Construction Zone

Whenever short term teams set out they often hear (or should hear) that those endeavors honestly are more for what God wants to do IN them than THROUGH them. Sometimes when you're on the mission field you can sometimes forget that the same principle can still apply to you.

For the past 3 weeks we have been building homes to replace those lost in the fire. It has been one crazy endeavor as we honestly bit off a little more than we originally bargained for. You see, it's not just about going and everyone working together as one happy family kind of Extreme Makeover Home Edition style. There's a lot more stretching (physical, emotional, and spiritual) than one might expect in dealing with a task like this. We didn't know what it would entail, but God did. He knew EXACTLY how he wanted to use this whole thing to teach and stretch all of us involved and to drive some pretty big lessons into some fairly thick skulls (I may or may not be talking about myself).

One thing I definitely learned about is how our God is so unbelievably patient and forgiving and how insanely much... I am not. Over and over through my quiet times God would lay the smack down on how I wasn't glorifying him in certain ways, namely in my anger when people were found to be dishonest. I'll have to admit the "Irish" (and not the good part) in me reared it's head several times, but I'm hoping I've learned my lesson through it all as I realize that it's not good that they're lying/stealing/etc... but it's also not good for me to allow myself to be provoked to wrath and that I need to love them. One story that really hit me hard was when Jesus ate with the "sinners" and tax collectors. The people living in this area are well-known for being the opposite of anyone you'd want living near you, and a government official even said the people there were lazy and stupid. Recognizing that they are "sinners" and why should I be surprised when they sin? Why should I stop loving them because they have sinned against me, because if God worked that way we'd all be in big trouble!

I also learned things like where to buy bricks, plywood, and roofing materials... and I'll admit that I would have really loved a Lowe's after spending an hour waiting at just the roofing place.





Along with the internal and practical lessons, I also just had an absolute blast working alongside of some pretty amazing people! The Longs, Peterson's, Shalom, Davis, John, and Asimwe along with some other volunteers made it incredibly fun and made the hard stuff bearable. I honestly LOVED working on this project (even though it was hard at times) and am so thankful for the opportunity God gave me to be a part of it!

The story of ministry

Ministry is not easy, anyone who tells you otherwise is obviously not in ministry. You invest sleepless nights, money, time, energy, and tears into various people and projects and many times you find yourself briefly asking the question "What on earth am I doing this for?" Sometimes it's rhetorical, sometimes you don't know, and sometimes God gives you a glimpse as to why He gave you that opportunity.

This past week has been one very long week, and I'm walking around today in a somewhat comatose state after we had the grand finale of kind of phase one and two of the fire relief. We spent every night feeding 60+ people, greeting them (sometimes being bouncers) washing dishes, filling drinking cups, and getting to work as the Body of Christ as people from different organizations and churches joined in to help. Seeing just how hungry these people were and hearing their sincerity as they said thank you made all of it worth it.

Yesterday was a very LONG day. We began the day sorting the donations of goods people gave and then shopping for everything else we felt were "needs" with the money people donated as well. It was definitely an adventure as while we were in the market, the people started to beat up the Mayor... yeah long story. My friend Jen, and two of my students ended up filling the back of Jen's SUV with sigiri stoves, basins, sauce pans, cooking oil, paraffin, soap, and mingling spoons. Heading back to the church in 2 hours we tackled sorting out everything so that it was evenly distributed amongst the 26 families who lost their homes. At the end of the sorting, I was smelling of paraffin, was covered in oil, sunburned, dehydrated, and exhausted and it was time for youth group.

Youth group went amazingly well! I'm so blessed by those students each and every week. We are getting a lot of new students these days and I'm just excited to see what God has in store. I had them all make a logo for themselves as we began our journey through the book of John. It was a blast, yet with a rather heavy theological punch. God totally blessed our time together and although it was "work" it gave me a new burst of energy for the rest of the evening.

After youth group I invited the students to hang around as we served the fire victims one last time. Seeing my students out there serving these people was one of the coolest things! After the food was done, we handed out the donations to the people. I heard later that they were saying how it was like they never lost anything as some of them got things they never had before. While we were doing that Johnny and Jesse brought the projector and screen to the site of the fire and showed the Jesus film. Although we had some technical difficulties and were not able to finish the film, it was quite possibly one of my favorite times of ministry as my students were sitting at the truck watching the back side of the screen. Talking and laughing with them and then acting like a heater some of my girls who were freezing was a moment I wished I had a camera for but realize that it was too precious to capture.

By the end of the night, it was about 11:00 and everything was torn down. I couldn't help to feel so blessed even in the midst of my exhaustion. We were able to pour into a group of people who normally never set foot in a church. We served people who have been known to talk about us and not be our number one fans. And in doing so, we were able to show them the love of Christ in the biggest possible ways. We pray that they don't turn and thank us, but they thank Him as we were the ones who were merely the tools He used to care for them. We recognize that it was not an accident that the fire happened basically in our backyard and God challenged us to make the most of that opportunity. I just pray that lives were changed and people came to know Him through it.

At the beginning of this post I said how sometimes you ask "what am I doing this for?", and this morning as I looked and people came and sat in church wearing clothes I remember sorting. As our second service is currently in progress I know of several people who are there because of what God has done in this past week, and first service was the same. I praise Him for the opportunity, the provision, and the reaction of the people. TO HIM BE ALL THE HONOR, ALL THE GLORY, AND ALL THE PRAISE.