It’s November 2nd, which means month one is over. Debrief starts tonight here in Peru, and then we will travel on for month two in Bolivia. So what can I say about Peru here at the end of my time in it?
Peru has not been easy for us. Month one lays a lot of foundations that will be built on from here on out–we’re learning how to be a team with each other, how to best serve our hosts with a “yes” always ready, how to do life so far from our friends and families, and how to open our hearts to the locals we meet, knowing our time with them will be short. These kinds of lessons are so hard to learn, but they’re so essential for our life on the field. The absolute most essential foundation, however, is the one I’ve been working on in the laundry room.
Our host home this month has very little (basically no) privacy. This is not so good for me, because I have enough trouble focusing on my time alone with God as it is. I need a place with no one else around so I can focus in on what God is trying to teach me. So I went scouting and I found the lavanderia. The lavanderia is a combo laundry room and tool shed with a yellow glass roof that brings in that early morning sunshine. It’s warm, quiet, and always smells like fresh detergent. And it has become my sanctuary. In the laundry room, I’ve been laying the foundation of hearing from God.
“When you look back on Peru,” he said to me, “you won’t remember fighting with your teammate in the courtyard or the blisters you have on your hands; you will remember the lavanderia and how we spent hours here just talking to each other. It has been years since you’ve talked with me so long and so often and it has been too rare that you’ve actually waited for me to say anything back.”
This was so convicting for me. There’s nothing magic about that yellow glass roof that makes it easier to hear from God. I’d just been too distracted for too long to just sit and BE with God every single day. This is the most important foundation of life on the field, and really, of any kind of life with God. We have to learn to spend time with him. To sit with him, listen to him, and follow his lead.
I’ve got a tiny, silly example of hearing from God. But hey, it’s ok that we start small because we’re just building foundations. So our team lost our debit card. This is all of our money for food, transport, toilet paper, etc. And we lost it! But that’s ok, because we were prepared for this eventuality. We had a backup debit card with no money on it, but a quick call back to headquarters and they slid all our money over and froze the other card. Done. Two days later, we lost the backup card! I’m not even kidding. It was crazy. So we’re panicking and looking everywhere and God says to me, “Just ask me.” Now I’ve been spending a lot of time in the laundry room learning how to recognize the voice of God, and how to actually act when I hear it. I struggle with so much doubt in this!
Here’s another thing God told me in the lavanderia: “You play deaf to the things I have taught you, you throw doubt in the face of my words. Don’t you see that this is a sin against me?” (Check out James 1:7-8).
Ok, more conviction. No doubting. I’m not ready for anything big yet, and I’ve spent a TON of time in the Bible double checking what I’m hearing and making sure it’s not heresy, but a missing debit card is a pretty safe place to start. So I ask.
“God, nothing is ever lost to you. You know exactly where our debit card is. Can you show me?”
Meanwhile, panic is still pretty thick all around me. People are checking and double checking the same places. Instantly, God brings to mind the disciples out fishing all night. They look everywhere for fish but don’t catch any. Then Jesus says, “try over there,” (I’m paraphrasing) and they say, “look, Jesus, we’ve tried everywhere but we’ll give it a shot.” Instantly, they catch more fish than they can pull in! (Luke 5). So my teammates are saying, “we already checked there!” And God says, check again. So I walk to this corner of the kitchen look down and there’s absolutely nothing there. Then God says, “check one more time.” And there it was! Plain as day, just laying on the floor in that corner of the kitchen. We were so giddy the rest of the day! God had used that moment 1) to teach us to listen to him and 2) to show us that he cares about our needs! It was awesome.
God has so many bigger-than-debit-card things in store for us when we listen to him. I’ll tell you about more soon!
“Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” Jeremiah 33:3
