Year 2 !

Hellllooooo !

I need to start my blog in my normal fashion....apologizing for not posting a blog sooner.

I'm so sorry, and I will be doing my best to keep everyone updated as things really start to pick up here.

What will be picking up you ask? Well... the project that I was originally supposed to be working on this year.

Last year, Alexa and I started our days at 5:30 and got home around 4 after teaching English in two of the Hogar Escuelas run by the diocese.

This year, I arrived expecting to get right to work in the Teen Center/Women's Vocational Training Center. I was excited to start organizing activities for teenagers during the day and creating a relaxing environment where teens want to hang out after school. I was excited to start looking for people with different talents who would be willing to volunteer time on the weekends to teach their skills to women looking for work and to learn.

Reality: Permits got delayed, construction couldn't start, and I was left wondering why I was here.
I was given jobs when I first got here and would be included in all of the meetings for not only that project but others as well. It was still difficult because I felt like I wasn't being given work that helped me to reach my full potential.

Thankfully the priest of the church I'm attending helped my to get into contact with the psychologist at the school in Barrio Cuba, Sra. Liliana. She works at the school 2 days a week and in those two days, does various therapies to help the kids work through different traumas. A large amount of the children are victims of domestic violence and/or sexual assault in their homes, and meeting with the psychologist is the first step in getting them the help that they need. She also meets with parents and addresses behavioral issues with the children. With over 120 students in Barrio Cuba alone, she works tirelessly trying to get the kids the help they need while buying supplies with her own funds.

So we set up a meeting and talked about my experience in psychology (my degree and that's it haha) and with children. The next week, I started doing play therapy with small groups of students.
We had various games that we would play that would allow the children to share certain feelings or experiences that wouldn't normally come up. And then I would let her know about anything that she might need to know.

I worked doing that for a few weeks, and then she told me her idea for a project that she's been wanting to start about Self Esteem.

The project: Using visuals to tell a story about a turtle named Lentajuela who thinks her only qualities are to be little and slow, in comparison to all her jungle friends who have many other gifts. In the story, there's an earthquake, and an ant takes cover in Lentajuela's shell, and the ant shows the turtle that she has so much to be proud of. We talk about the story afterwards and every kid gets a folder with worksheets in them about discovering the good qualities that they all possess. We meet for an hour with each group and work in the folders as well as doing group sharing.

When she told me about the project, I was so excited. The next week, I had all of the visuals, folders, and worksheets made, all ready for my small group of students (8).

I have been working with the psychologist (and still with my other little jobs) for the past 2 months and what I think I have loved the most is having this more personal and directly with the children and developing my skills as a psychologist and working under someone as accomplished as Sra. Liliana.

Shortly, I'll be starting a project to get computers for a school in the Caribbean side of the country. Right now, they're renting their technology, and it would be far more cost effective to have their own. So after I'm done writing, I'll be doing research for a grant. (If anyone reading this would like to help, let me know! )

Anyways, so far, so good. God is good and always provides.

One More Year: A short story about God's call to us and how to answer

Surprise! On December 12th,  I'll be returning to San Jose to serve the Diocese of Costa Rica.
I will be helping with of the church's newest projects to help at-risk youth in impoverished communities. They are building a second floor on top of one of the Hogar Escuela buildings, and it will be used as a Teen Center during the week (for the youth who age out of the Hogar Escuela program), and will be a Vocational Training Center on the weekends (for the mothers of the children to learn new skills). I am beyond grateful to the Diocese of Costa Rica for having faith in me and helping me to answer God's call in their community.

I've been feeling a calling to international mission for a long time in my life, and God's timing was finally right for me to serve. This past year in Costa Rica was full of challenges and from those challenges came incredible growth spiritually, mentally, and physically. Before the year began, I felt excited by the idea of serving a second year with the Young Adult Service Corps. As the months went on, the call to stay another year got stronger. I had soo many days where I was scared I was interpreting God's voice all wrong. I would ask myself "am I just feeling this way because it's selfish?" "How do I know it's God's voice telling me to serve and not something else?" And those were the days where I would pray. It's nothing revolutionary, but it was the only way I knew how to keep myself in tune with what God wanted me to do. I would get my heart in tune with listening, and every time I did, I heard the same thing: "Stay." And when I officially made the decision and spoke with Bishop Monterroso, I felt the peace that passes all understanding running through my body. I knew that it's my life's mission to follow that peace and to cultivate it in my life.
Or more simply "go where the peace is." So that's what I'm doing 😌

Next step is fundraising! I only have to raise $8,000 this year as compared to $10,000 the year before to help cover my plane tickets, health insurance, and monthly stipend. I will be holding a fundraising lunch after the 10:30 service at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour. We will be serving authentic Costa Rican food and have a presentation about the Diocese of Costa and my experiences this past year. Along with never-before-seen pictures and videos of  The World's Most Adorable Children (because I'm not allowed to post them on social media).

I am so thankful for everyone who helped me to achieve my goal and to answer God's call, and I know that this year will be no different.

Isaiah 43

8 months (yesterday) t-minus 3 months 27 days(ish)

You know the parable of the two sons, and the one son says he’s not going to help his father in the field but then does, and the other son says he will but doesn’t end up helping? And the first son is the more righteous?

Well greetings from Costa Rica from son #2. I’m so so sorry for not keeping everyone updated even though I said that I would. I promise I will do my best to write more (hopefully a promise I can keep hahah).

What a crazy few months it has been here!! It’s the whole cliché “Time is flying by” “It’ll be over before you know it” type of thing right now. It truly feels as if February ended and May began.

It's been so difficult to force myself to sit and blog. Everyday on the bus, Alexa and I say "we need to blog today." But every time I sat down to write a blog post, I would say “no I’m not in the right mindset”, “I really should clean my room”, “or I’m having too difficult of a time right now” and kept making excuses that I would blog when I had all of my ducks in a row.

But after the past three (four?) months, I was forced to come to the conclusion that I my ducks are nowhere to be found, much less in a row, and I should blog anyways (it’s currently 10:45 on a Sunday night with laundry on my bed and in the dryer haha). Anyways….

Story timeee!

This past month, we’ve started running low on energy for planning lessons. It’s been really hard to sit and focus and come up with new material (especially since neither one of us are trained teachers). It’s been difficult for so many reasons, sometimes we feel unappreciated by the children or other teachers there. Other days, we’ve sat with coffee and our computers trying so hard to come up with something, and nothing happens. Or we’ve just felt too exhausted to pull ourselves together. But last week, Alexa had a really great idea (to incorporate acting into our lessons about public servants). Almost every kid enjoyed it. The presentations were incredibly adorable, and they really really seemed to learn the words. It was a week that helped rejuvenate my mission here. I know that the months that follow are still going to be filled with more low moments, but I am so excited to have a lot more of those incredible ones.

I was talking to some children in the morning (3-5 year olds), and I had to go help in the lunchroom so I said “me voy, caio para siempre”(“I’m going, goodbye forever”) ((obviously joking)) and one of them goes “noo teacher! Te quierooooo” (no teacher! I love youuuuu) and jumped onto me and knocked me over and smothered my cheeks with kisses. It made my whole week/month/year/life.

“I have never been given the finger that much in my life, much less in one day by a 4 year old” –an actual quote by The Alexa Henault™ after spending 20 minutes chasing down a child who clearly didn’t want to be caught.

Well I celebrated my 23^rd birthday March 5^th, and was showered in love by the mission group that was here and by my boss and especially my roommates. Even though on my actual birthday, I was lying in bed completely sick and miserable and unable to eat (due to actual sickness and not typical 20-something birthday fun haha). I was soo afraid of feeling lonely on my birthday, since loneliness is something I’ve had to get used to here. But loneliness was the last thing I felt (mostly because I was sleeping and wanting only to be alone). Ok but seriously, I have never felt less lonely than I did on my birthday. I missed being able to spend time with my family and my community back home, but I got to spend it with the new communities I’ve been cultivating here that were not even yet 6 months old. It was very special to see how far those relationships have come in such a short amount of time.

Yesterday marked 8 months of being here. This past month, I’ve had dreams of having a tooth fall out. These dreams (usually nightmares haha) typically mean that you’re going through a big life change. Which I have been.  Last night, I had the same dream, and it really stuck out to me. I was eating something, and a tooth I had crumbled and fell out of my mouth. I kept part of it to reattach it and ran to find my mom. She shrugged like it was normal, and we walked together to the dentist. Then I woke up. Anyone else’s guess is probably as good as mine, but moral of my dream is that my mom is always there to help me make these choices (and always gives the best advice). And honestly, I am dealing with a lot of changes that I have just made or am about to make. I also get to see my lovely mother (and sister + co. haha) in a little more than a week. So with her guidance, hopefully I will have some exciting news soon c: 

Feliz año! (y 25 dias..)

I know I haven’t been posting anywhere near as much as I’m supposed to, and I’m going to try something a little different. I’m going to start writing down little snippets of things that happen and posting (hopefully) a mini blogpost every week. I’m aiming to have each one be fairly short but still thoughtful and reflective. But for this post, I’m just going to share a few other silly and meaningful stories that help encapsulate these past two months.

1. Last week, the day before I was about to leave to take a short trip to Panama, I was monitoring la siesta (the midday nap that every kid regardless of age takes). I’m trying to get through it as painlessly as possible, but there was one group of girls (6-7 years old) who would not go to sleep. My patience had been at an all-time low that entire week, but I wasn’t really doing a whole lot (at least spiritually) to fix it.

So these girls.. there were 7 of them, and each one just HAD to go get water because they had “MUCHA sed” and were going “a MORIR” if they couldn’t go get water. And I usually am fairly against arbitrarily not allowing kids to go get water or go to the bathroom because I always hated when teachers did that. Yet here I am, about to become my teachers (which, to be honest, has been happening already, but that’s another blog post). So I stopped allowing them to leave the classroom, grabbed what what looked like a dry erase marker out of the drawer, and one-by-one proceeded to write each girl’s name on the brand new whiteboard (when they would talk or ask me to "hacer caquita"). I told them that I would erase their names if they were quiet for 5 minutes, or put another strike next to their name if they talked. I was still pretty steamed because of how bad they were acting, but to make a good example out of the one girl who started to shape up, I went to erase her name. However, I cannot begin to describe the feeling of horror when I went to swipe my hand over sweet little Sarai’s name, and it didn’t immediately come off on my palm. I ran to the desk and read the label and it read  “mercador permanente”. Now I haven’t mastered the Spanish language, but I knew what that meant without a dictionary. My heartbeat became audible, my hands started sweating, and my brain could not seem to recall those 10,000 “life hack” buzzfeed videos that I had spent hours on facebook watching while thinking “wow this is so helpful, I learned so much.” I honestly went from feeling slightly self-important to being on the verge of tears faster than you can say “dios mio”. I was convinced that I was going to have to buy another whiteboard or have to stare at my ugly mistake every day until they bought a new one.

For my first attempt at removing the marker, I tried using toilet paper with soap and water, and that made absolutely no different. I went from being on the verge of tears to completely hopeless. I started to try and translate "I screwed up and I'm so sorry please don't send me home" to Spanish and reciting Hail Mary's in my head. I can’t really explain what happened next, but I had one of those weird feelings (you know those little God things), and I looked over at the desk and was like "ok relax you can do this, you can figure this out". I opened the desk drawer, and there it was: a brand new eraser. I snagged it and ran to the board and started erasing. Slowly but surely, line by line, the names began to come off. It took approximately 20 minutes of erasing, one-third of this poor eraser’s life, and an express ticket to carpal tunnel syndrome to get the 7 names off the board. All the while, those seven girls just stared, silently, probably thirstily (if that’s even a word), and intrigued nonetheless. One of them fell asleep, the others were quiet and stopped bugging me (and each other) for the rest of the naptime.

I still haven’t really processed what kind of lesson I was supposed to learn from that, but I can definitely say it was a nice reminder that God’s got my back.

                                                                                                                                                             

2. Today a little boy (he’s honestly a mini man) sneezed directly into my mouth and then laughed in my face.

3. Another girl planted a kiss right on my mouth in the middle of a conversation with a different kid.

4. I taught the bishop how to say “fart” last week.

5. When I went to church last week, I took an uber. The week before had been challenging in almost every way possible. So the uber and I were chatting, and I told him I was a missionary, which usually sends people either to not want to talk anymore or they talk about God. Both are fine, but this uber did neither. He just looked at me with this almost child-like grin, pointed to his radio and turned up the volume, and we drove the rest of the way listening to Christian music in Spanish. I was never really the *biggest* fan of Christian music back home, in that I enjoyed it, but didn't downloaded it onto my spotify account. I can't even remember what song was playing, but I had to turn away because I started crying. I don't know if it was from homesickness or just how much I needed to hear the message of the song or some other combination of the two along with so many other feelings, but wow. I then proceeded to go to church and at the end of the service, while we were praying the post-communion prayer, I started crying again. I don't know what was causing me to be so overwhelmed, but there I was, in our small little church, digesting the body and blood of Jesus, and just overcome with emotion. 

The only time that I can really remember this happening to me was when I was on my way to the discernment retreat for YASC. I had showed up in NYC by myself, my dog had just given birth, I lost my debit card, I had graduated college and didn't know for sure what my next step would be, it was Ash Wednesday, and the week after I would be leading my Vocare weekend, and every rude person in the whole city had avoided eye contact with me. I stumbled upon a church after I had walked a mile on my quest to find NY's best milkshake, and I went inside, luggage and all, sat in the sanctuary (just me and the priest), and I cried. It was a really special moment, and in that moment,  I felt spiritually rejuvenated a ready for the next step. I still had a lot of work to do to get there and faced a little more than my share of struggle after that, but I didn't feel alone or lost in those struggles. And I think that's what my experience last week was meant to be. I felt renewed, but I definitely limped through the next few days, but I didn't limp by myself. And that made all the difference *

*see permanent maker meets whiteboard meets eraser story at the top haha

If you've made it this far, just know I appreciate you so so much. Thank you for keeping up with my journey and for your prayers. You're helping me more than you know!

Paz y bendiciones!!

I'm here, alive and well!

First blog update in a couple of months, and I am sooo sorry. I’ve attempted to write this post about three times and thought about writing it about 300 times. I honestly haven’t been able to find the words to say what I want to say in a way that fairly represents me and my community here.

I’ll start off by saying I’m finding myself falling in and out of love with Costa Rica everyday. I’ll look at the clouds hanging around the mountains on my walk to work or have a lovely Spanglish conversation with a stranger, and I start to feel those giddy first date feelings and I’ll start to truly believe that this is a country where I can really feel at peace in. And then I step into a crack (or giant hole) in the sidewalk, am waiting 45 minutes for a bus, find a small colony of ants in a coffee mug, or get caught in the rain without an umbrella, and I’ll think why did I even leave my bed much less my home. I didn’t want to write a blog post on a day where I got soaked to the bone when my $2 umbrella broke and my students forgot everything I thought they had learned, because I didn’t want to give an unfair description of my life here. But, I also didn’t want to write a post on a day where I saw the face of a child who didn’t know how to read yet was able to answer a question in English and everything was right in the world, because I didn’t want to give an insanely positive view of what was happening here either. So I’m going to share some of my favorite and least favorite moments of my first two months in Costa Rica.

-The first week I was here was incredible. I didn’t have to start working for a week and a half, and the only thing on my schedule was getting to know the country, figuring out how to cook, and taking Spanish classes. I still had a lingering anxiety to know what my work was going to be like, but I was embracing the Pura Vida as best as I could.

-Day 1 of school. This was probably one of the more difficult days we’ve had here, if not the most difficult. We weren’t sure what to expect. Alexa and I aren’t teachers and didn’t have much in terms of supplies or information on how to teach ESL. So we (naively) showed up unprepared expecting to have a sort of introductory day, and were given a schedule of when to start teaching (our first class being 4 year olds). They asked if we were prepared to start that day, we had that moment to choose between being dumb/lazy/unprepared Americans or being those overly confident/too sure of themselves/I can do anything Americans. And we chose the latter. Thankfully we had overly kind and helpful teachers who helped show us the ropes and lead some English songs that the children knew (10 little monkeys, itsy bitsy spider, etc.), and we still fought for the attention of the little ones. The older ones, we decided the easiest thing to do was to review their colors and just have fun with them. We spent every class fairly unsure of our capabilities, probably looking super awkward, and ultimately stressed out that everyone could see right through us and our phony “I know what I’m doing” facade. And after all of that stress, Alexa got emotionally overwhelming news, and we were allowed to leave.

*It took me a long time to feel thankful for the difficulty of that day, but Lord knows if we didn’t get baptized by fire, we wouldn’t have needed to rely on Him as much.

-Sometime a couple weeks ago: We’ve been having a lot of kids asking us how to say certain words in English, which is always fun. During lunch, one of our exceptionally energetic children asked me “Como se dice ‘feo’ en ingles?” Feo means ugly. I tried to shut it down by telling him “No” which is the same in Spanish as it is in English. And this kid stands up, turns around, points at his friend and yells “NO!”

-Sometime in my first week at school: We were fed an afternoon snack of empanadas, they looked like they were sweet covered in cinnamon, sugar, and full of chocolate, but instead they were covered in salt, pepper, and full of beans. I still haven’t fully recovered from that disappointment.

-Sometime in the last couple weeks: The kid who yelled “no” at his friend a couple weeks ago has A LOT of energy. So we started telling him to “relax”. He then proceeds to point and yell at everyone telling them to “relax”. After a stressful, funny, not relaxing lunchtime, him and his other hyper lil friend walk out of the comedor with their arms around each other saying “Relax?” “Relax.” “Lerax?” “Larex” “Reeeelax!” “Relax…” and in all kinds of other cute ways. And that’s the story of how we taught every kid in the whole school how to say “relax”.

-Two weekends ago: Renting a car for super cheap and getting to go on a hike and breathe fresh air and enjoy God’s creation (even though we didn’t see any animals).

-Sitting next to my most difficult child during naptime, only to have him snuggle next to me, hold my hand, and immediately fall asleep (which was previously thought to be impossible).

-Three weeks ago: Biggest rainstorm ever. Had to walk a little under a mile to get to our bus stop to Spanish class, crossed the street and stomped right through a puddle that was literally four feet deep (literally 2 if I’m not exaggerating).

-Three weeks ago also (I think): Being told by one of the lovely women in the Diocesan office that our director told her that we’re doing a really good job.

Consider the Lillies

It's moving day y'all! I'm currently writing this on my plane to Atlanta and will post it when I land. 

Phew! Today has been a whirlwind of emotions from beginning to end. After grabbing other last minute things and sitting and talking at the airport, I had a heartfelt goodbye with my family and made my way to the plane.

The theme of this week has been worrying and trying to prepare, and here I am, seat 30D, on the first leg of my journey, still worrying. I started reading my mission book (you know, to prepare because I'm worried) and there was a passage from Luke, talking about remembering the lilies, specifically how they grow with neither toil nor spin (while I'm currently toiling and spinning). And I felt a wave of peace. I was able to take a truly deep breath and relax. 

And now I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport, next to a wooden sculpture of a bird sitting in a giant hand, and tearing up a little. This morning, my boyfriend made the sweetest adiós post on Facebook and included this Irish blessing (one of my favorites)

"May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand." 

And I'm praying that I can be a little bird in God's hand remembering the lilies. 

T-minus 15 days!

Hello! My name is Lexy Fields. I'm from the Diocese of Florida and  I'll be serving in the Diocese of Costa Rica working at Hogar Escuela, a school for the children of single mothers.
And I officially have a plane ticket! I depart two weeks from tomorrow on September 19th, and I couldn't be more ready to start this journey! And by "ready", I mean emotionally and spiritually ready (I haven't packed a thing).
When I first began the process of applying for YASC, I honestly couldn't tell you what it was that I was expecting to gain because this process has taken my expectations and thrown them for a loop or two in the best way possible. I had always felt a calling to serve God in the most basic ways possible, by dropping everything and following, and I felt like the Young Adult Service Corps would be where I would find that. And I definitely have, but at this point, I'm having to deal with just some of sacrifices that this entails. Following where God's calling me means leaving a lot of what and who I love here. I've been getting sentimental to the point where I'll go to Publix and see my favorite cashier and get emotional. But if there's one thing I've learned about me and God's relationship this past year, is that he's going to pick me up and put me exactly where he wants me, and that where he wants me is where I need to be, and it's my job to show up.