Month 10 began with the most beautiful coastline travel I’ve ever witnessed. Traveling from La Paz, Bolivia to Santiago, Chile was one of our longest travel days: 3+ days in a bus. We were blessed with gorgeous scenery on every side: the ocean to our right and lush green mountains to our left. Chile, for being so straight and narrow, held many surprises.
In months past, my co-squad leader Karissa and I traveled separately to different teams. For our remaining two months on the race we felt lead to travel together and form a deeper community and relationship. We spent Month 10 (October) with team Fénix in Quilpué, Chile at the Youth for Christ center. This ministry is headed up by an American couple who has been serving there for two years. As much as I wanted to learn and decipher the complex Chilean Spanish, I was delighted to speak English regularly and get to know our contacts better without the language headaches.
I joined the race eager for fellowship and community. Although I’m an introvert (with extroverted tendencies) I love social gatherings and getting to know people and their hearts. To commit to the World Race is to commit to community. And living in community is beautiful – when we are open, willing and humble. Unfortunately we’re flawed, selfish and easily annoyed. And when we’ve lived in intense community for 9 months, many of us were ready for it to come to an end. And instead of living with open hands, generosity and grace we made fists, snarky comments and rolled our eyes when others didn’t do what we expected them to. When they drank the last of the milk. Ate the last of the granola. Or knew the trash bin was overflowing and just left it there.
I’ve learned this year that living in community requires intentionality in every aspect. And having a lot of grace. From cleaning the bathroom, to taking out the trash, volunteering to cook or picking up the towel to dry the dishes before anyone asks. It requires the body to live in unity. And to live in unity you must choose each other.
We live on $5.00 a day per person for food. And I praise the Lord for the women on this team that know how to make it go far. Because of them, we were blessed with luxuries we haven’t had in months past: lunch meat, cookies, cheese (for my lactose-tolerant friends) and chips! But the days passed and the cheese and lunch meat quickly disappeared; cookies were gone before others had their share; tempers rose and frustrations increased. Where was my portion? Why wasn’t any saved for me? The poverty mentality set in and we fought to fend for what was ours regardless of our sister sitting next to us. There were 24 cookies in a box, 8 girls, we were each entitled to 3 of those cookies. Right?
Not at all.
We shouldn’t feel entitled to anything. And as soon as our hearts begin to covet that “thing” and we feel the system or people aren’t acting fairly, we need to do a serious pride-check. There are luxuries in life that, according to the world’s standards, we think we deserve because we worked hard for them and it’s only fair that we get what we earned. But what does it look like to continue to live in abandonment and dying to our self, our desires, to prefer the person sitting next to us? Are my emotions and choices based upon whether or not I get that cookie or slice of cheese? Do I not trust my Father enough to provide what I need? Does my satisfaction rest in His goodness, in serving Him? Or in what I can get my hands on and what “I’m entitled” to?
My own personal “poverty mindset” came not in the form of cookies but with the last of my Panamanian coffee. It was an awful morning. I was irritated, tired and all I wanted was to have quiet time, drink MY coffee, by MYself. I didn’t want to share. It was mine. “My precious” shall we say? Plus, there wasn’t enough for everyone. Just enough grounds for one last cup that “I deserved.”
Just moments later, perfectly timed, I Skype’d with Vanessa, our squad mentor, and vented my frustration about the world, including wanting to keep the coffee to myself. As the wise mentor she is, she called me out. It wasn’t my coffee. It was a gift from my Father. And if I really wanted to live out how He was calling me to live she posed the question: Would I really withhold this gift from others? We live in abundance. Do you believe that He will provide and sustain you?
I didn’t like what she said even though I knew she spoke truth. As the morning progressed and my stubbornness remained my Father stepped in again using His word to convict and change my heart:
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” 1 Peter 4:8-10
“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others…”
My coffee. It was a gift to me. A gift to share with others.
So with a softened and willing heart I made the coffee. And to my surprise, it was enough to fill many mugs with it’s liquid gold goodness, strong and delicious. Just the way we like. And I still had coffee left over for the next day.
We live in abundance. Never once have I had to fear that I would go hungry in the past year. Never once has the Lord failed to provide enough for all of our team, our squad and our ministry hosts. We live in the abundant grace and provision of our great God daily. My prayer for you is that wherever you are, financially, physically, spiritually or emotionally you find peace in knowing that our God is big enough and good enough to provide all your needs. To stretch the milk, bread, coffee to go further. And I want to call you higher and encourage you to have faith to believe He will provide when you doubt. Don’t say “no” to an invitation to share the gifts you’ve been given. He has called us to share, to serve and love one another deeply. This is community.
