Have you ever had those moments in life where you have more list then you care to have? You skip lunch because you are way busier then you want to admit? When you squeeze those you love into splotches of time and make that seem as if it’s quality? Where you neglect knowing yourself and maybe even neglect your moments with God?
Yeah.
Me neither.
While in Peru I have been really thinking about what it means to bring life back to simple. Everything here is back to basics. Making sure that as we are here doing ministry together as a squad that we are boiling enough water for all 45 people who need to stay hydrated. Keeping clean is a basic simple task that takes hours to make sure that we are all cleaned with one shower. Two plastic buckets are how we accomplish doing laundry in a simple manner in Peru. Mealtime is another simple beast of it’s own. It’s the simple every day things that I took for granted that are reminding me of the things I need to make simple again in life.
One of the basic simplicities that makes my heart beat is a love for children. While here we have had the opportunity to love on community kids while doing VBS. Team Sozo had the opportunity to do the snack station. If we were back in real life, I would of pawned off the snack station in a hop and a skip. I embraced it (mostly because I was reminded of the awesome Valerie Conner and Chelsea Litchfield that have turned snack station into the coolest station of ALL TIME!)
I thought of all the planning and amazing things we did at home. Then Peruvian reality hit, we had only a few hours of planning, had no translator and just needed to get some snacks. My attitude was a little sour. I thought about what it could be like and instead of making the most of the moment I quickly thought about how I could abandon ship.
Team Sozo made it happen. Quickly we got grapes. Washed and separated. Prepped our small room to the best of our abilities. Joel, our ministry host, had told us that he was expecting about 45 kids for the first day, we had 101ish. They divided the kids into groups and our rotations begin. When the first group came we prayed for our food, passed out grapes and sat. It was as if their beady little Peruvian child eyes were burning into my soul. In that moment Holy Spirit was reminding me through those precious children to be reminded of why I do what I do. I had forgotten the simple love that God had meshed into my heartbeat of ‘SHOW KIDS GOD’S LOVE & HELP KIDS LOVE CHURCH.’ I had gotten caught up in the details before paying attention of simply showing God’s love.
The next day I was all in. Snack time was watermelon and we had even thought of a snack time game to play to connect to our story of Jonah and the whale with the things we could find. Snack time was the best ever! The simple truth however was that love was exuding once again from my life to these precious kids. Even though I couldn’t speak their language, I knew that we were communicating that they were simply loved.
Simply put in a scripture that many of us have known since we were children:
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.”
John 3:16 (The message.)
During this first week of ministry God has been reminding me of things that need to go back to simple. Simply remembering that He is love and that He first loved me. Simply remembering what is important in life. Simply remembering why he made me and for what purpose and walking in that simplicity.
Then to top off the week we had the opportunity to do an end of the week FIESTA for the kids who had been there all week long. Joel had asked for anyone to give the kids salvation message. It was hilarious to see my team automatically look my way and peer pressure me with their mind powers. I thought through all the object lessons we would do back home and realized once again that we didn’t have the things needed for the fancy stuff. The simple truth was that we just needed Jesus.
I prayed that He would show me an object lesson to give the kids a visual that would help them remember what we were teaching them with the things we had. We ended up using MUDD & the plethora of team racers that were available. We told the story of when sin entered the world, that we all have sin but that God sent his son Jesus so that we could have relationship with him.
As we looked upon the hundreds of children that were in the crowd and as their little hands shot up with the reality that they wanted to forever be best friends with Jesus- I was once again reminded about the simplicity of who and what we are called too. Simply bringing it back to Jesus.
I hope you know today that you are simply loved. Not in a love that is simple, but in a love that is simply given. You are loved & most of all you are loved by God.
I pray that this week God would make His love evident to you!
What things do you need to make simple?
Sending Love from Peru!
<3
Ash
#TeamAsh
