We arrived at our ministry site for the month around 10:00 pm, after 22 hours of travel. There were a few men waiting to greet us and help to bring in our bags. They gave us a brief tour of the church and quickly left so that we could get some rest. The church itself is fairly large but what struck me was that there wasn’t much inside the church- there was a kitchen area, bathroom, two bedrooms with one bed in each room, and a small plywood table with six plastic burgundy chairs delicately placed around it. I remember thinking about how thoughtful it was that they took the time to place exactly six chairs around the table- one for each member of my team but other than that I didn’t think much of them. They were just plastic chairs after all.
In the mornings we get up and each take our place in one of the plastic chairs around the table and we eat breakfast together. One morning while we were all still sitting around the table a member of the church came to begin preparing a meal for the children’s feeding program we were hosting at the church later in the day. Not too long after she got here one of my team mates went to sit in her plastic chair and accidentally fell and broke it. I, being me, burst into laughter only seeing the humor in what had just happened. It wasn’t until later in the day that the Lord showed me the other side of that humorous moment.
We had finished the children’s feeding program, taught the children a Bible verse, played a few games with them (where another chair got broken) and we had started to prepare the church for the service we were having that evening. We swept and mopped the floor, cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom, and right as I was beginning to think we were done the same woman who watched as the chairs got broken began wiping down all of the plastic burgundy chairs. Once she wiped them all down she began placing them in rows on the floor in front of the stage. She wiped each chair with care and then delicately placed it in the exact place it goes. I watched as she intricately analyzed each chair before placing it down. If there was any mark or scratch that she couldn’t get off- it didn’t get a seat in one of the rows but would rather stay stacked up in the back of the room. Once she finished placing all of the chairs down she walked each row several times making sure that all of the chairs were placed perfectly.
I quickly realized that what I saw as just another plastic chair was this churches best. They want to bring their very best to the Lord every day, even when the very best is as simple as a plastic burgundy chair. The people of this church want to honor the Lord in all that they do and that includes the plastic chairs. They take great care of the chairs that they are able to provide for the people that come to their church because the Lord provided them. It’s apparent in the way that they steward them. What started off as just a bunch of plastic chairs became a reminder to honor the Lord in all things.
I’ve sat in one of those plastic burgundy chairs every day since we arrived in Honduras and I’ll continue to sit in them until we leave. Every time I sit down in one I’m reminded that the Lord doesn’t care how much or how little you bring- He just wants you to bring it all to Him.
