During my month in Bello, Colombia, my ministry was war. It was hard fought, every battle against a worthy opponent.
Meet Sofia.
This little 8 year old gem did a number on my heart this past month in the very best way as she taught me the meaning of war.
The start of our month in Colombia was a little rocky. Don’t get me wrong, things were great with our team and our ministry; our work was literally rocky. For part of our time at Cosdecol, a soccer ministry in Bello, Colombia, we took on the role of groundskeeper, weed-puller, path-clearer extraordinaires. When we weren’t playing soccer with kids or attending practices and leading devotionals in other sectors of Medellin, we were tasked with manual labor at our ministry site which included moving hundreds and hundreds of pounds of rocks.
And I loved it.
I love being active, I love being outdoors, I love physically demanding tasks and so I really did enjoy the manual labor we did at Cosdecol, knowing that all the time we spent working around the grounds meant more time our ministry host could spend doing relational ministry to bring the kingdom.
But at the same time, I was hungry for that relational kingdom ministry. I understood the value of what we were doing but it often meant spending the whole day alone in a field pulling weeds or moving rocks to clear area for a parking lot. There were moments where I thought, “I came on the World Race to share the love of Christ with people, yet I’m sitting here, alone in a field pulling weeds.” And so, I prayed the Lord would help me remember that this work was valuable and still built the kingdom, but I also prayed he would provide opportunities for relational ministry as well.
God is generous. He can do both.
My team and I were sitting down to dinner that first week. In walks an adorable curly-haired little girl, the granddaughter of our cook, Dona Ruth. I leaned over to my teammate sitting next to me and said, “I’m going to befriend that little girl.” It was as if I had on blinders and she was all I could see.
Sofia was around nearly every day. Every opportunity I got I started a conversation with her. In no time at all, we were best friends.
Sofia and I spent every moment together. She would come out to the field with me in the morning, talk to me all day while I worked, attempt to help carry rocks and pull weeds alongside me, and in the evenings we would sit and draw, read the Bible, give each other new hair dos, talk, and wander around having adventures. But her favorite thing was war. “Guerra, guerra!” She yelled each night when I asked her what she wanted to do. And so, I’d bring out a deck of cards and we’d play game after game of war.
God has a funny way of speaking through the things you least expect. Playing card games of war with Sofia, God taught me about the war that is raging around us every day. The war for our attention, the war for understanding, the war for generosity, patience, grace, the war for true relationship. There is a very real war being waged for our hearts and it takes an intentional choice to fight.
I learned about the war for my attention. I loved spending time with Sofia. But there were days when I’d been working in the hot sun all day, was filthy and tired, and all I wanted to do was rest. I could have easily retreated to my room but I felt called to give out of my lack and fight to give my attention to Sofia. I knew deeply that she was a large part if not all of my ministry in Bello and the Lord helped me fight the war for my attention to be able to give it to her though it often meant little free time for me. And every victory in that war was met with joy.
Sofia speaks only Spanish, and while my Spanish is good and improving, we had to intentionally fight for understanding. Sofia had endless patience for me during the times when I stumbled through Spanish phrases I didn’t know well. She would, with more grace than I’ve ever witnessed, walk me through new words, sound them out, and have me repeat after her so I could learn them in Spanish. Sofia knew how to fight for understanding. She never gave up even when she’d have to explain a vocab word a dozen times before I got it. Each time we won the war for understanding, there was joy.
Sofia and I chose to fight for relationship. She could have dismissed my attempts to befriend her with my obvious Gringa-Spanish. I could have dismissed her to focus on my other responsibilities each day, but we fought to build our friendship. Whether it was Sofia working with me during the day or me playing games with her at night, the Lord showed me that deep relationships, no matter what the circumstance, are with fighting for. And whenever we won that war and grew closer, there was joy.
In the heart of an 8 year old girl, I saw the heart of God. The Lord is constantly fighting the war for our hearts. He fights for our attention amidst all the distractions of this life, he fights for us to understand him as he reveals himself in his word and in creation. He fought the ultimate battle against death to give us a relationship with him. And he is always victorious. That war has been won. Christ made is possible to know him and be known by him so that we never again have to fight that war. While the battles of this world still wage and there are times we have to make the choice to fight for what is important and what is right, Christ has won the ultimate war for our hearts and in that, there is always joy.
