A year of living life

Our wedding day at my home church,
Eben-Ezer Mennonite in Abbotsford.

It’s been a year, what a year. One year ago today, we got married. It was a less crazy day than I anticipated, planning worked and most things went smoothly. There were of course a few hiccups (broken zippers and a momentarily disappearing Opa) but solutions were found. It was a beautiful day that I will treasure always.

A year later is a good moment for reflections, and our anniversary just happens to coincide with New Year’s, another good moment to reflect!

Getting married is not an accomplishment. I’ve read and agree with this article that’s been around on social media. In this past year of being married, we’ve had some accomplishments, some screw-ups, a lot of learning, and well, a lot of living life.

We’ve learned about seeing your life in a new way, as a couple, about putting the other first. We’ve argued and gotten mad at each other, we’ve laughed until our sides hurt and comforted each other in times of sadness and disappointment. We’ve talked and not listened, and then sat down facing each other to really hear what the other is saying. We found an apartment, big and empty when we moved in, and slowly over the months, we’ve made it into our home.

Our first Christmas tree!

For me the biggest challenge of learning how to be married together is that we had many work trips that took us apart. Every time life felt like we had a new normal, there was another trip and Isaías was gone again for several days (I also had a two week work trip at the beginning of the year). Thankfully for the last few months those trips have stopped and we’ve been able to grow more in regular life together, to just be.

With my friend Tigist at the MWC Executive Committee
meeting in Indonesia in February 2016.

This year I went to my first MWC Executive Committee meeting in my new role as Chief Communications Officer. We started new projects with MWC Communications and I keep growing in this role and trying to give my all. Isaías has spent countless volunteer hours as the treasurer for the Mennonite Church of Colombia, and also busy with work and studying again. Hmm… maybe this is why this past year has felt incredibly busy?

A lot of people and media is saying what a horrible year 2016 was and can’t wait for it to end. Yes, a lot of hard and sad things happened, but it was also a year with joyful moments, with people full of hope who keep striving to make the world a better place.

In the plaza when they signed the first Peace Accord. 

Isaías and I went to the central plaza in Bogota to celebrate and watch the signing of the Peace Accords of the Colombian government with the FARC guerilla group at the end of September. I will never forget the joy that filled the plaza that day! A week later we watched with tears as the no vote just beat out the yes, and weeks of uncertainty began. We gave thanks in November when a revised Peace Accord was signed, and then ratified by congress. Now we continue to pray for peace as we enter the implementation phase of these accords, most likely the most challenging part of the process. We prayer for the Anabaptist churches and all the communities around the country who have been working for peace for decades and will continue to do so, for the human rights workers who lives are still threatened, that Christ’s peace may manifest in Colombia.

On our honeymoon :)

This year had other joyous moments (like our honeymoon and a trip to Canada!) and other challenges, too many to list here. Through it all, something that keeps coming to my mind, in ways that it hasn’t before, is the abundance of God. How Jesus gives to us from his abundance, and cares for us in all situations. It is the grace of God that has carried us through this year, and it in the love of God that we trust and depend for the next.

May God bless you in 2017 and beyond.