White Butterflies
If work were
a beach, teaching would be a beach covered with a million stones. You have nine
months to move all the stones. Most of the time you feel like you’re behind
schedule and the job will never be done. Starting a church is a beach with one
stone that weighs a million pounds. We have two years to move the stone. We
know that God called us to this task, so we go out everyday and pray for the
stone. We look at it, walk around it, dream up and carry out ways to move it,
push it, pull it, chip away a bit each day. And pray a lot. Teaching is harder
because it’s labor intensive and constant. Being a missionary is harder because
it’s just impossible. In my years of teaching I moved emotional and spiritual
stones and built emotional and spiritual muscles: perseverance, faith,
determination, hope, integrity, muscles that now help me chip away at the rock
and, more than anything, stay on the beach. Because people have walked away.
One of our teammates chose to leave the project in November. Losing teammates
makes the labor harder, but it doesn’t make an impossible task any more or less
impossible. Only God can move a million pound stone. God can move it with a
breath, a wink, a thought.
Since
Celeste left, Ashley and I are now work partners. Well, we were for a week.
Then Damaris went home for vacation, so Ashley, Rachel, and I were all
partners. Then Damaris came back. Then Ashley and Rachel went home for
vacation, so Damaris and I are partners. This is why I haven’t written a blog
in so long. Being without the North American girls has been excellent for my
Spanish and horrible for my English. Please excuse any speling or gramer errors
in this post.
Last week I
lead Ashley’s house of prayer without her for the first time. Due to a cold, I
had about a third of my voice and was tired, my brain fogged over by mucus and
ceaseless coughing. And then two new women came to the house of prayer. Go
figure. I was excited that our host had invited some of her friends, and that
they had come, but I was nervous because that week’s lesson was ten points on how
to forgive. Forgiveness is a powerful theme for pre, new, and experienced
believers, but ten points in thirty minutes is not conducive to a positive
first experience in a house of prayer. To make things just a little more
difficult, the host’s very active three-year-old was not napping and very
determined to take over the conversation. We dove into the topic using Matthew
18 and some help from an effervescent vitamin demonstrating God’s work on our
pain. As I was explaining what I thought were the five or six more applicable
points, I got that feeling—that wonderful feeling of Spanish words and phrases
and sentences flowing from me effortlessly. My improvement in Spanish is an
answer to many, many, many prayers, but sometimes that steady trickle becomes a
river of coherent speech signifying that God is working in my mouth to speak
and in the hearts of the listeners to understand. I explained that without God,
our love and forgiveness is limited. We can be kind or ignore small offenses to
a point, but we will quickly run out. With God, we are constantly receiving
more love and forgiveness and can eternally give love and forgiveness. One of
the girls, Yami, started crying. She’s twenty years old, friendly, and
out-going, but feels full of hate and bitterness. At this point I excused
myself to take the three-year-old to the other room, so Damaris could listen
and pray with her. Both girls (Yami and Caro) want to know more about God and
came back to this week’s house of prayer. We have plans to get together with
them for a more private conversation after Christmas.
 |
| Beatha, Francis, Yami, Caro |
 |
| Active three-year-olds are great! So are naps! |
I guess my
point is, God loves us very much. He didn’t abandon us on a beach with an
impossible task. He loves us so much He gathered us from all over the world to
watch Him move a million pound stone.
It’s been a
long month. Last night I wrote in my journal that I feel like I’ve lost my joy
(my joy is my magic). I prayed God would share His delight with me. Today,
Cordoba was covered in white butterflies. Everyone said it was the weather, but
I know it is for my delight. What a God we serve!
Comments
Post a Comment