It’s His Fence
This month our team is serving with LightForce International in Lezhe, Albania. We are living in a beautiful compound which is a summer camp for children to learn about the love of Jesus. It also happens to be a farm. We share this spacious lot with pigs, chickens and sheep. (By the way, I still haven’t had my day to be a shepherd but I haven’t lost hope). Our ministry is manual labor. Now yall, I love manual labor. Seriously, I do. I love relational ministry most of all. But there is something about manual labor… seeing those tangible results, pouring my physical energy in to a task while my mind is provided with the luxury of thinking, pondering, dreaming.
Our task is to help prepare the base for summer camp where they will host thousands of kiddies from all over Albania. My first job assignment was clearing brush by the river. We were clearing a path next to a black, metal fence so we could then paint it. Cool. I get to spend my afternoon in the sun, listening to wind in the trees, getting dirty, slinging tools? Sounds like a dream. And it was a blast. I got blisters and I’m probably still hosting a few dozen spiders in my hair but I loved it. Except there was that couple of hours when I had to clear brush next to the pig pen and well… let’s just say I laughed the whole time because I didn’t know what else to do. It was sick. The smell was overwhelming and completely offensive. At a certain point, the path disappears and the only ground to stand on is whatever poop has overflowed from the pen. It is slick, slippery and covered in a bajillion little white fly-gnat-creatures with wings.
Once the fence was cleared we were asked to scrub the entire thing with a wire brush. And before I knew what I was doing I found myself willingly walking to scrub the poop end. What? I mean I know I have been craving some alone time but do I really want to get it this badly? I did. So I took the long and thorny trail down to the end of the fence where no other person dared to go. And not only did I endure it but I found myself enjoying it. Let me tell you how this happened.
It was a blue, cloudless sky kind of day. The wind was brisk but it gave me a beautiful soundtrack as it rushed through the bamboo and trees by the river. I was so excited to be silent and alone…just me and God. And then I started to think about grace. As I worked and pondered this beautiful gift of grace, I started to realize that grace is one of those attributes I so easily view through a collective lens, rather than an individual. I get so comfortable viewing God as gracious to us (believers) that I almost forget or take for granted His grace to ME. And I think this happens with a lot of things. We can get so comfortable thinking of ourselves as part of the larger body that we become removed from the truth of grace or love or freedom in our own day to day.
So I was thinking about grace and before I knew it, I was so overwhelmed with gratitude. I don’t deserve to be here. Here in Albania serving the Lord… doing the World Race. Travelling with purpose. What I deserve is to still be an empty, void, numb, shell of a woman wandering around looking for my purpose and validation in men and a career and partying and my possessions. But instead, God sent Jesus to give my life purpose. He sent Jesus and because of that I can be here. Because of Him I can be free from a life of wandering aimlessly. He chose me and He called me for this journey. Because of grace I am here, living a life surrendered to His plan.
In light of this, I consider it an honor and a privilege to be here in this moment, Albania, serving the Lord wholeheartedly. I have prayed and I have begged God to use me. I have fervently prayed and asked Him to hide my life in His, to make me a vessel for His love. And so as I stood there, my socks began to get wet. Yep, you know where this is going… my socks were wet because my shoes had begun to bog up in the pig poop I was standing on. I was ankle deep in poop and not only was I not mad or grossed out, I was thankful. I was thankful because I asked God to use me in whatever way He sees fit. So if for the moment that means being bogged up in poop, so be it. When I think of where I should be, I consider it an honor to be scrubbing a fence, standing on a path made entirely of poop, covered in those little flies, legs and arms scratched from thorns- so that thousands of beautiful children can come to know the love of a Savior.
It seems so obvious and yet we get so far from the reality of it. Jesus carried my shame and the weight of my sin all the way to calvary. He endured a cross for me. Surely I can endure a few hours with poop on my feet. He wore a crown of thorns for me. Surely I can endure a bunch of shallow scratches on my arms and legs for Him.
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.” -1 Corinthians 15:10
