This week (as in a couple weeks ago when I actually wrote this), my team went to the local village of Titiyan which is about five minutes away from the compound we are living on. Our bus pulled in and I was overwhelmed with love for the village. It is amazing to me how each of the villages in the area are so different from one another. One of the first things that struck me was the lack of trees and shrubs around us. The other villages I have visited have had more greenery than this one. We were met with many tiny cement houses that were crumbling. With a market full of shacks that were in the sun with little shade. Yet my heart felt so much at home in that moment. It also amazes me that there are so many people living in each of the villages. This particular one has around 18,000 people living in it. My team had two translators with us and one of them lives in this village. Our mission was to have village time which means just walking around and having the Lord lead us to the people He wants us to love. Loving them just means doing life with them and investing in their world with no expectations. The first house we stopped at was slightly discouraging for my team. The woman that we talked to was closed off and it was just an awkward encounter. Before moving to the next place, we stopped and prayed for direction. Our next stop was a little vegetable type stand with a large family. One of my teammates felt like we should stop, but once again, our presence was not even acknowledged. We decided to just let our translators lead us for the rest of the morning. Immanuel led us to the middle of the village where there were several women sitting and doing laundry. My team stood around watching them. Then one of the ladies asked us if we knew how to do laundry and we told her that we weren’t that great at it and asked her to teach us how to properly hand wash laundry. It is more complicated than we realized, which really explained to us why our clothes always still smell after we wash them. She graciously taught us how to do it. Unfortunately out of the four of us girls, I was number four in my hand washing skills. She had to keep reteaching me. We felt slightly bad because there were several articles of clothing that were put in the “rewash” pile for after we left. More women came from different places to watch and put in their input about our skills and took it upon themselves to try and help us learn as well. It was so simple. As the morning progressed, we produced an audience of around 25 people pointing and laughing at the Americans trying to hand wash other people’s clothes. It was a privilege to be able to serve them in this way even if it did require lessons. We were so filled with joy in the simplicity of what we were doing. I think I said “I think I could live in the village and live this life with them” about ten times during our time with the women. It was so simple. I think in that moment I realized that my heart craves the simplicity of just being. We didn’t converse, but I was so filled up by the joy that was present. Our ministry in that moment was loving people by doing life with them. Investing in their culture and coming alongside them. We did not preach Jesus, we just loved like Him. I don’t know about you, but this is what I want my life to look like. Using words when necessary, but being the hands and feet of Jesus in everything that I do.
