So, 2 overnight bus rides (4 total different bus rides) later, we are in Peru, and fast forward a few days, and we’ve already been here a week. Crazy. Speaking of crazy, this month appears like it’s going to be just that. The whole squad (sixty mildly insane people) is together all month and even our ministries are switching around weekly, not to even mention our most common form of public transportation (they’re called combies (yeah, NO IDEA how that’s supposed to be spelled) and are basically vans that pile up to like 30 people in at a time. I don’t think our long American legs have truly fit in any seats. We are staying in a city called Trujillo. It’s super near the coast (yay ocean!!!!) of Peru, so unlike Quito, it’s super flat, a lot hotter, and we actually have humidity and mosquitos, but on the definite plus side, we have a ton more oxygen as well. We’re staying in what will at some point become like an orphanage, but it now like a project in the making. Last week, we worked with a local daycare in the area, but this week, it’s my team’s turn to have a hand at construction there. Unlike our work with the tree stump, I am sure we are going to BEAST! We may also be doing ministry at a dump or sand boarding (snow boarding, BUT with SAND!) site later on.
I’m not sure what God has planned for myself, my team, and my squad this month, but I definitely think one thing he’s doing is working in breaking down a lot of like self-protective walls (not cement ones, but like figurative emotional ones, we’re definitely keeping the cement ones up) and bringing me to a place of openness and vulnerability which leads to healing and also just being able to live in the truths of what God says about me and who I am rather than in the lies that I tell myself I am. It’s a strange thing, community. So many times, I feel like in our communities (church most definitely included), we feel compelled to hide our struggles and our pain and that which we feel is shameful and put on the persona that we have it all together in order to avoid rejection and stay a part of the community. However, in doing this, we actually prohibit true community. We miss the entire point. We aren’t experiencing community the way God designed it. God designed as truly relational people who thrive and grow and challenge each other to greatness and transformation into who God perfectly designed us to be. When we abuse and misunderstand the point of community, we take something so beautiful and transform it into something that perpetuates guilt and shame attached to a certain sin or past experience and therefore only further perpetuates a life of lies and shame that only multiplies that sin as we try to keep it in the darkness and deal with it all by ourselves. True community allows us to bring those things to the light and then move past them. In doing so, we rob those things of their power over us. In true community, there is no rejection or judgment, there is only the unconditional love of Jesus. True community is hard. Being fully known by others isn’t easy and doesn’t come automatically, but I definitely believe it’s what we’re made for. Sooooo, difficult or not, I’m ready. I’m ready to step into true community and start the process of being transformed into the person God created me to be.
John, below, apparently isn’t ready for true community just yet:
