Micaela Joy Huerta

I love this girl.

Dust Storms

One of the things that I loved about living in Uzbekistan was the dust storms. Some climates or terrains have storms indigenous to them, such as heavy rain, tornadoes, hurricanes, or violent thunder storms. In Uzbekistan we had dust storms.

A typical dust storm would start with strong wind. I remember these winds vividly. The way it would slam our perpetually open metal gate shut, causing the noise to echo through the entire courtyard. Any and all fruit on our trees would come dropping down like rain– grapes, apricots and sometimes even pomegranates would come crashing, creating an explosion of fruit on the dusty floor.

During these dust storms, the sky would become overcast, but not with clouds. Or if there were any, they would be scarce. Rather, it would become dark tan, signifying that it was just full of dust particles. It still sheltered us from the sun though, and caused the wind to be cooler.

People would sit inside until they passed, leaving an eerie, empty feeling on the streets. All you could hear was the wind banging things shut and leave whipping around violently. I loved the hollowness of the wind. It was comforting and entrancing all at the same time.

Most of the time, these storms would occur in the late summer and early fall, so dead leaves also trickled down in these torrents.

I found myself missing the familiarity of these storms. The feeling of the heat of the day being blown out with the winds was amazing. Sometimes if the wind was very strong, I would stand on the wall that divided our courtyard from our neighbors’. The precariousness of standing on the wall made balancing in the wind all the more exhilarating.

During these storms I loved looking at the mountains. These mountains were always barren with no trees to mention. Instead they were covered by thorny, prickly bushes that the sheep would chomp down heroically braving the thorns. But in the dust storms, these mountains looked so strong! They remained still and stagnant, even though everything in the valley shuddered.

Sometimes I would even climb up to the roof where I could see our neighborhood’s courtyards. The laundry abandoned to the dusty wind, whipping back and forth, while the household dogs sought shelter underneath the kravaats made things look even more eerie.

For me these times were almost spiritual. These was something awe-inspring about these tstorms. Something haunting. somtimes these storms would carry though the night, creating hollow moans through our courtyard walls. But mostly they would subside by the evening bringing in the cool of the dusk.

at this time girls and women would come out with pails of water and splash it on the concrete to keep the dust settled while they swept. This is because if your house or courtyard is still dirty when the sun sets, you are inviting evil spirits into your household. Also, it is a sign of a good housewife, or kelenchak, that she sweeps the courtyard in evening. As much as my eleven year old self abhorred this particular chore, there was something very satisfying about it.

This is just random string of memories that popped into my head. Hope you enjoy.

Gabs

It’s funny how the strangest things can trigger our deepest emotions. Yesterday I went to my first lecture on a class I had been very excited about: History of Central Asia and the Silk Road. Having grown up in Uzbekistan, and having lived in both Samarkand and Shaxrisabz I was excited to learn more about the history of the place I had grown up in.

As the professor handed us our first assignment my stomach dropped. Holding back confused tears, I looked over the map of Central Asia and the cities we were suppose to become familiar with: Samarkand, Tashkent, Shaxrisabz, Bukhara…. The list went on. Locating them on a map that was being handed out to about 100 students just seemed like a far cry from the summers I spent romping around the Jizzak mountains, driving through Amur Timur straight and eating “non” from a roadside stand for lunch. I realize this probably sounds snobbish and arrogant. And it might a little, actually. It was just hard seeing something that was so close to me emotionally (seemingly) “objectified” on a worksheet. These aren’t just cities located on a map!  They are cities that I ate in, slept in, grew to love the people in, explored, bled, and breathed in! These are the cities that still appear in my dreams and that haunt me when I think about my future. If I hadn’t been sitting up front I probably would have stood up and left. I was inwardly weeping.

As I continued perusing the syllabus, names like Amur Timur, Ghengis Khan and Ibin Sina caught my eye. These are historic figures I had learned about all through elementary and middle school. While the kids sitting around me had been learning about George Washington and Paul Revere, these Mongol invaders conquered my imagination and education most of my primary school years! Everything in my rebelled. I wanted to stand up shout “I’ve climbed those mountains! Been in those mosques!”

I think this class finally has made me realize that Uzbekistan is part of my blood. Full of the joys and pains of the people who live there. I think of the neighbor girl who dreamed of going to “university” and who taught me how to skip rope, the neighbor families who I watched the World Cup with every four years with wide eyes glued to the static, old Soviet TV screen. The Russian piano teacher who was supporting her mother at 48 years old, unmarried to a man, but deeply in love with the literature and culture of a dying Soviet generation. My heart aches for our neighbors in Samarkand who moved from the village and slaughtered their only goat for us when we visited them. And for the Russian girls who dressed provocatively in order to hopefully catch some rich man’s eye in hopes of securing a future that contained food and a home along with sexual and emotional abuse. It rejoices with the nation when Spring finally arrives and N’ avruz is welcomed with colorful banners, sumalak and mountain picnics. My heart is scattered across every mountain I climb and played in, every abandoned Soviet factory I explored, every “semichka” I “choqed”, every “non” I broke, and in the tea leaves that always sat in the bottom of my piola.

That is where I am from. And it breaks my heart to think about not being there anymore.

So I am sitting in my grandparents living room, watching the snow fall outside. Everyone has gone to sleep. I am sitting on the couch watching the snow fly outside. Ah! A rabbit just scampered out from under the pine tree in the front yard! It is so strange being here sometimes. I love it. The furniture, the familiar smell, the way the water tastes, the afore-mentioned pine tree that I played under so many summers!

I think part of the reason I love spending Christmas at my grandparents is because of everything in my life, it is one of the things that has stayed the same. When I look out the window and the snow covered neighborhood, it is the same neighborhood I saw when I was 5, 8, 12 and now at 20 even. I have changed. I have literally been around the world and back, but it has stayed the same. It is so comforting to know that places like this exist.

When I lived in Uzbekistan, whenever something bad would happen or if I was feeling grumpy, I would in my childish reasoning think that “if I was in America” I would never feel this way. One Christmas we were back in the States staying with my grandparents. I was 8. I remember sitting on the couch and feeling this emptiness well up inside of me. I started crying. I remember feeling frustrated that even here, in America I could feel lonely and sad. My dad asked me what was wrong.

“I-I don’t know! I a-am just c-crying!” I remember answering.”What is h-happening to me?”

My dad, in his gentle wisdom, told me that sometimes he cried for no reason too. I still get that feeling sometimes, when you just feel overwhelmed. Nothing particularly wrong has happened, and yet, at the same time everything wrong has happened. It is just sad and nothing you can do, say or anywhere you can be will change that.

That is the memory that is taking over my mind 12 years later. Not much has changed. I still feel like that lost, confused 8 year old most of the time. But tonight I am just content. Happy to be in a place that feels like home.

Merry Christmas.

Gabby

The Games We Play– or don’t. Part I

Couple by sulwynphotography

I was walking up Bascom this morning and overheard two girls behind me say:

“So ever since we broke up it’s been hard. I just have like, struggled with my self-worth and stuff.”

“Yeah I know what you mean…” says the consoling friend.

“Then I started reading Lady In Waiting, and it was like a light switched on! I realized that before I can be in a relationship, I have to be content in God first!”

I turned the way I had to go before I could hear the rest of the conversation but I was struck by that thought:

Does God really call women/girls to be fully content in Him before He gives them a relationship?

While I think that there is merit to this claim, because I do believe that we are called to find our contentment and joy in Christ alone, I think that many Christian girls misconstrue the meaning of the calling. I see in myself, and many other Christian girls this mentality: If I can just be content enough in Jesus, if I just prove to him that I am happy without a man, then He will bless me with a relationship as a result. I think that is a total lie. I think that God gives relationships to “extra” broken, discontented Christian women and does not grant them to women who are living as fully as possible in the Spirit. And yet I think girls are told that if we are just in love enough with Christ, God will think we are finally worthy of being in a romantic relationship.

Forgiveness and grace are a gift from God. One that we do not ever deserve. In the same sense, I do not think that Christian girls should lie to themselves and tell themselves that the reason they aren’t dating someone is because they are not pursuing God enough.

Love the Lord whether or not you get a relationship in the end. Pursue Him heart and soul. Do not think that anything you do will merit you anything from God. That is my advice. And I am preaching it to myself.

the end.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

So as you all know I ordered the Study ESV Bible. I was really excited for it to come. I checked online after 8 days and found out that I had missed the delivery. Shoot. So I proceeded to track down which Madison post office my Bible was located at. After a series of phone calls I found out that it was indeed waiting for me at some post office by the capital about a half a mile away. So I walked there only to find out that there is another branch of the post office that holds packages that need to be picked up and that it was only a ten minute walk. I walked and walked and walked and finally ended up a good mile and a half way from where I started. Finally I picked it up and started back.

The drama in all this is that I hurt my legs running the other day and have barely been able to move the past few days. So the fact that I walked about 3 miles altogether in excruciating pain is the real moral of the story. Yay me. Suffering for the Word of God. Just kidding.

The End.

In the end it was worth it all and I was beaming the whole way back.

Entering the thresh hold of Scrunchie-dom.

Any girl (or guy) who has cut their hair legitimately short knows what the impending excitement of having long hair again feels like. Well ladies and gents, one year later (after I chopped off about 12″ of hair) I am back in the pony-tail ZOOOOOONNNEE.

Big victory for me. Let the hair binders rejoice and the scrunchies sing with gladness once again.

-G

ps. I don’t actually wear scrunchies, but that would be hardcore if I did.

The Secret Society

I can’t wait to see them. 13 days.

Secret Society: Minus Three (Willie)

Coffee Shop Happenings

So every Friday from 2-9pm I work at Espresso Royale. There is a time period from 6-8 that I work alone. So every Friday I play Ray Lamontagne as I putz around the unpopulated cafe. But there are usually about a small handful of people hanging out before the night activities and chillin’ with them is one of my favorite things to do. I have yet to work a Ray-Friday and NOT have someone comment on how much they love his music or inquire “Who is this artist? I really like him!”

Well this last Friday, while Mr. Lamontagne and I were helping customers this old woman hobbles up to the counter as I am handing a customer his change and pronounced “I want to compliment you!”

Both the customer and I look up. She has a big, teal, floppy hat on, a turquoise ring, and big earrings as her head is just visible over the cashier. I smiled at her questioningly.

“I want to compliment you on your DJ-ing! It was lovely!” And with that she blew me a kiss and hobbled back away. I looked at the other customer a little incredulously, I imagine, and we both stifled a chuckle of unbelief.

It is probably the happiest thing that has happened to me at work all year. I hope that I am like that when I get older.

Ray, you work miracles.
love,
Gabby

Sunday Afternoon Bliss.

I sat and did a puzzle while drinking coffee and listened to two John Piper sermons. It was so relaxing and profound. I wanted to share it with you for that reason.

"How deep the Father's love for us? How vast beyond all measure? That He should give His only Son, to make a wretch His treasure."

 

I love my apartment. God was good in being sovereign in our housing decision. Also I am grateful for roommates who love Jesus.