyone wants someone to say, “I love you” or at least be shown that they are loved. Everyone wants to feel wanted. Everyone wants to feel special. Everyone wants to fit in while still being unique. It’s all a part of human nature. This want to be loved, wanted, special, and to be unique while fitting in, is human. This verse has all of these components. God is telling you, “You are loved, you are special, you are wanted. You are unique, just like everyone else.” By telling me that He knew me before I was even formed in my mom’s womb shows me he loves me and wants me. He doesn't make mistakes, so I’m not a mistake, I’m wanted by Him. He wants me! He said he formed me before my mom knew about me, He must want me a whole lot to know me before anyone on earth does! The fact that he formed me means he took the time to say, “I want her to have a slightly larger nose with a big mouth and big teeth but don’t worry she’ll grow ‘into’ them. I want her to have bright red lips and big blue eyes which will later change color every once and a while, depending on what she’s wearing and the light in a room.” He didn't just throw together a mesh of DNA and saw, “Boom, here’s baby number 45,678,345,678,143... With only one new difference from baby 45,678,345,678,143...” He took the time to form me! He loves me that much to form me differently from every other person in the world. The fact that He says before I was born he set me apart makes me special. He made me Katarina Rose Fenn. He did not make me Sally Mia Rosencraft. He made me, me! He took me in His arms from the beginning and made me special and gave me purpose. Because He set me apart it means I’m unique from every other unique person in the entire world. He made everyone unique, He made you, you, and me, me. I may fit in, in some places, but no matter how much I fit in, I will always be me! God loves me, He wants me, He made me special, He made me unique.

This verse doesn't just apply to me though. I love this verse with all my heart, I love the Person who made it even more, but it isn't just for me. It’s for everyone. Not just Christians but Buddhists and Muslims and Atheists too. He loves every person. He made each person separately, specially, uniquely. No matter who you are or where you came from, He made you! He gave you a name, a personality, a life, and a purpose. He looked at each person before he placed them into their mother’s womb and said, “I love you. I made you special and unique. I have a purpose for you.” How does this feel? To be loved so much? I have no other way to say it, no other way to explain it. He loves YOU! He made YOU! You aren't just another mix of DNA. You are YOU because He made you that way. He doesn't make mistakes. So you can’t tell yourself how “ugly, unwanted, unloved, boring, fat, skinny, unworthy, etc.” He didn't make a mistake when He made you, so don’t say He did! It’s hard to think of someone actually loving you that much. But he isn't just someone, He’s the Almighty God and He loves YOU!

I love you too, whoever and wherever you are! Goodbye, until next time! 

The AWOL Tire

One Monday morning, my mom, my sisters, and I, decided to drive out to an orphanage in the middle of nowhere, about two to three hours away from Tegucigalpa. This was last year sometime, so we lived in Santa Lucia so it took longer to get there than if we lived in the city. We were driving along, singing and happy. My mom started hearing a clicking noise from our tire. However this was normal, we've heard that same noise a couple other times and we didn't think too much about it. As we come to a bridge that the Japanese built for Honduras, all of a sudden the car front tilts to the right and we girls yell at our mom, “There’s our tire!” Our tire was in front of us; it somehow came off the car and was rolling away at fifty mph!

It barely missed a house standing on the side of the highway and plummeted into the river below. My mom could only remember my dad telling her, “Don’t ride on the rim!” She expertly ‘drives’ or ‘handles’ the car without a front, right tire and crosses the bridge and pulls over. We get out and look at where our tire was. There is no tire, there is no rim! My mom was riding on the rotor! The rim left with the tire, the bolts had bent and broke somehow. We walked back across the bridge following how long mom drove on that rotor, there was a fine white line going all the way across the bridge and a meter or so before and after the bridge. This is one of those moments where we realized we could have died. We could have smashed into the house, the bridge itself, or the river several meters below the bridge.

We thanked God for keeping us safe and for helping my mom guide the car to a stop at the side of the road. After we got over the fact that our tire was gone, we called my dad to tell him what happened and to have him come and meet us along with the insurance people or tow truck or both or just something to help us from not being stranded. After we called my dad, we set out to find the tire; maybe we could put it back? We went down the hill, under some barbed wire and chain-link fence, to the river.  We searched for an hour or so and the tire was nowhere to be found. We searched down the river and up the river, we searched in the bushes on either side, it was gone! The people from the house were looking for it too, and one of the boys took off his shirt and pants to look underwater to see if it popped and sunk. It had disappeared! Eventually, my sisters and I gave up looking and sat on the side of the road singing, waiting for my dad to come. My mom was determined to find that tire, so she kept looking for a while and then came up to the highway waiting for my dad. My dad finally arrived and he was shocked at what happened.
He could not believe that the whole tire flew off and disappeared and he was amazed at how my mom was able to drive so far on the rotor. We ended up taking his car to continue on our journey to the orphanage, as was our whole purpose of going. He stayed with my brother, waiting for the insurance company to come with a tow truck or something. The tow truck came about thirty minutes or so after we left and the car was taken into a shop. We had a good day at the orphanage and as we drove back my mom looked out the window at the house by that bridge to see if they found the tire. That tire was never found! We have no clue where it went and how. If we pass by that spot we still try to see if we can see it anywhere, but to no avail. Our car was fixed and is now fine; we've never had another tire go AWOL after that. Maybe the others learned their lesson? Either way, we were safe; God protected us that day, quite awesomely.  This is one of those things that I think only happens in Honduras!

Goodbye, until next time! 

The Crazy Adventure in Palenque

                About two years ago, in the summer, my aunt and uncle came down to Honduras with a mission’s team from their church. They brought their son and daughter along with them, so we were Able to meet up with family and meet some new friends. We lived in Santa Lucia and traveled to Zambrano, where we used to live, because there was a missionary who had a house we could use for so many of us and we were able to help him out in any way we could. They stayed for a week and we did many different things, we mainly did kids related events though, where we would teach and play games and do crafts and give presents.

 There was one event that was by far the one we remembered the most. We were going to go up into the mountains to Las Botijas where my best friend lived, it was an hour up in the mountains and we were going to do a kids event where we taught and played and gave stuff out. After Botijas, we would then travel to Palenque which was thirty minutes to an hour further up the mountain. It had rained the night before and the road to go to Palenque was muddy, the two trucks we were travelling in couldn't get through. So, we had to walk all the way there, carrying the different games and items we would need, it would be a two or three hour walk. We had two horses though that we used to carry the things we needed and also to place my brother up there with someone else who was having trouble walking. We started out, all was well, we were getting hot, as the sun was out and there were some big hills we needed to climb up, but all was good. We were walking for a good while and then it started to rain. It started out as a sprinkle but then turned into full rain. We were five minutes from the town of Palenque, we could see it from the top of the hill/mountain we were on, and the rain stopped, but the road was so muddy. We would slip and slide as we were walking towards this town to have fun with the kids there. We eventually arrive to Palenque and we play with the kids, didn't matter how muddy, dirty, and wet we were, we still played and taught just like in Botijas. We finished with the event and realized we had to walk all the way back to Botijas and then get into a car to drive back to Zambrano. I did not like this idea, I was tired, wet, and hungry, and I didn't want to walk two to three hours more to get back to Botijas. No matter, we started out, same way we came. However, this time we split into groups as some walked faster than others. My sisters and our cousin were the first ones to go, then my best friend and I and then several other groups behind us. We start walking and soon enough it starts to rain again. But this time, it was pouring rain, and then it started lightning and thundering. This is where my best friend and I started freaking out that we would be hit by lightning and die. The road going uphill looked like it was made of chocolate as the rain washed the dirt away to unearth more dirt. We saw a tree that was down that wasn't that way when we walked to Palenque, and then we saw a tree fall down further along the path as it was hit by lightning. It was crazy scary. It took longer to get back than to get to Palenque, it took three to four hours to get back to Botijas. We eventually got to Botijas and we were given hot coffee and cookies that my best friend’s mom made.

Everyone was safe, cold, wet, and hungry but nonetheless safe. When everyone arrived, we piled up into the back of the truck to get back to Zambrano. They put a tarp over us to keep us from catching a cold and from getting any more wet, we all squeezed in and were already to get back ‘home’ and eat, as it started getting dark at the ending part of our long walk. It was dark now and we all wanted to go ‘home’ and eat and take nice hot showers. We start along and BAM! The truck’s wheel gets stuck in a ditch/pothole in the middle of the road. We all have to pile out and wait until they can get the truck out. They’re finally able to do so and we all pile back in but this time we don’t bother with the tarp and we just sit wherever we find space. We started again to go back to Zambrano and we finally arrive at the house we’re staying at. Everyone is relieved to be back ‘home.’ We eat and shower and go straight to bed, everyone is too tired to do anything but those three things.

This was one of the many adventures I've had in Honduras. I get to say I've walked three or so hours in the rain to play and teach kids in a little mountain village, if someone asked me to do it again, I might say yes. Actually I think I would say yes, as much as it was tiring and I wouldn't want to do such a draining activity, I liked walking in the rain and mud, in a weird way it was actually fun. I experienced something that very few people from first world countries get to experience, I got to experience exactly what it’s like for those mountain villagers to walk to and from Palenque. It’s an event that I believe could “only happen in Honduras,” as is the saying in this beautiful country. What a day!

Goodbye, until next time! 

The Importance of Family

Family is very important to an MK. I’d say it’s the second most important thing in an MK’s life, God being the first. Family was there when you were born and will be there when you die. The immediate family is what I’m talking about, as much as I love my extended family, my immediate family traveled all the way to Honduras with me.

    

            On the day I was born I had my mom and dad looking down on me and calling me ‘precious.’ They made me laugh, they fed me, bathed me, changed my dirty diapers, and most of all the made me feel loved. Sixteen months later my younger sister was brought into the world. Together with my mom and dad we loved and cared for her. I played with her and tried my best to care for her like my mom did. As we were so close in age I couldn't do all of the things my mom did to ensure she was well, but I did try. Three years after my first sister was born my other sister was given life. All four of us cared and loved her. Now I was old enough to hold and care for her like my mom. I was her ‘mini helper.’ I would do as much as I could for my mom. Four years after my sister, my brother was born. He had five of us to love and care for him. I helped care for him as well. I was older and was able to do much more for my mom then when I was younger. Our family stopped growing after my brother. Just us six, loving and caring for one another. Now, not every day was a pile of rainbows. We had our fights and arguments but we loved each other through them all.

                About three years after my brother was born, we moved to Honduras. All we had was each other. Everything else around us was unfamiliar and unusual. The one thing that was constant besides God was family. We would have to move to other places, would have to travel in a small car for hours together, would have to translate together, would have to help take care babies together, all these things we would do together. We experienced some of the same events together, some that would have never happened in the U.S. We had to do certain things that no other ‘normal’ families would have to do. One New Year’s Eve, my brother was attacked by a dog, a Japanese Akita to be exact. I was spending the night at my best friend’s house in the middle of nowhere and I get a phone call telling me my brother was being brought to the hospital. My sisters were going to stay with a babysitter as my parents went into the city to bring him to the hospital, they would spend the night there and bring us three in the morning. It was crazy! I was pretty worried about my little man; I didn't know too much about the situation, I wasn't even there. He survived with a few stitches behind his ear, on his head, and on his shoulder. All was a-okay, but we got through this incident together.

                I’m not an emotional person and I’m not very good at expressing how much I love my family. So, just to make it clear: I love my family. I love my mom, my dad, my two sisters, and my brother. I’m going to be going off to college next year and I’m going to miss them terribly. I won’t see my little brother grow up, I won’t see my youngest sister turn from tom-boy to liking boys, I won’t see my younger sister mature anymore, I've seen her grow up beside me but nonetheless I won’t see specific events that occur, I’ll only hear stories. My family has always been there for me and always will be. I love them and am thankful that God blessed me with such wonderful people. Never take your family for granted, I can’t express it any other way, they love you and you should love them much more than anything or anyone else, besides God that is! 

Goodbye, until next time!

The Art of Saying Goodbye

                Goodbyes are hard. They always have been and always will. Whether you've said goodbye once to your best friend or whether you said goodbye to multiple best friends, it’s still hard. Being a MK (missionary kid) does not mean goodbyes are any easier or any harder, they still suck. There’s no other way to put it.

                I was born in Texas and moved to Connecticut when I was two, we first lived in Winsted and then later in Torrington. At ten we moved to Honduras, we lived in Yamaranguila for three months. We then moved to Zambrano, we lived there for three years and then moved to Santa Lucia. We've been living in Santa Lucia for three years. When I was younger I didn't know what a goodbye really was. I was too small to remember Texas or even Winsted. Torrington was my first goodbye, I had to say goodbye to my BFFM (Best Friend Forever More), my family, church, and all other friends. I wasn't moving to another town either, I was moving to another country, I thought I would never see or talk to any of them again. Honduras is a Third World Country and is now labeled the Most Dangerous Country in the world by the UN because of the murder rates. But I didn't cry. I said goodbye as my friends and family cried, I didn't cry because I was too excited! Then a week later, the realization hit me, I was no longer in the comforts of the USA and I didn't know when I would see the people I loved again. I cried. Then three months later we were asked to leave Yamaranguila and I cried again. I’m not an emotional person either but we had just moved to a whole new place and we had three weeks to find a new place to live in this country that’s about the size of Tennessee. I was scared. We prayed and cried together as a family and then started to look for another place to live.

           Our next destination was Zambrano. We met so many great people, made amazing friends, and helped out with all sorts of different things. My two sisters and I would walk down the road and we would help out at a home for mothers who have babies at really young ages, the youngest was ten when she was pregnant and I was older than her. It was a great experience working there. We would go there almost every day. We played with the seven babies that were there while the moms either cleaned or did school work or even took a break. One day they left us alone with seven babies and went down the road to a pulperia (little store) to get something to eat, they trusted us that much! We translated for teams, we went to a Spanish church and played with the kids there, we helped build for the poorer Hondurans, and we made some good friends with the Hondurans as well. I also had the privilege of meeting another MK who became one of my best friends. We had adventures, playing spies, swimming in the river, dodging barbed wire, eating wild berries and other fruits; we roamed the wonderful mountain villages of San Francisco and Las Botijas.

 During the time that we lived in Zambrano my dad got a job at an International American School in Tegucigalpa, the capital city about an hour away from us. My younger sister went with my dad and attended that school while me and my other younger sister were home schooled. Then the second year my dad was teaching we had the option of going to that same school. This meant another goodbye though. We wouldn't be able to see the babies as much, we might be able to see them once a week or less. Also, I wouldn't get to see my best friend as much, only on vacations since she lived thirty minutes higher in the mountains and later moved an hour up the mountain. But nonetheless we went to the school and I met some amazing people. But once I started attending that school, the goodbyes increased. This was because the kids that go there have parents whose work changes location every two years or so. Not everyone left but a lot of my closest friends did. That first year I had to say goodbye to a close friend from Germany. That same year we then moved to Santa Lucia which meant we would not be able to see the babies at all and I would rarely see my best friend. But she was two hours away; I still got to see her.  Then half way through the second year I had to say goodbye to one of my closest friends originally from El Salvador, she was moving to the USA and later to Rwanda. At the end of that same year one of my close friends from Germany moved back to Germany. During this time I started going to an English speaking church in Tegucigalpa, we were only twenty minutes away from the city, and I met another MK who became one of my best friends as well. I knew her for a year and her family moved back to the USA. She moved exactly two days after my birthday, I cried on my birthday, the day after my birthday, and then finally the day they left. We were really close, and I only knew her for a year. That goodbye sucked. Shortly after, my best friend who I knew in Zambrano moved back to the USA, and that goodbye sucked a lot too. I had known her the longest in Honduras and I was going to lose her. And that same year, which was my third year at the school, my close friend from Japan moved back to Japan. It was a school year full of goodbyes. My fourth year at the school was great, no one was leaving, or so I thought. No one from the school was leaving instead my closest guy friend was moving along with his sister, who was one of my close friends too, to Germany.

This year will be my final year of school and my final year in Honduras. I will have to say goodbye to one of my best friends from Honduras as we go off to college. Along with her, I’ll have to say goodbye to the rest of my class, who are all like family to me. I’ll have to say goodbye to my youth group and church. I’ll have to say goodbye to my family and my beautiful country. I have to go back to the USA to the college God calls me to go to. It’ll be the hardest goodbye I've ever had. But just because it will be the hardest doesn't mean I should pull away from the people I love. It doesn't mean I’ll change in order to not feel pain when we graduate. I’ll still be me, like I always have. Goodbyes suck so much. I have no other way to describe them. No matter how many goodbyes I've had to say, even to the people I am closest to, I am not used to saying goodbye. I don’t think I ever will.

So, the art of saying goodbye is not a pretty painting. There is no way to make a goodbye hurt any less. I've learned that saying goodbye is not always for forever. I've seen my three best friends who are in the USA (Torrington, Zambrano, and Santa Lucia), and I've got this last year with my fourth best friend (Honduras). My close friends that have moved, I've seen both girls who moved to Germany and the girl who moved to Rwanda. I've got connections in several different countries due to my friendships. I plan on seeing them again in this world. Hopefully I’ll see them in Heaven as well but some of them when I knew them weren't Christians. I’m praying for them and I love them no matter what. Goodbyes hurt but the pain doesn't last forever.

Goodbye, until next time!