I am not a painter, but I’ve painted a lot of walls
I came into month one of the race excited to explore Bogota and bring the Holy Spirit. I anticipated ministry days filled with excitedly telling people about the love of Christ and seeing lives brightened. I expected ‘big’ things. I came with all of my expectations and left no room for open anticipation.
The thing about expectations on the race is they are detrimental to effective ministry.
I haven’t been doing this very long, but want to give future racers advice: leave your expectations at the door. Or in the trash. Or Disney Land. Just leave them somewhere.
My team was asked to paint the church in which we are staying. Friends, I am not a painter, but the first day I entered into with paintbrush in hand and enthusiasm to spare. As the day progressed, I became frustrated with myself. I know what quality work looks like, and I didn’t like leaving behind paintbrush marks and blotchy corners. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make my white walls look like works of art.
I became disheartened the following days. My internal dialogue probably sounded pretty whiny to the Lord. I asked what good I was doing, how was I furthering His kingdom, and if it even mattered that I was here. Partway through the third day, I looked around and realized my team was expressing the same thoughts and I was honestly embarrassed at us. We were being incredibly negative and needed to change. How could we bless our hosts if we expressed negativity in our work?
As I stared at the wall in front of me, begrudging the imperfections I was leaving, I heard the Lord ask if I was painting to the best of my ability. Of course! I told Him, but look! It’s awful. He gently brought to mind Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” God looked at my white walls and called them perfect. As cheesy as it might be, it made me think about people, how we try our best, but can never be perfect by our own work. In the Lord’s eyes we are white as the walls in the chapel.
If you stand back far enough (and squint a little bit) these walls look perfect!
Our squad mentors wrote us an e-mail this month to encourage our ministry. They spoke to us saying, “[w]e must value intimacy over activity and presence over performance.”
I became so caught up in trying to make the walls perfect, that I started to miss ministry opportunities all around me. We might not have spent this month ministering on the streets of Colombia to people who don’t know Jesus, but we have been able to pour into the wonderful people who work at FormaVida. They are sharing Christ and changing the community long term, and the opportunity to try and bless them is a beautiful ministry.
I decided partway through the third day that I needed to be positive, take a look at the walls from far away, and spend more time showing our hosts that I love and appreciate them.
Our hosts, Lucy and Ricardo, are wonderful. After a few days of us painting, they shared their vision with us and their heart for this community. There is heavy drug and gang activity here. When Lucy first began the ministry, some of the gangs sent death threats because they did not want her working in the community. Lucy continued with her work and relentlessly loved the people who wanted her dead. She went to their homes and brought them food and clothing, and saw some of them come to Christ.
Maddy, another beautiful soul who works with FormaVida shared with us some of the struggles the kids face who come to Oasis, an after school program at FormaVida. They receive food and devotionals and have a positive atmosphere after school.
Please pray for these kids. The community in which they are growing up is heavily saturated in pornography. Children as young as five are being exposed regularly in their homes and recanting what they’ve seen to the teachers at FormaVida. There was an instance in which four year olds were reenacting what they had seen while the older kids watched and laughed.
Even if painting walls doesn’t change the lives of children who are living in abusive environments, it can encourage the hearts of those who work in this community regularly. My prayer as I painted transformed into the belief that these kids deserve white walls and pure hearts. They deserve a bright building and brighter futures. They deserve love to be poured into anything relating to them, because children are just the best thing God created.
