10/24/10
It has been a really good day so far. God has been working in my life spiritually in several ways for the past few days and I would like to share some of them with you. Michael prayed for us a couple nights ago and asked us to put our hands over our hearts to feel our heartbeat. As I did it, I clearly felt that God was telling me: “You don’t have to be who you think you are, you can be who I made you to be.” It seemed like an interesting concept. It got me thinking in the days following, who am I and who do I think I am (and how do those differ). A lot of my life I have been defining myself by my accomplishments but that is not who I am. I have attributes that God has given me but they don’t encompass me. I have and will continue to fail in areas so it is not just about what I do. However, if I allow myself to be who God made me to be then I have freedom in that. I don’t have to try to be anything, I can simply be. I wrote down that quote in the beginning of my journal and that is my prayer for this trip: to learn who I am made to be and to be that person.
I also had the priveledge of hearing someone’s testimony. They have had similar dark experiences in their life but they did not expand much on those. At the end of the testimony they simply said, “My life is not important” and reinforced that the signficance of their life now is living for Christ. That hit me hard. My life is not important, what is important is Christ living in me. This has taken on another dimension since I have been here. My comfort, my plans, my goals, my desires, are not important if they do not line up with those of the Lord. What is important is Christ in me. I have been reading Acts (which I would recommend to anyone going into the mission field) and Paul states it very nicely: “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace” (20:24).
Those are two thougths that I have been meditating on. As far as the practical things, I will share what’s been going on:
We went to the orphanage twice on Thursday to help clean up the grounds and spend a lot of time with the kids. It was interesting to see the dynamics when we were there longer and notice that there is quite the pecking order and that the larger kids were definitely in charge. These children were joyful little ones despite their circumstances. They were able to have so much fun with just a little bit of attention. It’s no surprise to me that the Bible calls us to care for the orphans because they need all the care and attention they can get. How can I have gone 24 years of my life without caring for the orphans up to this point?
Over the weekend we went to Morales, Guatemala. It is a much wealthier part of Guatemala, but on the way there Paul told us that about three weeks ago the river flooded and there are several thousand people that lost everything and there is nobody doing anything about it. These people need clothing and food, does this tug at the heart strings of anyone reading this? Does it tug enough to urge you to action?
Morales was a lot of fun. We helped build a church; the pastor of the church has prosperous visions for this church. I carried cinder blocks about 100 feet and then had to turn around and do it like 20 more times; I learned there are arm muscles that desperately need to be worked more. I also did some other construction task. I will try to explain how it went. One man was sitting with a hammer and a rock and breaking bars into smaller pieces, then Brooks was bending the smaller pieces with a crow bar and some nails that were nailed into a log forming the bars into squares. Then I had little wires and was connecting those squares to four giant poles. It was just amazing how much effort was going into this. I had to be shown several times how to do it correct but I think I finally got it.
Then we had church service in the half built church that evening. It was awesome there were some walls and then sand in the middle and they had a projector and speakers (the volume always seems to be blasting in Guatemala). We called people up for prayer with us and people came and were sobbing and crying out to the Lord. It was awesome to see the brokenness and the courage and to be there to be encouraging during it. The Holy Spirit was definitely present.
We spent the night in different homes; Becca and I were welcomed into this beautful home and we each had a queen size bed in one room and there was an air conditioner in there! It was an awesome night of sleep, but just not enough. We handed out fliers for a “bazaar” that day. I don’t know why it was called that but it was a game, event day for the youth and we were the featured guests. I was voted as one of the team captians, but my team got last place. Their idea of fun was not exactly the same as ours. We had a contest where we ran into the church, grabbed a cinder block, ran back with it, and stacked it, all while racing the other teams. They also had giant tarps set up with soapy water on them and we had to race to the end and back…I happened to accidentally wear my dress because I didn’t know what we were going to be doing (we usually don’t), so it was…um, challenging. It was a blessing to be able to be welcomed into their home and community and to be able to bless them and be blessed by them.
Then today, we had what I thought was going to be more of a relaxing day. We were told that Pastor Willy (the pastor of the church that Paul attends, and that we have been attending regularly every Sunday night) wanted to take us hiking on a mountain. It ended up being some sort of competition. We had two baloons tied to a string and had to wear them over our neck and not pop them. The hike was beautiful; you should check out the pics. We finally got to this spring and had a couple more competitions. We raced who could jump off this rope into the water and run out the fastest. Then we had a potatoe sack race. Then we had a car race, I guess. They put the car in neutral, loaded it with children, and had us push the car and race the other team as we did it. We are starting to notice that our activites for fun are somewhat different. However, it was beautiful and the swim was very refreshing. I’m glad I went. I was tired this morning but it was definitely worth it.
It’s Brooks’ birthday today, so I’ll share an embarassing story about him. He swung on the rope which you are supposed to let go of to jump into the water, but for some reason didn’t let go so he ended up swinging right back into the tree. Luckily, he didn’t fall so we didn’t have to worry about his safety and we could just laugh. Seriously, the image in my head is making me laugh just thinking about it now. He was wet from swimming and left a body print on the tree. Sounds like a great birthday to me.
Oh, by the way, I found out that we are not going to Nicaragua next month. You’ll have to tune into to my next post to find out where we’re going.
