Tu eres Rey. You are King.
This is the lyric we lifted up to the Lord last night. Praising Jesus with ten other Puerto Ricans leading us as we all sang under the bright moon and the shining stars at Jesamir, the camp we have been staying at in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. But what started outside, finished inside. Cramming people into our temporary home onto two couches and making space to fit everyone and their instruments inside a small living room that comfortably fit about ten, but which now accommodated about thirty. Here we freely, joyfully, loudly, and bilingually worshipped our Father in heaven. But let me back up to how we got here.
We were three teams. Radical, United Warriors, and my team, Alegria. So there were twenty of us total, staying at Jesamir with our host, Reuben and his wife. Plans had changed at the last minute though remember?; so Reuben had opened up his retreat to us, because he could house all twenty of us, but he did not have any work for us to do. For some, this was discouraging and they felt useless. But for me, honestly, it was what I needed. I took this time to rest and really dive into quiet times with the Lord. I needed this time to adjust and adapt and rest in the Lord. The week before I left the states, I was trying to pack and do last minute shopping for things I still needed, and having that week in Mayaguez was very refreshing to my spirit. Sometimes I can’t just cannonball into situations. I need a bit of time to adapt. I used this time to pray into this year, and as I read back through my journal entries, the Lord taught me a lot in that week and really prepared me for what was to come.
We praised Jesus A LOT in that week as well! Just rejoicing and praising the Lord. Our host had the most incredible, deep, and powerful voice. He blessed us by singing a worship song his grandfather had written and which he still sang. In fact, this would be a good time to mention the history of Jesamir, for those who are interested. Jesamir was a church that was started by Reuben’s father-in-law. Reuben explained to us that he was a wise man. He could explain everything and bring it back to the Lord. Even with dinosaurs. I wished I could have heard that explanation. The church grew, and they continued to build on the same property as the church. They built a kind of retreat center, which is why all twenty of us were able to fit onto this property. Eventually, Reuben’s father-in-law passed away, and the church did as well. But every Tuesday night, Reuben and his wife and his mother-in-law and maybe a friend or so, still meet to honor God, but to also honor the father-in-law.
We were able to join in on one of these Tuesday night meetings. It was going to be our last day on Thursday, and we had been so blessed with our time there. We had met with some of the youth at the church we went to on Sunday who had stayed up a couple of nights with us dancing and singing and praising Jesus bilingually. (I learned salsa, bachata, and meringue that night. So fun!) Even though we had only been there a week it was sad to say farewell to Jesamir. (That would be my first of many goodbyes this year.)
One of the girls that was on our squad translated for us as Reuben thanked us for bringing life back into Jesamir, because it had been a long time since anyone had inhabited it. I’ll paraphrase the rest of what he shared with us that night. He knew that we had a long journey ahead of us. 11 months to be exact. This was just one week. But he felt in this week the Lord was strengthening us, preparing us, and filling us up so that we could go out. He used the analogy of an olive press. That we were each an olive being pressed together to make oil. It takes many olives to fill a whole bottle of olive oil. It’s very hard work pressing those olives to make the oil. He thought that we were all the olives, and God was pressing us and using each one of us to make up the body of Christ, so that together we could be His hands and feet.
Reuben outside helping us paint.
It was a very beautiful analogy, and I feel my words are not as sufficient as Reuben telling it to us the first time. Nevertheless, it was a beautiful and unexpected first week on the world race. The Lord was already teaching and growing me in that first week, and it was only just the beginning.
Until the next adventure,
Teej
