Heroine needles, condoms, poop. . . just a few of the things I have helped clean up in these past few weeks.
Other items include: clothes upon clothes, broken glass galore, a bullet casing, rugs, a tea set, several baby doll heads (no bodies?! . . . don’t know where they are?!), a camera, animal bones. . . we have been half-expecting to find a real body underneath all this trash. . . it hasn’t happened. . . yet!. . . haha just kidding (but really. . . the odds seemed in our favor).
For the past few weeks, my team has been in Vidin, Bulgaria. We are helping clean up a new location for a church here. And when I say “clean up”, I mean the whole works: picking up trash (lots of yucky trash as you may have guessed from my opening statement), digging in dirt to find the other layers of trash underneath, pulling up roots, scrubbing walls, scrubbing floors, scraping old paint, painting new paint, etc.
Setting aside the work this place needs, it is a pretty awesome location. It is hundreds of years old. Back in the day, it was a Venetian storehouse; most of the place is underground with stone walls and cathedral ceilings. Not to mention, it is across the street from a medieval castle along the Danube River! Seriously, never did I think I could say that I work next to a medieval castle by the Danube. . . except on the World Race. . . in Europe. . . crazy!
Also, this place was once a disco club that I heard was once owned by Italian mafia (hence, the bullet casing we found and our expectations of finding a real body. . . haha. . . that is speculation. . . don’t let me get in trouble for starting rumors!).
Anyway, this place has real history, but from the details I shared at the beginning, you can see that it has since been used as a trash dump in the community and for other disgraceful activities. It has since decayed and molded over time.
As we have been working, I have become excited to think about the example of redemption this place is. It was a broken down wreck that was abused by the community. To look upon it, it looked to be a lost cause that was just going to continue to build up trash, but a decision was made to change it and a future was planned for it.
As it is being cleaned a little at a time, the old paint is being chipped away, the mold is being discovered and cleaned away. . . the broken pieces of glass are being found. . . it may take 10 passes through the same area to find more pieces each time, but they are being found and picked up. It is being restored to new life where it will be a light to the community instead of a dark hole. It is a place that is bringing and will bring glory to God as it is a testament to what the Lord does.
Of course, in thinking about the redemption of this community building, I am thinking of how the Lord has redeemed me and is redeeming me by perfecting my faith and restoring me to Himself as he reveals more of the broken pieces and mold hidden under the dirt and old paint in my life. I know. . . I know. . . I just made this really deep but it is true. I am learning more of how the Lord uses simple life experiences such as cleaning an old building to give us a glimpse into the bigger work He is doing. We may not see the big picture but God does; He knows the plans He has for us! We all have broken pieces and disgusting mold hidden in our lives. He can see the chipped paint and He starts working at, scraping it away in big chunks and little flakes, until it is all laid out there, ready to be repaired into what He intended it for. He will pass through one area as many times as it takes until He picks up every last broken piece of glass and restores the area to the beauty He created it to be.
Being chipped away at and being dug into to find the broken pieces isn’t easy. In fact, at times, it is tiresome and yucky, but we have a Savior that knows all the struggles that we have and graciously loves us through them. And when we finally come out on the other side of the scraping away and picking up, we can see the beautiful result that the Lord brought out of the “lost cause”.
I pray that I can learn more of this sort of vulnerability with God so that I can testify to the Lord’s work in my life more and more!
