My time in Guatemala was spent in a smaller mountain town of Mayans called Xenacoj. My fellow JoyBombs and I were told we'd be spending our mornings feeding breakfast at three different schools and then spend our afternoons visiting widows.
On a normal day, this is exactly what we did. Sometimes, instead of visiting widows, we went to the town park and played with kids. But a part of our ministry that I never expected was our attending of funerals.
In the three weeks the JoyBombs spent in Xenacoj, there was six funerals. We attended three of them. And it is the last one we attended that still has a lasting effect on me.
One of the widows of the town had passed away. We hadn't yet met her, but it was extremely important to our contact for us to go to the wake since the widows were such an integral part of our ministry.
That morning when we showed up, I assumed we'd only be there for a short while and then leave like the other wake we'd been at. That quickly changed however. The widow's son asked us to stay until lunch so we hung out for a couple hours making wreaths for the funeral they were having in the afternoon. We took pictures with the son…and the casket (his idea, not ours), ate probably my favorite meal of the whole month, and then went on home for a break before the funeral.
When we showed back up at the house to follow the procession to the church, I was asked the strangest question I have ever been asked. Our host came up to us and told us that the son wanted to be the pallbearers of the casket for awhile during the procession.
As my team stood around, hesitant as to how to take this question, I blurted out, "Yea, let's do it!" As soon as I said that, my team jumped on board with me and we carried a dead woman we'd never met three blocks down the street. It is a moment I am bound to never forget.
You see, I'm realizing that it is so easy to be timid and let an opportunity to love on people, create a relationship, or be part of something greater God is doing just slip by you. It's easy to pass up the divine appointments God lays out for you, to not embrace the random moments to go above and beyond on the Race.
I came on the Race to love people, and I need to give up my idea of what it means for me to love. Because sometimes loving people means sitting and praying with them or giving them food they desperately need. And sometimes it means helping to carry their dead mother to her final resting place; to not be afraid to dive in to being a part of the community I'm currently living in.
This is what I came on the Race to do. To live alongside people, to learn to love without fear, to walk boldly in my authority in Christ, and to be obedient to whatever God asks of me, no matter the consequences or how uncomfortable it makes me. This isn't a time for comfortability, it's a time live and love abundantly. And I never want to forget that.
