This picture is beautiful to me. Upon first glance, it's not anything startling. It doesn't embody any particularly notable natural beauty. This is a normal dirt road leading away from a village called Rio Esteban in Honduras. That's me on the right and the woman to my left is a wonderful lady named Bictalia. At that point, we (Joelle & I) were leaving from having stayed at her house for a few days with her family. She and her sisters are the roots of a program to raise up and send missionaries from Honduras to other areas of the world that are closed to the Gospel. Her daughters lead a bible study/youth group in their village at the church. And one of her daughters, Delmy, is a teacher in the bilingual school there, teaching the kids the basics (reading, writing, arithmetic) in a context that teaches them English as well.
Something you need to know to understand the time I spent in Honduras is that I speak virtually no Spanish. And the people we were with for the most part spoke just as much English. An intense conversation for me (if you want to call it that) would be saying a string of the few nouns I know that related to where we were or what we were doing, and gesturing in between to communicate the verbs. If we were setting the table for a meal, I'd say something to the effect of "cups there?" if attempting to assist or "love food, love to talk!" when attempting to comment on dinner time. I learned the word for excited after a few days, and so to show any emotion in any circumstance, I was either excited or not excited. With this taken into consideration, it was hard to be of much help without being able to anticipate needs, let alone develop deep and meaningful relationships.
So the question began racking my brain... What in the world was I doing there?? It's amazing how much I trust in my ability to communicate. Whenever I examine what God has called me to do, or what He's gifted me in, it is without fail things that require verbal communication. Leave aside the fact that I was a Communication Studies major at JMU... I love to teach; I love to share the word of the Gospel; I love to listen to and (by the grace of God and the working of the Holy Spirit) offer Biblical counsel to women placed in my life; I love to discuss scripture and explore themes that God has woven throughout history by His sovereign power. These are the things I am blessed to engage in regularly here. However, take away the gift of language, and as passionately as I may want to communicate a message, I can't. (Oh yeah, and being an extrovert, I want to do these things all the time, so this is no small deprivation to me!)
So the scene is set: I'm living in a place where I know no one, they don't know me, and I can't even rock Philippians 2 (like a good Aletheian ;) ) to get past it... Want to know how I was feeling?? Useless. Why would God call me there to do nothing, to bring nothing, to be of no help to the people I was with? And fyi, that is a TERRIBLE feeling for a person that thrives on feeling useful.
But wait... I've just given away the root of the problem. Can you find it? Whenever God calls me out of the country, He always, always is at work in my heart. We're called to be conformed to the image of Christ daily, dead to self and alive in Jesus, to lay down all other things and follow Him. I remember on one of my first mission trips to Kazakhstan, we talked about how over the time spent there, we needed to be prepared for our sin to be worn on our sleeve. In order for the light to penetrate deeply, it must expose all things kept in darkness. In Luke 6:45, Jesus says, "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good. The evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart." The problem is in the heart, not simply the mouth, so we prayed that God would dig up the dirt... And boy, does He!
I thrive on feeling useful. Give me a task and I'll take the utmost pride in doing it to the best of my ability. Give me another task and I'll thrive even more on being able to do both well at the same time. Challenge me, push me, throw me into difficult situations. Bring it on! I will destroy myself in order to not feel inadequate- not sleep, not eat, not wash clothes, not budget money, not steward gifted resources, not examine myself, not nourish my own relationship with the Lord... All to feed that precious pride monster within. I pray, "God, use me!" and the unspoken parenthesis is "(so that I know I'm not useless...)" Egocentricity at its finest. It's amazing how humility can be perverted into pride so quickly and so quietly.
It's hard to be hit in the face with that kind of reality. But the Lord does it in beautiful ways. Back to the picture, if you notice, Bictalia is carrying a large multi-colored umbrella over our heads to shade us from the sun. While I was at her home, I had a small cold. She noticed soon after I had arrived, and throughout the time we were there, she would come up to me at random times with something in her hand to give, always "para su gripa" ("for your cold"). Warm lemonade, a blanket, a chair to sit... When we were walking from her home to catch the bus back to the hospital, she came next to me, holding that umbrella above my head to make sure I was shielded from the sun on the 2 mile walk to the bus stop, "para mi gripa." She wouldn't let me hold it for her. If I stepped away, she would call me back or move to where I was. At some point, having lots of time to think as we walked because I couldn't actually talk with this beautiful woman next to me, I began realizing all the things she'd been doing for me... And I'd been utterly useless. I couldn't return her generosity. I couldn't even adequately thank her for it. She was giving and giving, but with no expectation of a return on her investment. While in Honduras, I had begun studying the Gospel according to Luke. A passage jumped out at me as I was pondering that moment later in the week.
"If you love those who love you, what good is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as our Father is merciful." Luke 6:32-36
Jesus derived no benefit from His sacrifice. He didn't do it because He needed more glory, or because He needed us to validate Him as a martyr. He was led as a sheep to slaughter because He had perfect love to give to an evil people. Grace was not an entitlement for us to receive, but something that was meant to elicit awe and reverence as it was given freely and without earthly pomp. Bictalia showed me love that I am so quick to forget. A genuine desire to serve the Lord in serving others, all the time, expecting absolutely nothing in return. I could offer her nothing, but she offered me everything. This was love; straight-up, selfless, without envy, patient, true, unfailing love. Christ's love, that I so often cannot comprehend, nor spend the time trying to... It's not about me. God is glorious, and worthy of my/our entire affection and attention. And this beautiful saint showed me His love as my sister from her overflow.
God called me to Honduras, amongst other things, to adore Him. To decrease, that I would see His increase. He has people there that love Him. He is spreading His own fame. He doesn't need a single thing from me, and He wants me to know it. I can add nothing to Him that He has not created and purposed Himself. But, what I can do is worship Him in all that He does. When He calls me to act, by His grace, I'll do it. But when He calls me to step back and watch, by His grace, I'll do that, too. And be utterly amazed.
