Living On Faith

Here we are once again, at the end of a long month that, surprisingly, went by rather quickly. July was a month full of volunteer teams, dramatic meltdowns and pretty hysterical culture moments. July was also, if I can be honest, full of incredibly hard hurdles to get over. Emotionally, physically, financially, spiritually, culturally, honestly, I feel like you get the picture, it was just really stinking hard. However it was a month of challenges we were expecting, so I guess that makes it better... I guess. Anywho, make yourself a nice cup of tea, settle in and let's catch up on what life has been like for me for the last month or so.

First, I want to tell you of a cultural moment I had this morning on my way into work, one I thought was so funny I could barely keep myself from tears, I was laughing so hard. Now before I share with you what was so funny, you need to remember where I am serving in El Salvador. MTES is located in the medical district of downtown San Salvador, and is a place that is constantly bustling with the loud noises of buses, horns and people shouting. The traffic here is the worst I have ever witnessed and honestly arriving at work each morning is a success all in it's own. So as you can imagine, I had just turned at one of the busiest intersections on my route and was brought to a stop as I waited for pedestrians to cross the road to the hospital across the way. As I sat in my car with one of the interns serving with us, I glanced over and thought to myself, huh, there is a man over there walking an awfully large dog, that's not a usual breed I see here.... It was definitely not a breed we see here, that's because it wasn't a dog at all. No no... this man was waltzing down a city street with a full grown, larger than usual GOAT, that's right, a goat. Now that alone was funny, however when I noticed what was in his other hand, that's what really got me going. He had a stack of cups, and would walk the street milking the goat for fresh milk to sell to people on their way by! At 8 am, this was one of the funniest things I have seen here, and was definitely a cultural moment for me, then again honestly, I think this was a little odd for everyone to see. So that pretty much made my day, because honestly this goat was gigantic. This isn't the only interesting animal encounter I have had this month, oh no, there's been lots more. Whether it be our house being plagued by the biggest ants I have ever seen, or the giant spider I had to kill with my shoe, to the iguanas that mock me from their branches in our garden and the baby possums that visit me on the patio while I nicely chat on the phone, and yes for those who remember last year, these are the second generation, grand baby possums.... because apparently God is extending my gift of hospitality to the creatures outside too. This alone has made for an interesting month.

July marked several challenges for me, one of the most important, being that this is the longest I have ever been away from friends and family back home in Canada. Usually my trips are about three months long, which makes missing home easier but isn't always beneficial as someone trying to get accustomed to a new place, culture and life. I decided that for this year, I would stay through from April until just before Christmas, giving myself time to really settle into life here. I knew this upon my arrival but I also knew this would be a huge hurdle . One of the biggest struggles I face here is being so far away from things that matter most to me, such as family. I am comfortable and at home here, not only at MTES but life in general here in El Salvador, which is a huge blessing, however that doesn't mean I am happy here every single day. This month tested my nerves, my patience, my friendships and most importantly my reliance on God. It's stressful enough to be here when things are going really well, imagine being here exhausted, worn out and down right "just done" with everything. I was tired of missing my family, my country and my culture back home and honestly just couldn't understand why on earth God needed me here, and if He did in fact insist on having me serve here, well could He not at least make things a little easier. Still He allows for things to go wrong, for people to not show up, for finances to not come in, for emotions to be strained and for patience to wear thin. He pushes, He challenges and He tests. He tests my faith, my reliance, my trust and my relationship with Him. This isn't just to make my life hard,it's God at work in my life,  shaping me into the woman He not only desires and designed me to be but the woman He genuinely needs me to be, in order to use this work for His kingdoms glory. So many times this last month I have struggled to see the good God is doing here and yet, I know He is hard at work. There were weeks where, quite honestly, I just wanted to pack my bags, catch a flight and be done with this season of my life. There were days when I actually considered, what it would be like to genuinely consider just walking away. I have never experienced such a deep grief and frustration like I did this month. Never have I had to excuse myself so many times, to simply sit in a room all alone and let the tears just pour down my face, take a breath and then get back to work. Some days I knew what was upsetting me, I had seen something awful or couldn't fill a need that was so clear, sometimes I just missed the comforts I have been used to for my entire life, and then other times, honestly the tears just bubbled over for no reason at all. There were nights I lay awake blubbering to myself about missing out on being my sister, as she gives birth to her son, not being there for the folks back home who need me, and not knowing if the money I needed to live here would come through, but having to trust that God would provide the people to give, while I work week after week without a paycheck. There was one specific moment when I actually sat on my bed upset because how on earth am I going to be able to retire if I am not making any money! (I will admit, that evening was fairly dramatic, but they were real feelings none the less.) Each day I lay down exhausted wondering if this really is the best thing for my life right now, and each time morning comes, and with it a renewed sense of courage to make it through whatever the day brings. Each day a new opportunity to say yes. Yes, yesterday was awful and didn't go to plan, but today is a new day, yes I will rise up and face the day knowing God is with me through every step. We all have a desire for God to choose us to go and serve and change lives, when in reality my life is the life He is changing during my time here, and it may not always be pretty, but I trust that in the end these struggles will be worth it.  

The month of July brought it's share of challenges sure, but it also brought it's share of triumphs as well. We had another one of our New Dawn boys graduate, which is always an incredible moment to be a part of. I am settling into my responsibilities of managing our Bakery Micro Enterprise and learning the ropes of how to use my knowledge in a foreign country with different tools and expectations, and finally, I am slowly but surely seeing the fruits of my labour in language learning. We celebrated the work God is doing here at MTES with all of the wonderful volunteers who came to work tirelessly in making MTES better equipped to serve our clients. We even celebrated Christ's birth with my annual Christmas in July party. This event was something I had been planning for months, and honestly it was something we were all looking forward to. It was an evening filled with mountains of food, beautiful music and games, and most importantly, my own crazy "family" made up of my closest Salvadoran and American friends. I was amazed that I was able to convince 16 people to get crazy right along with me, but I truly believe you can honour Christ's birth any day of the year, with good food and great company.

Now as we settle into the finishing of summer and the beginning of fall, I am so grateful for the things the Lord has taught me in these last weeks. I am also grateful to have life settle down a little bit, giving me time to get back into some kind of "routine". I look forward to the coming weeks of rest and renewal for my spirit with a peaceful heart and a quiet house.

I pray you're able to take heart and have courage to walk through this season of life God has you in as well. That you find rest in Him and know that He is using your constant love and support to build His kingdom way out here in El Salvador as well. If you would like to receive my other monthly newsletter, would like to catch up with me personally or would like more information on how to give financially, please email me personally at erica.byleveld@gmail.com.I always love to hear how God is working in your life as well.

Love and Prayers

Erica Byleveld

"Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. We boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so,  but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character and character, hope. Hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." 

~ Romans 5:1-5 

Catching Up

Let me just start by saying, I know, it's the end of  June, I don't fully understand how it's the end of June, but none the less the end of June it is! I have sat and began writing this post more times than I can count, each time I have been called away or have simply put it off until I really had a chance to sit down and fill you folks in. I didn't however intend for whole months to go by without a chance to get my thoughts in order. I was told by one of my favorite people "Just write a quick sentence letting us all know you're still alive!" So here I am, alive and well!

So many things have grown and changed over the last three months as I continue to settle into my life here. I feel like I am truly finding my place here, whether that be embracing my new freedom in driving, prospering relationships with old friends and new ones, and finally transitioning into a position within MTES.

Returning this year has come with so many new responsibilities but also a much needed feeling of freedom, something that I often feel is rare, way out here in El Salvador. Driving here has been a huge change for me, as the traffic is horrible here, but having a chance to run errands around town, go  on adventures or simply be responsible for getting myself to work on time, have been pure joy. When I have some free time I often go to Sucree, a beautiful place for coffee and fine desserts, but most importantly, a place I truly see as my second home. I have become dear friends with the family that owns it and am welcomed with big smiles and hugs from the whole staff, bringing a  feeling that mean more than me the they will ever know. Having a place that is beautiful, peaceful and welcoming means the world to me, a place I can go and be truly known, in a country I often feel  little lost in, makes my heart warm! I have places that are beginning to feel familiar and comforting. I have come back to the church I attended last year, and have even joined their young adults Bible study, another huge blessing. I am meeting new people and am doing my best to embrace this culture I have come to serve. I love being back at the guest house, making it home to those who comes and visit MTES, adding joy and love as I go. It feels so wonderful to feel settled into one place for a little while. I have my personal space all decorated and cozy, have planted a garden oasis on the upstairs terrace and am adding to my canning cupboard regularly. I love having the space to welcome others into my home and fellowship with them, something I have always dreamt of doing. I get the opportunity to open my home and my heart to those that God has so perfectly placed in my life, I get and walk alongside so many journeys for a short time. Our house has been blessed with many visiting groups from different places in the US as well as two new interns, one from the US and one from England, so needless to say, life and the house have both been a little chaotic lately. 

I have begun my new position as manager in our bakery micro enterprise. which has been both exciting and challenging, which I enjoy. I have a wonderful assistant, Jocelyn, who is quickly becoming one of my dearest friends. She is Salvadoran and only speaks Spanish, so that of course has made for lots of confusion and even more laughs as we learn to communicate with each other. I have loved seeing Gods faithfulness in this new endeavor, as I always had a sort of idea in my head of how I could use my baking skills and education as  a way of serving others in a way that helps give life skills to those in need. This bakery enterprise has been a surprising answer to a prayer I have always had, but it was just a thought. I get the opportunity to not only sell bread and be in community but also be part of providing work for people who have been effected by poverty, addiction and sex trafficking. I have an opportunity to teach the boys in our program important life skills and job training that they can use in the future. I get to come up with new ideas and inspirations that can better serve our clients, and of course, am able to get my hands dirty and create something delicious. I am so looking forward to where God leads this program in both growth as a business and growth in the community. Your continued prayers for this endeavor are always appreciated. 

I have continued to take some much needed Spanish classes and I  am beginning to surprise myself with the amount I actually can understand. I love seeing the fruits of my labour in the conversation and special moments I am now able to have, because I can actually speak the language. It also helps that I am good with charades! I don't always love the learning aspect, as I do much better working with my hands than sitting in a desk having to do book work, but the Lord has blessed me with  wonderful teachers, who are so patient with me, and that makes a huge difference.

Another big excitement we had here at MTES last month was the graduation of one of our boys in our New Dawn Program. This is a huge step for these bright young men and it bring me so much joy to see them walk across that stage and receive their diploma. These guys have worked so hard during their time here and I am honoured and blessed to have the opportunity to watch God change lives first hand and get to be a part of the work He is doing. I will admit, these events always bring a few tears, ok a lot of tears, but the guys always make sure to  come back and visit regularly so that makes a big difference. I love having them stop by and say hello, with big hugs and bright smiles, getting to see how they are doing with work and their family, seeing them be the wonderful, incredible and brilliant young men they are. It really does bring so much joy to my heart, to think that God has placed me, even for a short time, in their lives, and it's something I will cherish all the days of my life.

As the summer carries on, so do the months of not seeing my family and friends back home. I have had a really good time of settling in here and am slowly beginning to feel God nudge me and show me that maybe just maybe I could settle into a life here. He continues to show tiny little details to persuade me, which is always fun to see. However I would love to just get through these coming months without worrying about that. Most days I am quite happy here, as my days are always filled with all kinds of wild adventures and wonderful things, and then some days, out of no where something tugs at my heart and makes me long for home. I miss being able to drop in for cosy visits with my family and make memories with them at special events. Some days I miss the days when everything went according to plan, and I didn't have to deal with ridiculous issues, like running out of drinking water while having a team at the house, and not being able to simply drink from the tap. Having to find someone to walk to walk with me to the store up the street because it's not safe, constantly having plans change not only daily, but hourly, because honestly that's just life here in El Salvador, and we just gotta roll with it! Often I just really miss Canada, and the beauty, love and freedom it has to offer, a freedom I will never again take for granted. The long back roads, lush  forests, and cool weather, honestly just the beauty all of it is. As the days keep rolling on, please pray for this heart of mine, that I am able to miss home and still be content here on the days when it's tough to be so far away. Pray as well that God continues to nudge my heart towards His will for my life, where ever that may be.

I want to take this time to thank you all for your continues love and encouragement. The kind words, prayers and little messages, mean more to me than you could ever know. It's with this support that I am able to serve here. I would love to get connected with you to share more in depth about my time here and can be reached at erica.byleveld@gmail.com  If you would like to come alongside me financially, see the information below, and know that any contribution is a huge blessing to the work God is doing here in El Salvador.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

                                                                                                   ~ 1 Corinthians 15:58

Love and Prayers

Erica Byleveld

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New Beginnings

How do I even begin to catch you up on the last six months of my life. I can hardly believe that once again, here I am in El Salvador! So much has changed in the six months that I have been back in Canada, within MTES and with me personally, so I will take this time to fill you in on all the things that I have been up to while I was home.

I returned to Canada at the beginning of October, just in time for Thanksgiving. It was so wonderful to be home and to see all of the beautifully bright colored leaves change and the cold winds blow in, driving through the open country side, seeing the farms and fields pass me by, that is where home truly is to me. Seeing customers come into the shop and saying hello to neighbors around town, something that I think is so special to living in a small town. I enjoyed the freedom to come and go as I please and have most, if not all of my plans go exactly as I wanted them too. It was wonderful to drop in and see friends, visit with family and spend precious moments snuggling my ever growing nephews. Shortly after my arrival back home, my sister Monica got married, and it was a time of grand celebrations and visits with family I don't always get to see. I returned to Bremfield's to work full time while I began fundraising, and before we knew it, the snow was beginning to sparkle in the sky as the air grew crisp, and so we began to prepare for Christmas. This season of preparing to celebrate Christ's birth, is one I will always cherish, as the weeks prior are filled with joy, anticipation  and of course, traditions! Spending time cozied up with friends and family is one of Gods biggest blessing, and it was during this season that I truly began to notice how much these little moments were beginning to have a big impact on me. I have begun to have an astonishing and overwhelming gratitude for this life the Lord has blessed me with. Simple little moments, such as, seeing the beauty in the little lives that bring me so much joy with their giggles and squeals, building memories with my grandparents over Sunday's meals, or simply driving my mother crazy, making us both smile. Simply having my daily needs so easily met, and being sure to take time to realize what God has so freely and graciously given me and my family. Spending quality time just being present was huge for me during these six months, I also needed to begin preparing to return to the field.

Preparing to return for two more years has been an interesting new challenge for me, as I have to do visa paperwork, partner with a sending organization, securing monthly donors to partner with both prayerfully and financially and finally, attend formal missionary pre field training. I chose to attend training in Colorado at Mission Training International (MTI) for four week at the beginning of the year. I had never been to Colorado, nor were my expectations overly high, as this to me was simply something I needed to accomplish before returning. I was blown away by my entire experience with MTI, and how God perfectly ordained my time there. Whether it be the wonderful facility in the mountains, to the incredible friends I will now have for life, with missionaries going to all corners of the Earth. Friends that are in the very same situation as me, trying to fund raise, learn new languages, adapt to a different culture, trying our best to be missionaries all while not having a full grasp of what we are doing.  This training gave us the tools we needed to learn new languages, manage our stress, work well in our organizations and the go through the process of transitions well. It is so nice to finally have friends with the same understanding as me, facing the same challenges, having felt the same call on their lives, journeying with God. I have such wonderful and supportive friends and family, but it is hard to be understood sometimes, even though they do their best. It's different if you haven't experienced the same things. In this training, we went to deep levels together in a short period of time, being strangers at first, turning into our own sort of missionary family. Journeying through stress, our spiritual walks, the devastation that is all over our world, a devastation that we have seen results of first hand. All of these, incredibly tough to work through, and yet all vital to serving on the mission field. God had us be open, honest and very real, and I am so glad He did, because it gave us the opportunity to grow together in the most meaningful way. Our month together flew by and I enjoyed my experience immensely.

Once I returned back home, it was time to get down to business fundraising and preparing, and let me tell you, it's a full time job in itself. God has once again shown his faithfulness and provided the funding for my two year commitment. I love seeing Him at work in the lives of those partnering with me, both prayerfully and financially,some I have known for years, others are new friends, both crucial. I met with some different church's and really got to share about the work that is going on at MTES. I managed to sneak away to Ottawa to finalize papers needed for my visa application and visit very good friends of mine, who I served with at MTES, it was a great little getaway. I celebrated Easter with my family and even had a few surprise early birthday parties, for 6 slightly confused but very excited nephews, theses little celebrations mean the world to me when I am away. 

I did my best to pack up my life in Canada and get ready to say so long for now, surrendering my relationships to God, knowing that He will keep them precious in His will for my life. He will ensure I am taken care of, and knowing the blessing of technology these days, I am able to still be a huge part of their lives, even if this part of my life is being spent in El Salvador. I still get to see their beautiful faces, hear their funny little giggles and watch them grow! 

So I said farewell and boarded the plane, in completed surreal denial, that's usually the way it goes. As I sat ready for take off my mind began its also usual panic of "uh, what's happening, what's going on, why are we doing this". I should mention, I often have a conversation in my head of dramatic over reacting Erica, that can be a little ridiculous, and sensible Erica who reassures we are fine and no we are not going to sit and do this on an airplane for crying out loud we're fine! Haha, needless to say I stayed on the plane and I was in fact, just fine, I actually felt pretty good. I landed in El Salvador, easily made it through immigration and customs and met my director outside for a ride to the house. It's so strange to be back to the same place, as if nothing has changed, which in reality, most things have not so much changed as they have grown. I have settled in and unpacked, making this place my home again, filling my walls with beautiful photos and collections from back home. I had a few days of rest and then returned to the office, welcomed by sweet faces of old friends and excitement  from new colleagues. Coming back to a place that I love, and that makes me feel loved, makes all the difference in this time of transition back to the mission field. 

As I worked on this post by hand yesterday, I wrote about how usually the first days back are always the hardest, filled with so many emotions and changes, I get so overwhelmed that I found myself bursting into tears, however that hasn't been the case this week, I felt very comfortable here and at peace, which was beginning to freak me out a little bit, but not too worry! I am sitting here, in my cubicle, typing this, as tears trickle from my eyes... Yes today I am having a tough time missing my other home, my family and my other normal, but mostly I am sitting here, snacking on cantaloupe, laughing at myself because I feel like a fool, thinking about how reidiculous I look blubbering in a cubicle over my fruit. Don't worry about me, this is all to be expected and hey at least this time around I can fully laugh at myself, and hopefully you got chuckle out of it too! 

Thank you for taking the time to sit and catch up on all that God is doing in my life, in both of my homes. I am so blessed by your continued prayers and words of encouragement, they really do make this life I have chosen so much easier. I look forward to this journey we are embarking in these coming months. Please feel free to email me at erica.byleveld@gmail.com if you would like to be part of my weekly prayer requests email, or would like to donate!

Love and prayers