Jamaica, no problem

Black is for the people. Red is for the blood. Yellow is for the sun. Green is for the grass. 

Last week at this time I was sitting on a small, sunny beach in the heart of Jamaica. I was staring out into the clearest water I’ve ever seen. I was relaxing under puffy clouds and a warm sun. I was snorkeling and swimming with Dory. I was laughing at the local men who promised me platinum credit cards if I would stay with them. I was being stretched and challenged. I was crying. I was smiling. I was shouting. I was singing. 

People keep asking me how Jamaica was, and I say good- it was so beautiful- I had fun- so much fun. That’s all true- it was good and beautiful and fun, but it was also exhausting and scary. 

I mean honestly, if you want to completely wipe out this introvert, send me to a beautiful island with a large group made up of a handful of my favorite people for a week. While I'm there you should set a rigid schedule, starting with breakfast at 6:30am, an entire day spent in the warm sun, endless small talk to fill downtime, several deep conversations with the aforementioned favorites, and ending with a bed time leaving far fewer than eight hours of quality sleep before the following morning’s 6:30am breakfast. 

Exhausted.

For real though, who’s hungry at 6:30 in the morning? I’m a lot of things at 6:30am. I’m angry. I’m confused. I’m hurt. I’m disappointed. I’m stressed. I’m sad. I’m usually cold.

I am never hungry. 

Then after getting home, I was thrown right back into real life and didn’t have any down time until Thursday afternoon. So with several piles of dirty laundry and an untouched suitcase scattered on my bedroom floor, I crawled into my sweet, sweet bed and slept for three hours. 

I haven’t had a three hour mid-day nap since college y’all. It was so great, I woke up and wasn’t sure what day it was, or why there was light coming through my windows. Like hardcore confused, that’s how good I slept.

So here I go. I’ll share my experiences with ya a few days at a time, so as not to force you to read until you can’t keep your eyes from crossing or you get so bored that you skip to the end and miss all the in between good stuff.

We arrived at the YWAM base in Jamaica around two o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, January 8^th. I was exhausted after waking up at four that morning but I was also excited and itching to experience it all. But mostly I was exhausted.

Day one was pretty chill and relaxed. We got acquainted with our new home as well as with each other, learning names and faces as we walked and talked between the palm trees and up and down a thousand never-ending steps. 

The base is on a mountain- yay, that’s so great- so there’s just steps. Lord, have mercy.

Day one also provided me with my first attitude check- and not because of the steps. Leave it to me to have an attitude straight away. Oops, sorry God. Here comes the attitude workout, as my mom would say. 

There were some guests at the base who spoke in a way that really challenged me and of course, I met them day one. When they talked about their past experiences in ministry they said things that immediately initiated flashbacks to my childhood. Then my PTSD would flare up and I honestly could not keep myself from rolling my eyes so hard that I began to feel dizzy and sick to my stomach.

I’m telling you, all aboard the Attitude Check Express! 

I felt embarrassed for these people; I felt uncomfortable for these people; I felt hurt because of these people. 

Does that happen to you? When you hear people talking about God and ministry as though it’s like this high class thing and you’re just like- damn, y’all. Loosen the heck up! Un-bunch those panties and let’s have fun! But then they’re all- I’d prefer if we prayed about that, first. 

And then they close their eyes and bind the devil and throw him into the pit of hell, where he belongs, and then they pray and pray and pray until you’re just like- forget it, it’s not even worth it.

Obviously I’m exaggerating and yes I believe in the power of prayer and I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. 

But come on. 

I guess the thing that really got me going was when the one guy asked me what our plans were for the week and I told him half of the team was building a house and the other half was going to be visiting orphanages, schools, and a hospice center. 

His response was, “oh great, you’re going to go preach to the kids!”

And I said, “Probably not so much ‘preach’. Our goal is to show love to the people we meet and interact with, and help their staff in various ways”.

And he stared at me like I had three heads and then clearly confused, he asked, “Oh, so is no one in your group a preacher?”

And the eye rolling- it was consistent throughout this conversation and grew increasingly intense with every word the man spoke.

But then something kind of neat happened. After I realized that my most recent eye roll hadn’t gone unnoticed (oops), I slowly felt God opening my eyes to see what it was that was underneath all of the tacky religious jargon. I saw that their hearts were in the right place. I saw that God still loved them.

I also had a moment where I was truly grateful for the path I’ve walked with God- not necessarily something I would’ve acknowledged before encountering this small piece of my past. 

I saw the importance of relationship. 

I might not have the religious lingo down, but in my opinion the world doesn’t need any more preachers to throw fancy words in their faces. The world needs people who are people- real people- just as we are, to show love even when they don’t deserve it because we don’t deserve it.

The world needs people who are willing to show grace. 

The world needs Jesus, who washed people’s feet and gladly provided more wine after they were already wasted at that wedding. 

So then the Attitude Express chugged along to Over-It-Ville where it stayed parked for the rest of the week. 

Except no. 

The Attitude Express quickly stopped again on day two. We visited an elementary school where we sang with the kids before they started class. Afterwards, we were supposed to paint a wall.

But we had no paint, no brushes, no ladders, no buckets, no tape, no drop-cloths. 

NO PAINT. 

So we waited for about an hour while our leader went to purchase the paint. And we waited outside, where it was hot and there was nothing to do. No cellphone service, no wifi, no books, no TV- nothing. 

Couldn’t even check my Instagram, y’all. 

So you want to know what we did? We played hopscotch. And we sat there. 

Shocker- the Attitude Express because- hello? Why were we wasting our time?

And God said, “Caitlyn- it is okay to wait. Look around you. It’s okay to wait.”

I felt it in my heart and in my bones. 

So then I said, “Okay, God. Then show me what I can do in the meantime. What can I do while I wait? Who can I talk to, which relationship can I work on?” 

And God laughed at me and said, “Caitlyn- it is okay to wait. Look around you. It’s okay to do nothing and wait.” And then I smiled, because I remembered the number of people we passed on our walk to the school. We passed men sitting on benches, smoking weed. We passed women sitting on the side of the road, staring at traffic. 

And I knew that when we walked back at the end of the day, there was a good chance we would see the same people sitting in the same places, holding the same joints, staring at the same traffic.

It’s okay to just wait. And in Jamaica, it really is okay to just wait. It's okay to wait when your boss shows up at your painting job without paint. You smile and laugh with your neighbors while you wait. You sit and soak up the sun while you wait. You're happy to wait because why not?

If we tried that in Lancaster, we'd be sidelined so fast. It's too bad, I learned to appreciate the laid-back relaxed attitude. No hurry. Jamaica, no problem.

And not just in Jamaica- but in my life too. A few years ago I quit my job with nothing else lined up. Sure, it might have been a stupid move. But it also might have been exactly what I needed. 

I prayed and asked God to provide, and He did- with several short-term, part-time positions. I prayed for a specific job that I felt God had put on my heart and God told me to wait. 

Never did I expect to be working two part-time jobs as I turned 25. Never did I expect to be holding a college degree while working in a candy shop and playing dolls with a four year old. But that's where I am because of that freaking word- wait.

I don’t talk much about this, because I don’t like to overly-spiritualize my life. I feel like it comes across as naïve and I don’t want to be naïve. At the same time, I’ve tried so hard to make things happen and every single time my plans fall apart and God presses my heart and says, wait.

Just wait. 

Recently I’ve been feeling the push again to try and make something happen- to try and get a new job, or try and force relationships to achieve my end-goal but God shuts me down so fast and presses into my heart and says that same, stupid four-letter word over and over. Wait. 

Just wait. 

Cait, wait. I hate that my name rhymes with it. 

So maybe I’m naïve. Maybe I’m wasting precious time that I could be using to build an exciting, fulfilling life. But maybe not. 

Because look around you- it’s okay to wait. It's okay to just wait.

And if you disagree, then maybe I don’t care what you think. 

Did this just get awkward? Ohhh… I can tell you about awkward. I thought a good way to start conversation with the kids at the school would be to ask them to guess my age. 

35. Naw, 38! 

Seriously? Little boy looks at me with the sweetest innocence on his face as he responds, "My mama's 38".

And I looked that sweet boy in the eye and I quoted my girl JLo and I said, "I ain't yo mama".

doing that tourist thing at the airport

day 1 with bae and bae

the great house, located (conveniently) at the top of the mountain with a killer porch view and (also conveniently) where we all congregated during free time

playing hopscotch because wait

passing time with Jerry- or is that Tom?

little ones watching us paint their wall "campfire orange"