Chincha, Peru. Hot. Busy. Loud. Lots of cockroaches and flies.
This is where I’m spending my third month on the World Race.
Our team is doing community outreach; teaching English classes to the locals, hanging out with some kids in the community, going around the neighborhood and to the local markets and inviting people to church.
We work a total of maybe 4 hours a day; 1 ½ hours in the morning and 2 ½ ours in the evenings. Most days.
We sleep in, or try to. It’s hard when it sounds like a parade is passing by or ROTC practice is going on outside the front door or when the garbage man bangs his metal pole on the sidewalk to notify everyone he’s come to pick up the trash at 7:30 AM.
We grocery shop. It’s nice to be able to cook for ourselves instead of having to choke down a huge plateful of rice at each meal.
And we make flyers for the English classes we’re trying to teach for the locals….that one on has shown up to yet.
In America, it’s always get up and go!
Always working.
Always doing.
Almost never resting.
In doing this, we usually find our self-worth in our job. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job back home and I loved pouring myself into it, but that’s not where our self-worth needs to come from. Our self-worth needs to come from our Creator, but that a whole nother blog in itself.
So, team Doulos doesn’t have much to do. The amount of free time we have would usually drive me crazy, but it’s not.
It would be really easy for me to question why we’re here.
“Why don’t we have more to do?”
“Why doesn’t our contact find more things for us to do?”
“Does he think we’re lazy?”
"Are we just living in his house, using his water, internet, and refrigerator and being in his way?”
Last night, our team leader, Eric, was talking to Rudolfo, our contact. He said God told him that we needed to have a “tranquilo” month. This in Spanish means relaxed, calm, quiet…if you couldn't guess.
Really?!
1st of all, it’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that God speaks to people that you can’t communicate with. It’s kind of funny to think that God speaks Spanish.
2nd of all, we just came out of a really tough month. We were in the desert, surrounded by tons of people ALL of the time (that’s pretty exhausting for an introvert like myself), and did manual labor in the scorching sun almost every day. And God told Rudolfo that we need a calm month. Wow.
So I’m not going to sit here and feel bad about not doing enough or telling myself that I need to do more.
I’m going to stock up on my introvert time instead of trying to find a place where no one is around (which NEVER happened last month).
I’m going to spend an hour with my Father instead of squeezing him in during the 20 minutes in between breakfast and the start of ministry.
And I’m going to relax.
Because you never know what’s around the corner.
