Swallowing my pride

I think I'm pretty much humbled on a daily basis here, and the cool thing is, every time I can let go of a bit more of my pride. I once heard someone say that "humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." And I really couldn't agree more. Since the moment I stepped off the plane, impressing people has never really been an option. I stumble through what I want to say because of my lack of vocabulary, I pronounce things wrong, and I blend in about as well as a red wine does on a white t-shirt. And it's been great. Since I generally assume I'm going to make a fool of myself, there's not really a lot standing in the way of whatever it is I want to do. Now I'm not a total people pleaser or anything, but I would say I generally, like most, want people to like me. I'm not shy, but at times I avoid situations were the likelihood of embarassment is high. And it's not like I quit altogther caring what anyone thinks, but more that my mind tends to be less on myself lately and more on what I want to be doing for God and for the people around me. I thought I'd include some of my recent lessons in humility for your dining pleasure:

A couple days ago I had a preschooler help me with my pronunciation. Vicki is 5 and apparently wasn't satisfied with the way I was pronouncing my "errre" when I said "rojo". First she made me repeat after here several times. Still unhappy with my progress, she went to her backpack, pulled out her markers, and took out a nice pink one. She demanded, "Abre tu boca" (open your mouth) and placed her marker across my mouth. I was then instructed to close my mouth and repeat after her again. After a few tries I apparently got it down well enough that we could go play. :)

We were at church one day and the band started to play, "Open the Eyes of My Heart," a worship song we sing in the US that is also sung in Spanish. I sang the words in English and since then all of the kids have been asking me to sing it, write it down for them, etc. Well, one day my friend Elisa was there when I was singing it for them and asked me if I would come sing at her sing at her church with her. Now I love to sing, and was in choir in jr high and high school, but I'm not one to do solos. Together, I figured I could swallow my pride a bit and handle it. So I went with to church with her last night to sing....and before we left she decided it would be better for me to sing it alone since that way we wouldn't have to worry about matching up or anything....oh, and there's no band I would be singing a capella. Whew...what have I gotten myself into? I admittedly was a bit nervous, but it turned out great. I reminded myself I was singing for God and not people and wasn't freaked out at all. That, and it turned out her church was teeny tiny, like 20 people. It was a great experience. The pastor asked if anyone had anything special to share and as it turned out I wasn't the only one to go up and sing...and those that followed me were definitely not Whitney Houston's. Many were singing out of tune and clapping off beat, but it was evident they were raising their most joyful noise to the Lord and the truth of it is, it was beautiful. These simple people are an incredible reminder of what it is all about. They come without a fancy sound system, or even a guitar for that matter to unabashedly sing praise to our Father. Sweet.