“You’re not coming back to Chile, are you?” Lori Holt asked sometime last December or so, disappointment and even sadness in her voice. I don’t know why she said this. Possibly because I was very noncommittal and I’d talked to Jason as if I were going elsewhere. Whatever her reasons, she apparently thought I wasn’t.

“I don’t know,” I said, kind of laughing. And that was the truth. I had no idea.

Early on, I really wasn’t sure. I was trying to follow the Lord’s leading and see where He wanted me to go. But somewhere around December and January, something changed. I don’t know if that was the point that my family in Chile became real to me and I felt as if I were one of them, or what it was. But I just knew. I knew there was no way I wasn’t coming back to Chile full-time.

In seeking the Lord’s guidance, I had it narrowed down to Bolivia, Paraguay, and Chile. I eventually got it down to Paraguay and Chile, but by the time I went to Paraguay, even though I went through the motions and learned much about the country, I already knew. Deep down, I just knew.

It’s kind of a crazy thing. I surrendered to preach the gospel and knew God wanted me in full-time missions in 2011, but I went all this time without really knowing where I would end up, only knowing that it would be to a Spanish-speaking nation.

I was always curious how I was supposed to pick a country. How was I supposed to know?

Would I see some video of a country that would really touch my heart?

Would I go somewhere and come away with a burden for it?

I was never sure. But now, I know. I finally know that Chile is going to be home for me. And it was nothing mystic or haphazard. It was just the gradual leading of the Lord in my life to this point until I just knew and had His peace in my heart about it.

The Holts, the Sparks, the other missionaries, Mauricio and Lorena, John and Cote, Pancho and Connie, Jorge and Cristina, Mirko and Gisella, Yajairo and Pancha, and on and on and on-These are the people I want to grow old with, to work with until we die or the Lord moves us elsewhere. This is my new family, and I can’t believe God is letting me go through life with such incredible people.

I can’t wait to get back.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go now to do some things to try return to Chile.

Or, as I can now call it…

Home.

When we put up the final Facebook post announcing 250Project’s completion, I couldn’t believe it. That massive endeavor had finally come to a close. What had been a part of my life for nine months was now suddenly over. Had it not been just yesterday that Jason sat down with me in Bolivia and showed me how to update the website and what all I needed to do to help work on the project? Had we not just been discussing what kinds of pictures to take and what kinds of videos to post to promote the training center?

And yet, here we were, at the end.

Now I almost feel empty, like a major chunk of my Chile life is gone.

But it’s a good empty. It’s a, “That’s over. What’s next?” empty.

I’m in awe at how God has provided. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money to raise, and when we first started, I don’t think I quite grasped the gravity or the height of it. We separated it into three payments, and while I can’t speak for everybody else involved in the project, for me it was just a simple matter of taking it day-by-day, reaching the next step.

Broken down that way, it doesn’t seem as staggering. Yet when I look back at just how much money God brought in for us, and HOW He did it, I’m stunned. I’m talking gifts big and small. Fifty dollars here, a hundred dollars there. Some random person giving $10,000. We saw it all.

There was one point around the end of the second payment where we saw no way it was going to happen. I truly believed that if God had brought us this far, He would provide, though I honestly didn’t see how. Perhaps it was easier for me to believe, since if things didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be the one dealing with the fallout. Somehow, though, I felt that if God had led Jason into this and had gotten us this far, He wouldn’t let us down.

And He didn’t.

We got a call from a church that they were going to give $25,000 toward the project. Add to that another matched giving opportunity, and we not only met the second goal, but were propelled far into the third! We went in a matter of days from wondering where in the world we were going to get the money for a second payment to having a drastically reduced third payment!

And that’s how God worked. Little by little, we inched toward that final payment until we could say, “Mission Accomplished!”

I must say this was good for me as I prepare to be a missionary, to realize that where God leads He will provide…

That outside circumstances mean nothing to Him…

That He can do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think…

That He places big dreams in our hearts so that He can fulfill them…

And that our God an awesome God.

When I hugged my Chilean friends goodbye, I knew it would probably be about three years before I saw many of them again, assuming I even go back to Chile as a missionary and not somewhere else. Three years sounds like such a long time when you’re saying goodbye to those you love. It somehow seems like less when you look back on it in hindsight (For some perspective, 2015 was three years ago and it feels like yesterday).

And so it is now. How is it that I’ve been gone from Chile a month? The time has flown by and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed seeing my family and friends in Tennessee and spending time with them.

It was a month full of games and good times. I was able to ride with Dad twice on patrol, one day shift and one night shift. We all played games constantly. And I finally…FINALLY… beat Dad in Putt-Putt for the first time in my life. They think I might have been practicing some in Chile, but the truth is, the only thing I practiced there was Dutch Blitz, and I’m still not very good at that!

It was great to reunite with many other friends as well. I’m thrilled with how well the Spanish ministry at my church is going and the little bit of time I got to spend with them was very special indeed. It was also neat to get to go back to the churches that supported me and preach and present what I had been a part of in Chile.

As wonderful as all of this has been, I’ve been somewhat anxious to continue on and feel like I’m moving toward my ultimate goal again. A vacation is nice and I always want to enjoy the brief moments I have with the people I don’t get to see often, but my future is in Georgia and, beyond that, South America.

Last week I packed my bags and headed to Alpharetta, Georgia, which is in the Atlanta area. That’s where my mission board, Vision Baptist Missions, is located. I’m completing some training with them before I head out on deputation, and my first night here I got to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones!

I think the thing I love most about this city is the diversity of its people. It’s almost impossible to sit in a restaurant or public area without seeing at least three or four ethnicities walk in, which is an exciting change from Johnson City.

I also like how nice and clean Alpharetta is. It feels very classical in a sense.

So, it’s been a good first week here and I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

Until next time!

If home is where the heart is, then I can’t really say I’m heading home. I’m not sure where I’m heading, exactly, but it’s not home. Yes, the United States is where I was born and raised, but it’s not home.

If home is where the heart is, then, if anything, I’m leaving home.

I knew when I came to Chile that I would make some friends and would grow to love them as brothers and sisters in Christ. I knew we’d make some good memories and have some good times.

I didn’t, however, expect them to become quite as special as they have to me. I didn’t expect to love them quite this much.

And what I didn’t expect, most of all, was for them to show me so much love and affection. Maybe I always expected to feel somewhat like an outsider, just here for six months and then gone. Maybe I didn’t really expect to feel as if I were a part of the group, that they would all be nice to me but deep down they’d know I was leaving and so they wouldn’t get too attached.

I definitely didn’t expect to get what I got. I didn’t expect to get multiple sendoffs, gifts, and tributes. I didn’t expect the heart-to-heart messages and emotional words I received both on my phone and in person. I didn’t expect endless hugs and tearful goodbyes.

If I thought I could come here for six months and then leave without feeling too much attachment as I made a decision about where to serve the Lord full-time, I was wrong.

My family in Chile has made sure of that.

Jesus promised me this precious new family I have in Mark 10:29-30 when He said, “Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mothers, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.”. I’m sure there must be persecutions and troubles to come, but they will surely pale in comparison to the incredible family He’s given me here in Chile. He’s fulfilled every word as far as that goes.

But now the time has come for me to leave.

I know so much will change by the time I come back someday.

The twins will probably be past the “being held” stage by the time I see them again.

Some of the young recently married Chilean couples will probably have kids by the time I get back (I’m not posting a picture here, so there’s no pressure!)

The Sparks, who have done so much for me, will have long been out of language school and started a new church plant, Lord willing.

I’m not sure what the other missionaries will be doing, but I’m sure there will be new churches started and exciting stories to tell.

The training center will be completely remodeled and good to go (At least, I certainly hope it will).

Many of the students that are now in the training center will be either starting churches or heavily involved in one somewhere.

And I don’t doubt there’s a good possibility that Omega Baptist Church will have been added on to and grown. They’re already planning to knock out a wall for more space in the auditorium as soon as I leave and they have the use of my apartment for the children!

Everything will be different, and yet there will be so many things that will be the same, waiting here for me when I get back, I’m sure.

And I can’t come back if I don’t leave, can I? And I know that every step I take leads me closer to that moment.

So, because of that, even with the pain of leaving Chile and my wonderful new family here…

Even with all the tears…

Even with the feeling that I’m ending a moment and a memory I can never quite get back…

I’m excited to be going back “home”.

“And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”-Genesis 41:52

There’s a pretty decent chance none of us will lose a mother to the childbirth of our younger brother, be sold into slavery by our other brothers, and be thrown into prison based on false accusations (only to have our one hope to get out completely forget we exist).

But we all will, I believe, at times find ourselves in a “land of affliction” just as Joseph did. A place we wouldn’t have chosen for ourselves, yet one that we can’t seem to escape.

Perhaps tonight you, too, are going through a dark period in your life. Let this verse encourage you and show you that God can make you fruitful regardless of where you are and what you are going through. Joseph maintained his testimony and his faith in God throughout, and in the end he was able to name his second child in such a way as to reflect the goodness of God in his life.

If you are passing through a time such as this, remember Joseph’s story, and remember that God may just use your “land of affliction” to do mighty things through you as well.

I just read a great quote on a friend’s Facebook wall. It said:

“As we go forth into the coming year, let it be. . . with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return but God can transform destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.” Oswald Chambers (There’s slightly more to the quote, but this suffices)

We’ll never get it back.

In a few hours, 2017 will be in the books forever. And let’s face it: Every one of us look back at certain moments this year and wish we’d have used them better for the Lord.

Does any of the following sound familiar?

I didn’t stop to talk to that person when the Holy Spirit prompted me to. 

I spoke too hastily and regretted the words I used.

I wasted time on social media or in front of the television when I could’ve been doing better things. 

If none of this described you at some point in 2017, then I really admire your spirituality. But for most of us, these statements hit way too close to home.

If we look back at 2017 as a list of our failures, it’d look like a pretty bleak year. But certainly, Christian, there are good moments spiritually we can look back on. Surely there are times where we resisted temptation, listened to the Holy Spirit, guarded our tongues, etc. Surely those of us whose hope is in the God of second chances realize just how many of those second chances He gave us this year and how we did indeed take advantage of them.

Judging 2017 should be done in this light: What did God do in your life this year? Are you closer to Him now than you were when this year started? Or is there really no discernable difference? Are you heading into 2018 with any new souls won for Christ? Have you watched God noticeably work in your life? This should be the measure of your year. And I hope that, even with its failures and struggles, you can look back on 2017 as a success.

If you honestly can’t see it that way, read that quote again and realize where our hope truly lies and Who is stepping with us into the future. And resolve that, this time next year, you’ll be able to answer yes to those questions.

We can’t change anything about this past year, but we have a clean slate next year (Which, by the way, I plan to publish a post about tomorrow!). Change won’t come just because a date on the calendar switches, but there is something fresh and exciting about a new year, isn’t there? New beginnings and fresh starts. A chance to have the best year of your life to-date.

Let’s make the most of it for the Lord.

Goodbye, 2017. Welcome, 2018!

 

While I’ve written fairly extensively about my trips to Peru and Bolivia, I haven’t written as much about Chile. To be truthful, the trips to Peru and Bolivia were easy to write about inasmuch as they were a timeline of events that naturally followed one another.

Chile is different because there are some days filled with the mundane, or the day-to-day life. While I’m loving it here, not everything I do is exciting to write about. However, I do want to keep everybody up-to-date on what I’m doing.

Every week I’m given the opportunity to teach Sunday School, which is a great thrill for me. I’m currently working through I John exegetically and my study has proven greatly beneficial and enlightening, although I still have much to work on in this area. It was to my dismay that I found out a few weeks ago that I was speaking too quickly and the congregation was not understanding me. Since then, I have tried to slow my pace, which is a hard thing for me because I naturally speak quickly, even in English. However, the reward came a couple of weeks ago when somebody told me, “Today I understood the whole message!” And they were excited about it. Once a month or so I’m preaching in the evenings as well.

 

We’ve been working on construction in the church and I love the way Iglesia Bautista Omega looks now. It’s like it’s brand new! We laid ceramic in both the auditorium and in the nursery, and now we have to paint soon.

 

One of my greatest thrills was going out visiting with a church member who recently finished a discipleship course with the pastor. It was his first time going visiting and I was so impressed with how well he handled everything and connected with the people. Door-to-door evangelism is a little different here because every house has a gate in front of it for protection from thieves. So instead of knocking, a person calls out, “Hallo!” (Almost like “hello” but with an “a” and without the puff at the beginning of the word) and then the resident comes to the gate. We conducted a survey that led to the presentation of the gospel if the person would allow, and I was surprised by how well it was received and how friendly most of the people were about it.

One week we went down to the middle of the plaza in Maipú, the section of Santiago where I live. While there, we handed out a bunch of different John and Romans with an invitation to church. I was able to connect with a couple of men, one Peruvian and one Venezuelan, and have great conversations with them. I’m hoping for even more gospel conversations in the future.

A Quick Photo Before Heading to Plaza Maipú

On Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings I try to go to seminary classes with those training for the ministry. While this isn’t a requirement for me, it is a good thing to be involved in and I try to do it unless I have something else going on. Along those lines, our midweek service is on Wednesday nights but another church’s is on Thursday nights, so I’m trying to go to both.

Another major project I work on is the media for 250Project. You can find more information about it here, but a great door has opened in Chile to train men and women for the advancement of the gospel and I’ve been given the privilege of working to promote it.

Along with all of this, I get together with Jason Holt and another missionary, Daniel Sparks, once in a while to discuss different questions I have about the ministry, among other things. I’ve actually learned a lot just in these talks as well as in talks with other missionaries both here and while I was in Peru.

Jason gives me books to read, which I work on reading and then derive questions from them to ask him. These books have actually been a great help to me and opened my understanding about how Jesus conducted His ministry.

This is just a basic overview of what’s going on here and what I’m involved in. I love Chile so much and am already dreading my departure in a few months. However, I must make the best of the opportunity God has given me here and then follow His leading from there.

Thank you all for your prayers and support! If you’d like to give toward this internship, you can do so here. God bless you!

The sun had already risen and was shining brightly when I awoke the first day in Arequipa. Oh, no, I’ve overslept! It’s got to be at least 8:30 or something. I looked at my phone to see the time. 5:45 AM. What in the world?

That was my first experience with an Arequipa sunrise! It comes up very early in comparison to Chile and I was surprised to see a few people already up and getting ready. Breakfast wasn’t until 8 and the first session of the conference started at 9, but I went ahead and got up too.

Not only did the sun rise early, but it set early as well. Around 6 o’clock it’d start getting dark and before long night would set in. I also later found that some of my roommates would go to bed fairly early. One time I went back to the room about 9:45 to grab something before going to play games with the group from Chile, and I noticed somebody was already in bed. Oh, wow, you’re tired? I have to say that overall I do prefer the “early to bed, early to rise” mentality, but the culture in Chile is a late-night culture, which makes that impossible to live by sometimes.

Above: Sunset in Arequipa

Below: Late-night gaming!

I thoroughly enjoyed the teaching at the conference. We would have three sessions from 9 to 12 in the morning, about forty-five minutes long each with a fifteen-minute break before the next one. A different missionary or pastor would speak first, and then Pastor Austin Gardner, who is the leader of Vision Baptist Missions, the mission board that Jason Holt is with (and the one that is kind enough to let me go through them for my internship here), would teach the next two. His teaching was excellent.

My favorite sessions of his were actually not the ministry ones as we think of ministry, such as pastoring or leading a church, but rather the ones about marriage and family. He would tell stories in strikingly honest detail and give applications that I found interesting and helpful. In a day where marriages fall apart all the time and people joke about being tied down to another person, he made marriage sound like it should be: A wonderful lifetime shared between two people serving the Lord together and finding joy in it all, even through the struggles.

Pastor Austin Gardner

We would then have a service at noon, free time in the afternoon, and then a service in the evening as well. That may sound like a lot but I loved it. The conference itself lasted from Tuesday evening to Friday morning.

It was a blessing to meet all the pastors from so many different countries, especially Peru, and for how kind they all were. It really was one giant meeting of brothers and sisters from many parts of South America coming together to worship the Lord, learn more, and go back to our respective countries spiritually refreshed and invigorated.

Another really neat thing about this conference was all the missionaries that were there. One afternoon Jason asked if I could go out to eat with them so I could meet Brother Gardner, so I did and met several of them. The next day I was going to hang out with my friends from Bolivia when he stopped me again and asked if I’d go help them plan and talk about things, so I went ahead and said yes. I’m extremely glad that I did as it turned out to be a great evening full of laughter and fun but, more importantly, great help spiritually and practically for me.

I found out about Aaron Vance’s ministry in Colombia a couple of years ago, was impressed with what I saw, and thought it’d be neat to meet him someday. He was there and was very encouraging to me!

Well hello, there!

One of my favorite aspects of Arequipa was the taxi rides. The rides themselves were fun enough, but they were also a great opportunity to witness if the trip was long enough. One advantage to being a gringo is that they’ll naturally ask what you’re doing there and it opens a door to explain what we’re doing and segue right into the gospel. The bad thing is they almost all think we’re Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses at first (This happens to me in Chile too and they’re generally surprised to find out I’m neither).

Two taxi drivers specifically stand out to me but unfortunately I can’t remember either of their names, so I’ll call them Mario and Denis (I feel like Denis is actually close to one of their names). I met Mario on Saturday. After venturing through the city for a while with some different people, one of the missionaries, Kyle Shreve, hailed a taxi to take me back to the seminary. Alongside me was Andrew Wilder, a missionary intern in Bolivia. Before we knew what was happening, Kyle stuck us in a taxi, said something to the driver, and off we went without really knowing where we were going! We did have a general idea and I felt like I would recognize the road when we got near it, but it was still another one of those fun experiences where you just hope everything turns out okay.

Look who I met while out in Arequipa!

We were out about in the city and saw these familiar faces!

Andrew has a very outgoing personality and it wasn’t long before we were talking to Mario and explaining to him that we were with a group of Baptist churches for a conference. Soon he dropped Andrew off where he was staying and then continued down the road to take me to the seminary. Somehow the door opened up for us to continue talking about spiritual things.

“I’m Catholic,” he said, and then he said something that I’ve heard plenty of times. “I mean, it’s really all the same thing, isn’t it? Evangelicals and Catholics.”

“No, not at all,” I said, before proceeding to explain all the differences between the two, including salvation. He listened intently and by the time he dropped me off seemed to understand that there was a difference between what I believed and what he believed.

The next day, Sunday, I jumped in a taxi with Katie Holt, Josh Holt and Grace White (A daughter of missionary Kevin White from Bolivia). We started talking to Denis right away.

He asked if we were Mormon, and I told him no and was getting ready to try to get into the gospel, when all of a sudden Katie Holt jumped in and took off with it. Having grown up in Chile, she speaks Spanish fluently as a first language and was easily able to begin explaining the gospel to him way better than I could’ve. I was happy to see Denis was actually very engaged with her, talking and answering her questions (I wasn’t so excited that he kept looking in the rearview mirror at her instead of the road in front of us, though!).

We pulled up to the seminary and she invited him to church. He was so kind to us the whole way through and I remember thinking, Every one of these drivers is somebody God is divinely putting in our paths for just a brief period of time, and we have that moment and that moment only to make the best of it. And isn’t that how life is? Sometimes we see people over and over again and have multiple opportunities to witness, but there are others that step into our lives for just a few minutes, and we have that short time to plant a seed of the gospel in their hearts and trust God will continue working with it.

We all went to different churches on Sunday morning and evening. After the service on Sunday morning, I spoke to the pastor for just a moment. “If you come back tonight, I’ll let you preach for five minutes,” he said. I was thankful and excited for the opportunity, so that night I brought something to preach.

But I made a mistake I never want to make again. I tried to fit a whole three-point sermon into five minutes, and the passage was like seven or eight verses long! I’ve been told before that when a pastor gives you five minutes to preach, you take your five minutes and then sit down and shut up. I really wanted to honor that and tried my best, but the result was that I blazed through the passage in Spanish that was probably barely inteligible. The next time I think I’m going to read a verse or two, give a main thought, and be done.

Francisco Nuñez was there that night and was very encouraging to me after I finished. He did laugh about how much of the Bible I read, though, and said something like, “I thought you were going to read the whole book!” I laughed too because it was a bit ridiculous in hindsight.

Just a few days ago he was talking to Mauricio about it and jokingly said, “Yeah, he was supposed to preach for five minutes and he read through the whole book of Corinthians.”

“Philippians!” I shot back, laughing along with them.

It was good to see Pablo from Bolivia again! He got ten minutes to preach before the main speaker.

The next morning, Monday, I got up early to say goodbye to my friends from Bolivia before they left. Then I went and packed up the rest of my stuff for our return trip home. By about 8:00, we were on our way to the bus station. It had been a great week and I was expecting a relatively straightforward ride home.

And then a crazy turn of events occurred…

But that’ll have to wait for Part 3: “Mad Dash for the Border!”

 

Apparently her name is Lasernita, which was news to me. It’s a play off of the last name of one of my friends from Bolivia, and I’m not sure why she was given that name inasmuch as he didn’t seem to have any special attachment to her. Since I never named her, I’ll go with it.

I’ll preface this by saying that stray dogs are actually a fairly common thing in South America, but they’re basically all friendly and seem to receive enough food to survive without much problem. There were probably about five or six strays roaming around the seminary where we were staying in Peru, including Lasernita.

One afternoon/evening, Mauricio and I had to run back to our room to grab something. It was setup like this: A giant door outside led into a room full of bunk beds, almost like you would see at camp or something. The door often would be somewhat open unless it was time for us to go to bed, in which case we would shut it (and if somebody opened it after that, the sound would wake the dead). As we were running back out, Maury pointed out that there was a dog sleeping in our room. She never woke up as I took a picture of her and we left.

The next night I came in late to find one of my roommates that I had gotten to know as a friend, Jorge, sitting on the bunk beds talking to a friend. I said hello and then climbed up onto my bunk, proceeding to do something, I can’t remember what.

All of a sudden, I thought I heard a bark. “Is there a dog in here?”

The two of them laughed. “Yeah, she’s under the bed.” I went over and looked, and sure enough, there she was! The same dog as the night before.

I started to take a picture and then she came out to look at me. I don’t really like to pet stray dogs but I just couldn’t help it. She proceeded to climb up onto a mattress that was on the floor and go to sleep.

I decided it wouldn’t hurt anything to let her stay the night. Then Jorge said she had to go outside, and the fireworks began. Okay, it was more like a mock argument in which we were having fun with one another, but both of us really did kind of want our way. At least, I know I did. This conversation is far from word-for-word, but it’s a general idea.

“She can stay. The Bible says that as we’ve done to the least of these we’ve done unto Jesus.” A little out of context, perhaps, but it sounded good.

“The Bible says you’re supposed to care for your own dog, not every stray.”

“She’s fine, she can stay!”

“You don’t know what kinds of diseases and things she’s carrying.”

“Oh, big deal, she’s fine.”

“Okay, well then I’m like the department of health,” he said. “Where’s proof of her vaccines, her rabies shot, etc?” Well, I guess he had a point. “And imagine this: What if somebody travels many kilometers to get here, only to lie on a bed that’s full of diseases and who knows what?”

“Well, can he not suffer a little for the Lord?” I asked, wondering what the Christian world was coming to when we couldn’t be expected to bear any type of cross. He laughed, then proceeded to say something about Revelation and dogs not entering the kingdom, which I told him didn’t mean literal dogs. “You’re going to feel terrible when you stand before the Lord and she comes walking up and Jesus asks what you did with her.” He thought that was hilarious and proceeded to further “discuss the matter” with me for a while.

Finally I channeled John chapter 8. “You Pharisee! Maybe you’re right and maybe she isn’t perfect and maybe she has diseases, but I just say let he who is without sin cast the first stone at her.”

And then, one by one, starting from the eldest unto the…Oh, different story, never mind.

Actually, he thought it was hilarious that I called him a Pharisee and while I think deep down he didn’t want her to stay, he was okay with it and so was Mauricio and everybody else sleeping in there.

We shut the door and as I got into bed the thought crossed my mind: What if she has to go to the bathroom? I figured we’d deal with that in the morning.

As I was drifting off to sleep, somebody entered the room and started to take her out. I sat up in bed. “What are you doing?”

“She can’t stay here.” And, unlike Jorge, he actually was serious. I fussed with him for just a minute but then decided it was best since it really would be a problem if she had to go to the bathroom and, honestly, who knows what she was carrying.

For some reason, when I woke up the next morning, she was on those mattresses again! I’m guessing somebody left the door cracked enough for her to get in. I gathered my things to get ready for the day, stepped out for about twenty minutes, and when I returned, she was no longer on the mattresses. I wonder where she went.

As I rounded my bed to put something in my suitcase, I got the answer to my question. Not content to simply lie on the mattresses, she had wandered over to my suitcase and was lying inside on top of my clothes!

Even I have my limits. The poor girl had to get out of the suitcase.

I’ve not started itching or anything yet, so I think I’m okay. I’m not sure I can say the same for those mattresses.