Spread Thin...

...like not enough butter on too much toast. This is how I feel. It is a weird thing living in a different country. While I love it, the actually living and working here, it is going to be difficult at times as well. I wasn't prepared for this emotion/sense of being.

I was ready for the adventure of it. To be asked to help people move stuff on a whim (since I got my truck). To drive with basically no rules, except what your gut and testicular fortitude will allow. Ready for the "cops" to stop me every time I pass a check point because of my better than the norm truck and white face. I was willing for the challenge of learning a different variety of Spanish. To learn different sayings and words and accents. I was ready to be alone. To have loads of quite time between jobs and work teams. To even be board some of the time. I was prepared for all of this. Most of it I like!!!

I wasn't prepared for this feeling of being torn between cultures, countries, families and friends. This is why I feel spread thin. My heart wants to be completely here. In the DR. Living. Loving. Working. Sharing. Enjoying life. In reality my heart is all over the western hemisphere.

My body is here in the DR. As I said before, I love it here!! This is where I am supposed to be. I KNOW THAT!! Deep in my bones I know it!! But my heart has gotten lost in Costa Rica....

Somewhere along the way I have grown a Costa Rican appendage in my soul. It is unmistakable. It has a face (one with a beautiful smile), a heart of great men that I have coached and played football with, a family of people that have called me there own only after just meeting me, and some great new friends that care and pray for me and the people/person I love.

I have also been carrying with me my family. My parents, who lovingly ask pointed questions to help me understand my heart. My brother and sister in-law, who plays the Jiminy Cricket to my Pinocchio, and who is carrying the next generation of Butz (a girl, called it). My sister and future brother in-law who is the calm part of me that I wish I could settle into, and my alter ego. My Aunts, Uncles, and cousins whom I miss and love and am slowly and sadly realizing will probably never be closer to me than they are right now.

All of this has me at a loss. Somehow God has used and will continue to use this, thinning, wasted, struggling man. And somehow I need to find a way to put all these things that are spreading me thin into one big GOD sized, help me please, pot (sorry for the overused Christian expression, that makes me feel awkward even to say). Staying in this thinning state can't be healthy, right?! God help me serve you! Here! In the DR!!