Hot Weather:

It's been very hot (and a bit humid) in the Bay Area this week.

I know for many of you who didn't grow up here, this weather is seemingly perfect, or just a tad bit uncomfortable.  I used to think of myself as a humidity trooper, considering I grew up in the very sticky, sweaty state of Maryland.  When I was teaching in the South Bronx in New York City a few years back, we didn't have air conditioning (or classrooms without rats, but that's another story).  I remember trying to teach in 96 degree weather with a 8 foot tall massive fan blowing. I had to actually yell so the kids could hear me.  That's what I call the peak of my heat resilience.

However, since moving to California, I have become weak.  When it gets really hot (like 100 degrees), I don't function at full capacity.  Sometimes, I even get a little grumpy, which is a bit hard for me to admit since everyone thinks teachers should have an endless supply of patience.

This is all to say, today, I woke up thinking the hot weather this week is probably practice for Cuba weather, which Rachel has warned us will be like Hawaii but with mosquitoes.  (Wonderful!)  So, what does it look like to practice acclimating?  Should I sit outside for a few hours in the direct sunlight and attempt not to get burned?  Should I practice being hot and sweaty and more importantly, really nice for a whole day?  It seems almost pathetic to talk about this aloud.

This is, what my small group at Highway jokes about as, a "first world problem." I worry about the heat, when the heat is probably the last thing Cubans themselves are worried about.  It made me think on a more macro-level about how we in the first world are so removed from the problems that face ordinary people living their lives on the other side of the globe.  We worry about the cheapest place to buy gas, having BPA-free water bottles, and our mortgages.  They worry about how to live on less than a $1/day, how to walk five miles to get access to clean drinking water, and how to get a loan to develop their micro-business to put food on their table when so many banks are wary of loaning $ to the poor.  This is not to say that our problems aren't real problems.

But, if I am serious about helping Jesus build the Kingdom of Heaven on this broken side of eternity, don't I really, honestly need to be much less worried about the weather in Cuba?  For if I really, as I responded to Jehaan's question in Post-College group last week about what we want to value in 10-15 years, don't want to turn completely inward when I am old, then I need to be more in tune now to the footprints of Jesus in this world.  Yes, I want to settle down and raise children who love Jesus ridiculously, but I don't want that to be the only thing that matters.  Esther, in a decade from now, still wants to love what Jesus loves, like spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth, protecting the widows and the orphans, and justice because it is at the core of His character.   

So, in conclusion:

As Rachel, Oscar, Seth, Paul, Christina and I prepare to visit Cuba in July, my prayer is that the trip focuses us all on something more deeper, meaningful, and significant than worries about the weather - that instead, we become in tune with the movement of God in our lives and in the world... and that we join Him, in whatever that might look like in America, in Cuba, or ... the ends of the earth, for that matter.

-esther