Experiencing the Miraculous

Control is an illusion, although we usually live as though it is a certainty. We meticulously plan and execute our plans and as long as everything goes off without a glitch, the myth that we are in control is perpetuated. I wonder if this is why we fail to see or believe in miracles. Our propensity to explain away events blinds us from seeing the Holy Spirit work in ways beyond rational explanation.

If we are lucky or blessed, we get to be swept up into the mystery of God’s miraculous power. Our mission team experienced such an encounter with God’s miraculous and mysterious ways, for we saw the work of the Spirit in a way that defies rational thinking.

On Thursday morning of our week in El Salvador, we were on our way to the village where our team was drilling a well and teaching hygiene lessons. Rain the night before had made the dirt road we travelled daily more rutted and bumpy than usual, and our driver, Angel, drove slowly. As we passed a sugarcane field not far from our destination, I felt the van suddenly lurch to a stop. Out of the sugarcane three hooded men appeared and blocked our van. Two were armed with machetes and the third had a short barreled shotgun.

Angel told us to stay put as he got out of the van to talk to the men. None of us moved or said a word to each other as Angel and one of the men had an intense dialogue that none of us could understand. In what seemed simultaneously like an instant and an eternity, Angel was back in the van and we were on our way, charged to say nothing in the village. A former gang member himself, Angel told us these men were gang members who had intended to rob us. When Angel explained to them that we were Christians, there to drill a water well in the village, they let us pass without incident on the condition that we divulge nothing of the encounter to the villagers. We obliged, saying nothing to each other until we were well on our way to the mission house that evening.

With work to do in the village, I did not think much more about the incident until that evening, when we were finally able to process as a group the day’s events. In our team’s conversations with each other and as we’ve shared the story with others since returning home, the miracle has become increasingly apparent to us all.

There is power in the name of Jesus. Angel stressed to the men that we were Christians, there to serve the village, and they let us go without taking anything from any of us. Angel’s past life as a gang member was more than coincidental in that encounter. And Angel’s name – well, that is amazingly obvious!

Our team had feared that this incident could kill future well drilling trips from our church, yet when the story was first shared upon our return, people were caught up in the fact that we were let go without anything being taken from us. The Spirit has been at work by taking what could have been a negative result and turning it into an awe-inspiring demonstration of God’s power and presence.

Our team has been praying for these three men. Our lives are forever bound up with theirs, and we wonder how God is at work in their lives because of their decision to let us pass without taking anything from us. What prompted such action on their part? Surely it is the unfathomable mystery of God, a miracle beyond rational explanation and we had the privilege not only to experience it but to be able to share it with others!

Locked Doors

The evening we arrived home from our mission trip to El Salvador, I unlocked our house and was convicted by that simple act that I routinely perform. Unlocking the door was a profound demonstration of our culture of ownership and individualism. The reason unlocking the door seemed suddenly so odd was because we had spent a week in a village where houses and hearts were open and unpossessive.

We took a Frisbee, some rubber balls and a soccer ball for the children of the village to play with. Our entire group observed a different spirit among the children than we are used to seeing among children at home. Often, what we see with children here is a desire to possess something entirely. It is not easy to have a community ball because someone wants to claim ownership, or wants to monopolize the use of the ball. However, we saw none of that among the children of the village where we spent the week. It was so amazing to us that we regularly commented on it. We would hear lots of noise as children played with the items we had brought, but never any angry words, and never any tears.

One child took the Frisbee home one evening and I wondered if we would see it again the next morning. But when we arrived, there was Kevin with the Frisbee, ready to play with the other children and with us. He knew it belonged to the community and had only taken it home for safekeeping until it could be stored at the village school.

Why the difference between our children and the children we encountered in the village? I wonder if our locked doors teach our children more about title law than we realize. Our notions about possessions and ownership filter down into the minds of our children even if we have not directly taught them anything directly about these concepts. We used to hear our own boys say “Dat mine” when playing with each other or with other children. Even as we try to teach our children to share with others, our own locked doors proclaim “Dat mine” to the world outside our homes. Our keys and alarm codes speak louder to our children than our lessons about generosity and sharing.

Thomas Merton said this: “God, Who owns all things, leaves them all to themselves. He never takes them for His own, the way we take them for our own and destroy them. . . His love is not like ours. His love is unpossessive. His love is pure because it needs nothing.”

When I think of the way we saw the children share the few simple toys we brought, I believe we caught a glimpse of pure, unpossessive love. Their love and their lives reflected purity because there was nothing that they held back from us or from each other.

I wonder what I miss by living behind my locked doors. Jesus’ words in Luke 9:25 give me a clue: What advantage do people have if they gain the whole world for themselves yet perish or lose their lives?

Life doesn’t happen when doors are locked, either physical doors or the doors of my heart. Purity is not compatible with possessiveness. I pray for life, for release from locked doors.

Small Things

Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin . . .

                                                                                                                Zechariah 4:10a

A fond memory from my recent mission trip to El Salvador was a small event, taking no more than 30 seconds, but one that made a big impact on me.

Liz, our translator, had supplies to make piñatas, an activity we could do with the women and older children after teaching the day’s hygiene lessons. It took two days to make the piñatas. On the second day, we strung some cord between two trees for hanging the piñatas to make it easier to decorate them. One of the women on our mission team was pulling the cord from one tree to the other. She tripped on a large rock, just a small trip, an incident that didn’t draw any attention.

Debora, the same girl who had given us her bracelets the previous day, saw it happen. With no fanfare, I saw her move the rock, along with another large rock, to the base of a nearby tree.

It was a small gesture that touched my heart and told me volumes about this young girl. Her attentiveness and action were a lesson to me. She simply saw a need and acted. She paid attention closely enough to notice the trip, and responded from a heart of compassion. I think I am the only person who even saw Debora’s action.

How many such opportunities do I miss because I get distracted by other things going on or worse yet, by my own thoughts? I wonder how often I am so preoccupied with myself that I don’t see a simple way to make things better for others. The pace at which we move can blind us to small acts of love and thoughtfulness toward others. When my head is down, looking at the screen of my phone, I miss the chance to show love to one of my brothers or sisters.

1 John 3:18 says: Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth. Debora loved with action. He act of noticing and moving the rocks and her generosity in sharing her bracelets with us was love that needed no words. These were simple but powerful acts of love that challenge me to follow her example. If I am to love with action I must be intentional about paying attention to the rocks in another’s path.

The Divisiveness of Privilege

Privilege can be a terrible burden. I don’t know that I really understood this before the first day we were in the village in El Salvador. Some clothing had been sent with our mission team to share with the children of the community. Although our team had not intended to be involved with the distribution of the clothing, we ended up doing so.

I was tasked with the responsibility of giving shirts to the boys. I could not bear just to hand out shirts with the attitude of “You are needy. I have something to help you. Take what I offer, whether you want it or not.” So as each boy came up to receive a shirt, I first tried to find what would fit, then I asked if he liked it. Sometimes I would go through several shirts before finding one that suited, and sometimes I was unable to find one that made someone happy. As the stack of shirts decreased, the whole project grew more uncomfortable. I realized that the last children would not get to choose and that we might even run out before all the boys received a shirt.

It was an awful feeling. I felt acutely the burden of privilege. I feared that we had sacrificed relationship with these children for the sake of a material item. Instead of a relationship of mutual love and generosity, we were thrust into one of wealthy vs. needy.

Several years ago, on an earlier mission trip to the Dominican Republic, we were playing with children in the batays, which are migrant camps for the Haitians who come to the Dominican Republic to harvest sugar cane. Many of the children were wearing sweaters, long-sleeved winter sweaters. I asked the missionary who lived there why these children were wearing sweaters in such a hot climate. She responded that when clothing is collected in the States, people put in all kinds of clothes. It is boxed up and shipped to the Dominican Republic and distributed to the missionaries. The children basically get whatever comes out of the mission box, even if it’s the wrong kind of clothing for the climate. Hearing that, I was angry and ashamed.

Thoughtless giving, giving our “trash,” giving that destroys relationships, is not generosity. It’s insulting, heartless and demeaning. Instead of building another up, it belittles them. And as the giver, such giving hardens our hearts, separates us from each other, and fosters arrogance.

Recalling the act of clothing distribution to the children in the village in El Salvador is still painful, even now, three weeks afterward. As I hold that pain, I pray that it opens my heart to just how much privilege inhibits meaningful relationship with others. May I instead live in this way:

Don’t do anything for selfish purposes but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.

(Philippians 2:3-4)

I am grateful we had the rest of the week to build genuine relationships with the children. Their love, joy and generosity with each other and with us embodied the scripture above. I pray I may follow their example in my relationships with others.

Hopes & Dreams

While in El Salvador, we listened to Jenny, a beautiful fifteen year old girl, talk about what she wanted for her future. This is her final year in the nearby schools. To go to high school means leaving her community.

She wants to be a teacher. She wants to go to high school and actually has a sponsor family in the city that will support her and give her a place to live. But her mother and older brother don’t want her to leave the village. Her father, who shared her dream, died several years ago, and the family struggles without him.

When I think about the opportunities my own children and the children of most of my friends have had, it grieves me to think that Jenny may not get to fulfill her dream. There is a risk in leaving the community, but staying home means that Jenny’s future consists of picking corn and raising children. Neither of these is bad, but she is capable of and wants more for her life.

So how do we pray for Jenny? As a mother I know about wanting to protect your children. El Salvador is a tough country. Gangs are so powerful there that the government negotiates with them.

Whose hopes and dreams prevail? Jenny’s? Her mother’s? I cannot even begin to say the right thing to do. Jenny lives in such a different culture, in such a different place, and I have not right as an “Americano” to impose my thoughts.

Romans 8:26-28 comes to life for me as I struggle with how to respond in prayer in a way that is faithful to Jenny, her mother, and the village:  In the same way, the Spirit comes to help our weakness. We don’t know what we should pray, but the Spirit himself pleads our case with unexpressed groans. The one who searches hearts knows how the Spirit thinks, because he pleads for the saints, consistent with God’s will. We know that God works all things together for good for the ones who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

I won’t know how Jenny’s story, her life story, turns out. But I know that my act of praying for her keeps my heart tender, and gives me the great privilege of bearing a small part of the burden of those with limited resources and opportunities. As long as my heart aches for Jenny, I know the Spirit is at work in me.

A Sacrificial Gift

“I won’t offer up to the Lord my God . . . offerings that cost me nothing.”                                                                                                                                      2 Samuel 24:24b

For a gift to mean something to the recipient there must be a cost involved, whether the cost is measured in dollars or thought or time. If you’ve ever been the recipient of a thoughtful gift, you know that the impact of another’s thoughtfulness far outweighs the financial cost. On the other hand, an expensive gift that fails to consider the heart of the recipient or is offered only to fulfill an obligation, or worse yet, to impress folks other than the recipient, is not a sacrificial gift.

Last week, I was part of an eight person mission team that traveled to El Salvador with Living Water International to drill a well in a community without nearby access to clean water. The three women of our team, with the help of Liz Trigueros, our LWI translator, taught hygiene lessons to the women and children of the village so that once the well was complete, they would know the importance of clean water and how to keep the water clean once it was drawn from the well.

Spending four full days in the village, we developed relationships, especially with some of the children. But even before we had time to let these relationships grow and blossom, I experienced what for me was the most profound moment of the week. One day one, we met people from the village and walked from house to house to meet folks and to see how they lived. Carlos, the community leader, gave us a tour of the village and a crowd of children accompanied us. One girl, probably 12 years old, taught me about sacrificial giving.

Debora had two bracelets, one black and one green. Each consisted of several elastic strings of beads tied together with a matching ribbon. She untied the ribbons, divided the strands of beads and shared them with the four women in our group. I felt as though I had received the widow’s mite, for Debora gave us all she had to give.

While I have bracelets that involved a greater financial outlay, and ones with sentiment and memory attached to them, I have no costlier one than these four simple strands of green beads. I am grateful for and humbled by this sacrificial gift of love. As I look at it and remember Debora, I hear Jesus’ challenge to me, “Now go and do likewise.”

In the Common English Bible, the story about the poor widow reads like this:

Looking up, Jesus saw rich people throwing their gifts into the collection box for the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow throw in two small copper coins worth a penny. He said, “I assure you that this poor widow has put in more than them all. All of them are giving out of their spare change. But she from her hopeless poverty has given everything she had to live on.”    Luke 21:1-4

The rich put in their spare change, but the widow gave everything she had. I cannot look at the bracelet on my arm without feeling the conviction of my economic station. I, the rich, received from a poor girl, a truly sacrificial gift. But I also am challenged to follow her example of giving, to give generously and joyfully, to give without holding back, to give as I have received from Debora and from God.

Perfection

But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

                                                                                                                Matthew 5:48 (NLT)

Perfection is an intimidating term. Jesus gives this instruction and I feel hopeless to follow it. But I am encouraged when I read the same verse in the Common English Bible:

Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.

Completeness sounds more doable than perfection. If I think about perfection as completeness, then I can see a way to begin the process toward perfection.

Yet even completeness can be misunderstood. As I am writing these words, a fellow church member sticks his head in my office and talks about all the various "balls" he is trying to keep in the air. If completeness is thought of as an attempt on our part to be all things to all people, then it becomes just another ball we juggle--a burden rather than a blessing. Surely this is not what Jesus means!

But if we think of completeness as the recognition and use of our gifts and abilities to glorify God, then moving toward perfection/completeness becomes the process of self-discovery, of learning who we are in Christ (Colossians 3:3). It is not about adding more items to an already full to-do list, but about pushing some of those items aside to journey inward, to move past the labels that describe what we do (parent, employee, child, volunteer, etc.) and to consider what it is that brings me the deepest joy. For when we consider that, we discover our place of completeness.

Living a faithful and obedient life in Christ is not about gritting your teeth and pushing through a jungle of "shoulds" and "oughts." The only "should" is that a faithful and obedient life should be a life of joy and peace. This is only possible when we strip away the "doing" that is burdensome, and instead attend to our "being." As we come to know who we are in Christ, we can live fully alive, from the depths of our being, and such a life is manifested in the joyful offering of our spiritual gifts, in fact, our whole selves, to the world.