Most mornings we walk up the gravel trail to the church “building”. Let me tell you, if we needed another example of why the church is just not a building with four walls, this is it, because it is not a building with four walls. Try six posts, one wall, and a roof. Morning and afternoon we meet the kids who gather there for homework, a Compassion learning program, and food. We usually add in by performing a Bible skit, read out of our bilingual children’s story Bible (it looks just like the white and green one that might be sitting in your house), we sing a few songs (I know now kids songs in Spanish, add that to my resume) and we play a few games.
Last Friday we went to a boys home. As we arrived in the morning many of the boys were at school, but there were still 11 or so boys who were home for us to love on. So we walked over to the crayola colored building, the one with the fenced in front patio, the one with the shirtless boy sitting on the ground groaning. We were let in by key and found ourselves in a room of the boys here with special needs.
With lack of funding they had one person there to take care of them during the day. So we helped her out by getting some of the boys in wheelchairs and taking some of the boys by the hand and took them out into the yard, something they do not get to do often. I hung out with Jovencio, his favorite word is “Hola”! Which he repeated for the two hours we were there with him. He also understood when you called him “guapo” (handsome). And after he borrowed my sunglasses and was called guapo he decided he did not want to give the back.
But, for the real reason I am writing this blog . . .
11 Things I Am Learning On The Race
1. I am learning that it is okay for me to grow with God in this season. When I was raising money, talking to supporters, and thinking about this trip, I was focused on how I was going to impact others with the love of God, and I did not often think about how the love of God was going to impact me. I kept hearing that this trip was selfish, that short term mission trips are selfish. So I was determined to show that I was not enjoying this at all, that there was nothing in it for me, and that I was only focused on blessing others around the world.
But guess what, God cares about me just as much as He cares about the kids in Africa. God is chasing after my heart just as much as he is chasing the tradition confused religious in Asia. God wants to take a journey with me. God wants me to grow. So yes, I am here to serve, but I am also going to be a little bit selfish and come out of this Race a different person. A person who has enjoyed herself and who has become more of what God wants her to be.
2. Prayer is important. Sometimes it is the only thing we can do. Sometimes we have to believe that praying for someone is just as important as handing over money. We have to believe that prayer is our most powerful weapon. This is hard, especially when prayer does not always bring physical healing. This is hard, especially when we come from society that wants us to throw money at a problem – build houses, build hospitals, start programs, fulfill physical needs. But we can’t. We can’t do it all. But we can pray for them all.
3. Kids are the same. Everywhere. They are crazy, they want to be loved, and they want to watch cartoons.
4. Adults are the same. Everywhere. It just takes a little bit longer to see it sometimes. It is a little bit harder since we have learned to talk and a language barrier separates most of us. They want to be loved, their family is important, and they want to watch cartoons . . . okay, maybe not the cartoons part, maybe that is just me. But I think it is time we stop looking at all of our differences and start talking about our similarities. Not only with people with a different skin color or from a different country, but even with the family in the other pew.
5. Church should not be confined to one day a week for one hour only. Did you know we are probably one of the few countries that do this? I have now been to 10 other countries and I have yet to find a community that believes church is only on Sunday for one hour. Right now we attend a church that meets on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I am not talking about different people at each meeting. Nope, the same people, the same congregation every night for an hour to two hours. Oh, and they collect offering every night too.
6. The discussion of woman breastfeeding in public is only a hot topic issue in the States/Western world. I have been living in countries where it is scandalous to show my shoulders and my knees, but no one even blinks if a mother starts breastfeeding a child in a public setting. There is never a blanket, they never try to hide. They are covered ankle to shoulder, but anywhere and everywhere is fair game if their baby is hungry.
7. Facebook can talk about a dead gorilla all they want. I want to talk about the children starving in the streets. Facebook can talk about bathrooms all they want, I want to talk about the kids who do not have a bathroom and are dying from contaminated water. Facebook can talk about the Stanford rape case all they want, I want to talk about the human trafficking that is so prevalent and is happening for many reasons, one of the reasons is white tourists coming from our country. I want to talk about how the world is full of problems that will never become a hot topic on Facebook and that social media might be distracting us from some of the darkest things in our world.
8. Women are beautiful. Women crave beauty. We create it, we adorn ourselves with it, we search for it. God is beautiful. He craves it. He created it, He adorns himself with it, He knows where it is. Women are created in Gods image, and beauty is important to God. (Even if you are a “tomboy” or “not-a-typical-girly-girl”, all this beauty talk applies to you – you just have a different idea of beauty.) This is one of the gifts God has given us, and it is a gift we should use to help bring kingdom.
(Guys, you have good stuff too, that is just harder for me to speak into!)
9. God wants to spend time with me more than He wants me to just work for Him. A true relationship with God is more important than how many hours of community service you have, how often your butt is in that pew, or how good you look to your Christian community. Sometimes God just wants you to lay in your hammock and invite Him to sit beside you. Sometimes God just wants you to stop in the middle of your busy day, realize that the world will continue to spin without you, and just sit with God and marvel at how much He can do and how little you can do without Him.
10. Our materialism cannot be balanced out by our donations. I have cleaned out a supply room full of donations from the USA. We threw over half of the clothes away. Multiple stains, rips, tears, and age made these donations unfit for anyone. If you would not wear it or if you would not let your kid wear it to school, then the kids here do not want to wear it either. Would your kid be excited to get a shirt as a present to find out it has stains and holes in it? Guess what, these “poor-street-kids-who-don’t-know-any-better” do not want it either. A little wear and tear may be alright. One small stain? Someone might still need it, but I am talking about completely wrecked clothing.
We do need to donate and give generously. But we also need to be better stewards. Maybe if we owned less stuff we would be able to give more away.
– I came across this blog a few days after our cleaning-out-the-donations escapade, and I think it says it better than I ever could. The Truth About Your Clothing Donations
11. I will never be done learning . . .
