It’s hard to believe that my SECOND month on the race is already quickly coming to close. This month has taught me so much on how to be brave. I filled you in a little bit in my last blog with all the culture shocks I would be facing this month. Despite the smelly living conditions, the hot dry heat, the squatty potties, the cold showers, poor nutrients, dirty water and the endless lists of complaints that I wrote out one day, God continued to bless our squad with beautiful days off to travel. Including: beaches and seas surrounded by breathtaking mountains to cool off in and of course unlimited supply of ice cream everywhere we went. Having our whole squad of 50 racers living together, learning together and working alongside each other was also really great, challenging, but an opportunity to really get to know these incredible people.
Our month didn’t by any means seem “ideal.” We weren’t hiking through mountains to unsaved villages, we weren’t the cool camp counselors at summer camp, we weren’t teaching english or passing out bibles. We were the behind the scenes of an Albanian Peace Corp Environmental Camp, a Albanian Baptist Church family camp, and soon to be Albanian Youth Camp. We’re cleaning toilets, pulling weeds between cement crakes, pruning kiwi trees, cleaning out pig pens, line washing the entire farm and camp facilities, washing endless cups and other dishes, watching and participating in the death of several pigs and all the other dirty work. The opportunity to complain comes often. The opportunity to be frustrated at everything happens all the time.
God, I feel like you missed the mark on this month. I’m on a missions trip. I’ve loved the Flora and Deusha the best I could with the little Albanian I’ve learned and the many ways they eventually allowed me help them with cooking and cleaning. Am I really ministering to the campers by cleaning their toilets? Am I really inspiring the farm staff with another layer of white paint on the walls of the pig pens?
One night I decided to write out all of my frustrations and complaints. And started reading this passage from Ecclesiates 3.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain has the worker from his toil?
I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time.
Yea.
I didn’t catch it the first time either.
On my 57th time through, I read it like this:
There’s a time to be born, a time to start
and a time to die, a time to finish;
a time to plant, to sow into, to take time to listen and do,
and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to put into practice what we heard, to minister from a place that is full of fruit from God’s presence.
So …
we have to plant. We spend time planting so we can pluck up.
There’s a time to kill pigs, so we can have time to heal from killing pigs;
a time to break down from taking out another round of poopy trash,
so we can have time to build up each other with encouragement;
There’s a time to weep, so we can have a time to laugh with real joy;
a time to mourn, to actually allow ourselves to grieve hurt and pain, so we can have a time to dance with freedom; (or around the kitchen with Flora and Deusha.)
There’s a time to cast away stones, stones that we’ve built into our identity, lies that we believe about our ministry or our teammates. We must reject the lies so we can gather new stones together, to build us up stronger;
There’s a time to embrace each other, and a time to refrain from embracing … maybe refrain from hugging the cute stray dogs on the side of road;
a time to seek, to seek deeper beyond the external surface layers and ask the tough questions so we can lose the limitations that hold us back; but also a time to keep and hold on to what is true and promised, so we can know what to cast away;
a time to tear, put off the old self (Colossians 3) so we can have a time to sew; to sew clothes of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.
a time to keep silence, and ponder, listen to what those around us are actually saying so we can speak with influence and sensitivity;
a time to love, to love in acts of service to others, with words of affirmation, with hugs and high fives, with gifts and with our time. When we know how to love we know to with hold love and challenge each other into greatness.
…and a time for war, battle the chatterboxes of lies, battle for greatness in each other, battle the frustrations for new perspectives, battle to hear God’s voice and what he wants to show you so we can experience his all consuming and all powerful presence of peace.
This month, I’ve learned how to be content in all circumstances. Whether its in the pens with pigs or evangelizing on the streets, God has been teaching my heart to sensitive to the planting moments, so I have fruit to share with those around me. Because when we allow God to be in control of the time, we see the actual beauty of everything happening when it should and with sweet revelations He plants within us.
