This year, Ash Wednesday looked a little different for me…
There was no mass. No cross of blessed ashes on my forehead.
Instead, there were ashes under my finger nails, all over my clothes, and smeared across my entire face.
Southern Chile has recently suffered an immense outbreak of wildfires that have devastated countless communities. Shortly after we arrived my team, team Breaking Borders, and two of our squad leaders, Patrick and Neal, headed out to the mountains for wildfire relief not knowing exactly what that meant.
It consisted of camping out at 2 different farms and spending 3 days at each location elbow-deep in dirt and ashes rebuilding the fences that had been lost to the fires.
At the end of each day we would compare our gashes from the barbed wire and how much dirt was in how many places. And every night as I looked around at the dirty, exhausted bodies of my squad mates, one word could sum up the look in everyone’s eyes: Alive.
We had ached for the chance to (literally) get in and get our hands dirty and here it was. I spent 8 days under the stars, Orion’s Belt burning brightly over my tent.
We worshipped under the stars, we laughed, we helped each other rub out sore muscles… it was incredible.
Even more incredible were the lessons we learned and the people we met.
At our first placement we stayed with Riccardo, a kind, patient, BAD. ASS. farmer who very well might be the Chilean Superman. He had been able to keep his house safe but lost almost all of the fence line that enclosed his horses and sheep. He cried tears of gratitude the day we left saying that we couldn’t imagine how long it would have taken to complete that fence without us.
He also shared us with Miguel, another local farmer who had lost everything. After a day’s work on his property, he walked us through the rubble of his house, the ashes of his crops, on the land his family had owned for 300 years. You would expected tears and sorrow from someone walking through the ruins of their home but he gave us a tour filled with an attitude of laughter and hope. He also gave us peppers and other food from the only small garden he had left (with a severed cow leg laying next to the fence).
The next stop was Raul’s place about 40 minutes from Riccardo. Raul was a tall, Italian-looking Chilean man with a biting sense of humor and a hearty work ethic. He was so grateful for the work we did that he gave us a goat when we left. Yes. A live goat. He tied it up and put it in the back of our van. He didn’t quite fit in our backpacks so we left him with Pastor Manuel.
Pastor Manuel is the lively, goofy pastor of the church that contacted us and sent us out into the woods with Jeremias and Ian, two passionate young men with inspiring life stories and a deep love for serving God.
Eight days and about 400 fence posts later, we came back filthy and exhausted but filled to overflowing.
To know these people, to know what they’ve suffered, and to see their unfailing joy gives you a lot of perspective.
Many of us never have, and probably never will, experience the degree of loss that these people have known and yet their joy and hope dwarfs ours in comparison.
Have gratitude. Be joyful. Love what you have and you’ll always have enough.
“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
When Miguel showed us the remains of his home, all throughout the ashes ground there were bushes full of fragrant lilies. This is something I wrote as I mulled over the day.
Fragrance of Hope
The scorched
ground
Scarred
by rage
Ravaged
by relentless fury
And the wind
whispers memories hundreds
of years
passed
Years
of life toil and home
The fragments
of generations
crunching
under foot
the blackened bulbs
erupting from the
Remnants
and from the aftermath emerges
Lilies
gentle
pure
with the fragrance
intoxicatingly inviting
of
Hope.
