It’s All Squad Month in Peru. That’s nearly 60 people sharing 4 showers, 4 toilets, and 1 red bucket to go around for everyone’s laundry. The showers have no curtain, so each time you go in hoping that that last stall in the back is available. Then again, you realize you’re in Peru. It’s desert. Direct sun. 80% humidity. Your sticky and oily and you just need a shower. That missing curtain becomes the least of your concerns.
One of the main reasons I wanted to go on the Race was to learn what it’s like to live in real community. I’m understanding now that community is a choice. I see how many times I say, “No” to it. It’s hard. And I’ll be frank, the moment we’d heard Peru was All Squad Month, I felt my throat tighten up a bit. Several times a week I still catch myself counting the days till Peru is in the books. Community is scary. You’re faced with the chance to go past the surface where you really get to know a person and you allow them to find out who you truly are.
They learn your pet peeves. They call you out when you need it. They learn that coffee is the way to your heart. They wait for you while your sweating bullets on the toilet to make sure you’re ok. They lay out their sweater on the ground for you to sit on so you wont have more dirty laundry to wash. They realize you weren’t at dinner, find you asleep upstairs, wake you up, and sit at the table with you while you eat even when everyone else is already done. They’ll walk with you to the tienda so you can have your ice cream fix for the day. And on that simple walk they’ll genuinely ask how you’re doing and want to know what the Lord’s been teaching you lately.
In community, you hang all your laundry in front of everybody to see. You allow people to come into your life and to see your struggles. You allow them to love you, pray for you, bless you, and you’re scared because you see yourself beginning to love them back. For me it’s hard knowing that I may not see all these amazing people after the Race. But I pray that each day, each walk to the tienda, that I would not be afraid to say, “Yes,” and that I’d be able to look back from now and know I loved them well even for this season.
John 17:26 – I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.
