Maaaannnnnn, y’all did it. I’m officially, 100%, no doubt, fully funded. For real though, thank you guys so much. With the money you gave, I’ve reached out to communities, been fed great food, made great friendships, had first hand experiences with God, fell in love with a beautiful woman (Mother Nature) and also found out that I want to be a dad. None of this was possible without your support.
As most of you know, I’m now in Quito Equador (and have been for the last two months). Being upfront and honest about it, Equador has been really hard for me. Spiritually, I was in such a low place for probably up until this last week. I felt like I was walking up the decline staircase of an escalator. I knew that something was missing but I couldn’t figure it out. The ministry all the guys have been doing is at an after school kids program called “Covi”. We thought that we’d be teaching kids English (because everyone speaks Spanish here) or at least doing something “ministry” wise, but man were we wrong. (Kinda) Every day for the past month and a half in the morning we’ve been solely gardening. When she first asked us to weed one of the two gardens on the property, it actually looked like a jungle. Weeds up to your knees, vines wrapped around the trees and Tarzan swinging from branch to branch. Not really, but you get the idea. So all of us guys looked at each other, kind of smiled, and started inching our way to glory.
After the first day we got about half of the garden done, which was far more than we expected to. Over the next few days we started perfecting every little detail. High beds and straight lines for each of the plants (kale, broccoli, lettuce, onions, lemon grass, cilantro and some other stuff I don’t know the names of). While we worked and worked and perfected all of these different plants, there was this one little section that was full of melons. There were vines everywhere, weeds this way and that way and it looked like a mess. For whatever reason, none of us even touched that section. Never talked about it, but we were probably all thinking the same thing. “Looks like a lot of work”. So a month passed on and by now this area looks like your headphones when they get stuck together in your pocket. Every which way and you can’t tell where the end and beginning start and end. Just a mess. And I sit there for about 20 seconds, scratch my head and decide it was time. I got on my hands and knees and started inching my way across these two plant beds. I was listening to worship while doing this and that’s when it hit me. I had the answer right in front of me all along. It was this one little section that I overlooked, brushed off and acted like it didn’t exist because it’d be too hard. Too much work. And when I finally got around to cleaning it up it took guts, real elbow grease and me continually forcing myself to nonstop grind the gears. That’s when I realized what was missing in my faith. There was this section in my life that I had left untouched. I acted like it wasn’t there and just walked around it. And now I need to sit there for about 20 seconds, scratch my head, get down on my hands and knees and bring this part of my life to God. I need to continually force myself to nonstop grind the gears. Over these past few weeks I’ve been working through parts of my life that I never wanted to touch on again. It been hard, stressful, freeing, scary, emotional. But in the center of it all, there is a peace inside me for the first time in a very long time.
All of the guys have been digging into James and doing a devotion for about a week now. In the devotion, they talk about the word “dokiminion” which was used to describe precious metals put through extreme heat. These metals became so pure that you could see your reflection in it. Sometimes you have to go through extreme heat, extreme hardship, extreme abandonment. But if you remain steadfast and faithful in the Lord, he will continually bless you. In James 1:12, James says “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.” For those of you reading this blog at home going through a rough patch or maybe there’s something that you haven’t fully given to God, I ask you to please do so. It’ll change your life. It changed mine.
