Look, here’s the deal people…I am sitting here right now in Trinidad, Bolivia with chocolate rubbed all over my face because my teammate Natalie gets really weird desires and rubs things on my face. In Peru, she took a huge piece of lettuce and just rubbed it on my face and kept saying, “That’s nice, isn’t it?” When we were in the grocery store, she put on a rubber oven mit and then rubbed that on my face too.
I’m not entirely innocent either from this weird game. I have picked her nose and shoved my two fingers in her little shirt pocket to which she now calls me the Two Finger Terrorist and I’ve stolen her pocket knife off her pants with a tussle in the dirt to follow. I’ve also left threatening but non threatening notes in her guitar case. We get in weird moods and are fearless enough to just actually live this weird stuff out. And it’s fun.
What does this have to do with the pretty tough month we just had in the jungle of Bolivia? Well, a lot.
We were reading the email for our next placement before Bolivia and if you took a That 70’s Show shot around the table, you would have seen everyone with fear, distress, and “Are you kidding me?” The contact labeled this ministry site a Level 5…out of 5. So, whether we liked it or not, whether we were ready or not, we were headed to sleep in our tents and do some church planting in Camiaco, Bolivia to live with the mosquitoes, the heat, the tigers, piranhas, vipers, anacondas, the pastor, his wife and 18 month old daughter.
Woof, people.
Fast forward back to this moment and I am looking back on the month with a pumping heart and a little smirk. Yes, we learned a lot of hard lessons and have been strengthened through trial. But y’all, lest we forget (in the midst of all my grumbling) that God also created joy…let me proclaim that I also had FUN in the jungle.
The first week was spent chopping down that jungle with a machete. Since most of y’all probably don’t know what that’s like, I can tell you that you feel like an unstoppable glorified machete queen who suddenly realizes they have, like STRONG arms. Seriously, I wished my brothers could have been there to see me knock that stuff down. Lil mini trees down in ONE SWIPE BABY. That’s a fun feeling. YAHHH!!
Throughout the month, we had a game. Being in the jungle, there is wildlife all around you. There is also farm life all around you. Talk about free range farm animals. Chickens. Cows. Horses. And chanchos…well, in English, pigs. These fat chanchos would roam around snorting and wiggling their little chancho butts just eating everything. They always came in packs. A mom with her 6 toddler chanchos. An awful, sore, itchy teeted mom who would never let her babies drink chancho milk. A pack of male chanchos. A family reunion of chanchos. All the chanchos. And the game was to smack the chancho on the butt. If you got a big chancho, you got 10 points. If you got a kid chancho, 15 points. They were harder to get after since they were little and fast. If you rode a chancho, you won the game automatically.
I stand here at 375 points. I was a chancho spankin’ maniac. And it was so much fun. We would sneak around houses and set up traps with food. Or we would just drop our things mid conversation and run after them in the field. When we saw them crossing over the moat into the field, we would immediately squint our eyes and slowly start getting up.
“Come here you fat chancho. I’m gonna smack your butt.”
Evangelizing was not always easy, but seeing the enemy’s tactics and then fighting that first hand with the word and passionate prayer was fun. “Like, thank you for pointing that out satan, now we know what to pray against and what good to focus on. So you can go now. Moving on.” Fighting the Lord’s battle is fun. Cause he always shows up and then you pray over a woman’s arthritis and afterwards she just starts opening and closing her hands and rolling her wrists around. Cause God can do whatever He wants and it’s fun. Healing. Fun!
One day, we were traveling to a nearby village for some gospel sharing via river and we got caught in the middle of a storm. So, there we were on a quarter to a half mile wide Amazonian tributary river with rain just pouring over us floating around in nothing more than a pecan shell. We had a few bottles cut in half that were working as shovels to get the water out of our “boat” so as to keep from sinking. Natalie is commanding the clouds to reveal the sun in the name of Jesus and I’m pretty much just switching back and forth from laughing to singing to “AMEN!” Fun.
One day we were painting the church, and this kid just showed up at the door with his horse. The horse’s head just poking in the door like, “Hey, y’all.” And we just get asked if we want to ride the horse. YES. YES I DO BECAUSE I LOVE HORSES AND I PRAYED FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO RIDE HORSES ON THE RACE BACK IN ALBANIA. THANK YOU LORD.
I rode that horse. We rode fast. And we cut off the main trail and into the jungle and I rode that horse through the spider webs and hanging palm trees and was surrounded by butterflies and random ponds. I sang real loud the whole time, and when we went back to the main road, I had a choice. I could turn left and head back to the church, or I could be WILD and turn right for the open road of freedom and uncertainty.
Que the climactic adventure soundtrack in the background and watch me kick my heels in his sides as I lean forward and to the right and “Hayah” that horse into the unknown FUN. It was. So. Freaking. Fun.
Jesus saves the best wine for the end of the party and this month, I believed it. God, in His mercy, gave me so many opportunities for joy and it seems like they will only continue for my LAST MONTH on the race. Amazing that I can honestly say this when there was also some freaking hard crap to deal with in the jungle. Real suffering like the 80 pound, unhinged door to the shower falling on me…twice…mid shower… lol but the fun just seems to override it all.
And now I am about to embark on a week’s worth of travel to end my time on the race in PATA-freakin-GONIA. Need I be worried about post race when God is clearly getting on a roll here with the fun He is doling out in my life right now? NO WAY. Let’s just keep the momentum going, babeh!! Post race is going to be fun. Declaring that now. I think I can get pretty caught up in the suffering and the trial, and yes, that is a really real thing that is hard. But why should I toss the acknowledgement of the fun aside so as to hold on to all the vain suffering? Let’s just validate it all.
Going back into life stateside doesn’t have to be the dreaded and fearful thing. I can be sober minded about it and aware of it’s potential for some weird, hard stuff. But I can also choose to think of 3 things to plan to do throughout my week when I get back that energize me and that I enjoy and that are rooted in God. I can keep doing ministry! Ha! I can choose to fight for the fun of this next season and I can choose to focus on the fact that God created joy and laughter. God also created surprises and considering I have no idea what I will do after the race, it sounds like there are a lot of surprises waiting for me there. I love surprises.
So, to all my squadmates out there, and to my friends and family back home, this next season of return doesn’t have to be focused on hardship. It can also be adventurous and fun to figure out how to do life back home again. I hope we don’t give in to the threats and fear pushed on us to be warned of how challenging it will be. I hope we are aware and expectant of anything.
Including…fun. Because, I have a feeling it will all be just fine. There is nothing new under the sun. No season lasts forever. And there will be something hard about every circumstance. Wishing myself into any other season will only rob me of the one I am in.
