Ankle Deep in Basura
My first day of ministry on The World Race was disgusting. My first day of ministry on The World Race wasn’t hugging orphans, healing the sick, preaching the gospel, or running through the jungle fullfilling an itch for adventure. My first day of ministry on The World Race was spent shoveling out a community trash pile. Or as they say in the Domincan Republic….basura. It was during that day I came to understand where I have come from and why I am here. I am who I am and where I am because Christ came in, saught me out in the midst of my own basura to rescue and reconcile me to him and now I am called to aid him in his hearts cry to pull hearts out of their basura.
“Wear close toed shoes today.” , Pastor Juan told us that morning. I mentally prepared myself for what the morning could possibly bring, but to be completely honest I had no idea what was coming. This isn’t my first mission trip. This wasn’t my first experience for gearing up for a work day. This wasn’t the first time I had been out of my element. I would say that I had some spiritual callouses built up of what the routine could look like, saying yes sir and placing myself as a servant to accomplish what needed to be accomplished. I could expect that. Standing ankle deep in refuse and the Lord giving me a view of the gospel completely unexpected.
However, here we were, gloves on, masks in place (thanks to Pastor Juan’s sweet wife, Alba, our gag reflexes were spared), with a Pastor who longs to serve his community with the love of Christ and looks to see hearts and lives changed, cleaning out a pile of stinking, festering, rotting, repulsive trash.
Flies, cockroahes, dirty diapers, remenants of clothes, a broken gun, tattered suitcases, food, medicine, needles, toys, all rotting before us as we raked, shoveled, and bagged it up with young boys from the surrounding houses helping us. It was in that moment the picture of sin and just what Our Father did for us became so evident.
Romans 6:23 clearly tells us that the wages for our sin is death. Ephesians 2:1 says that we’re dead in our tresspasses, Isaiah 64:6 identifies our righteousness as being a polluted or filthy garmet.
Standing in the trash I was surrounded by death, and filthy garmets. Faced with a clear picture of how my sin is viewed in the eyes of a Holy God…..and how crazy his love is for me. Because he didn’t leave me there rotting as trash. He came for me.
Ephesians 2 moves on to tell us that God so rich in mercy, because of his GREAT love with which he loved us (even while dead and rotting in our sin) made us alive in Christ! Even though we were buried in the rottenness of our own sin Christ sought us out to bring us back to him.
Even though our sin had made us a rotten mess, God loved us so much that he sent Christ, who for 33 years came and dwelt with people who were in their own way individual trash dumps, loved them, pursued them, spent time with them, then DIED for them, to exchange the death that all sin had caused, for all time, for us to be able to live and breathe with him now and for all eternity. That’s insane. That’s LOVE.
Thats also what I’m called to do, to seek those out who are still rotting beneath their pile of sin, share with them the hope, love and salvation of Jesus Christ, and hope they respond, grab the hand of the Father and let him remove the basura and make them new.This year there will be so much of that. Within countries, within host homes, within airports, within bus stops, within my squad, within my team, within family and friends back home and also I’m sure within me in as well.
I am unable to continue to do this by myself. I am first and foremost relying on Christ to lead and guide me through this year. However I am $6,079 away from having met my total goal of $16,962. By Februaury 29, I have to have my total up to $13,000 in my account. So if you are led to give please do so by clicking the support me button here on my blog. Above all else I will take prayer support! Thanks everyone!
