If you notice the dates on these blog posts, you´ll notice I haven´t been blogging lately. Like, for a very long time.
It isn´t a problem of not having anything to say, but actually just the opposite. Sometimes there is so much to say that you just have to be quiet.
In the past year (yes, it has seriously been a YEAR since my last post) we have been through so much that it´s hard to find the words to express it all. Ministry, like life, is messy and hard and imperfect. It requires growth, and if you remember being a kid, you know that growth comes with pain.
We have been back in Ecuador for just about a year, and that year feels like an eternity. My girls are so big, and I can´t slow them down in any sense, which, as a mother, all at once gives me joy to see them blossom before my very eyes, and it terrifies me, thinking that the days of childhood are numbered and pass by so quickly. Watching them grow is like watching the sand flow out of an hourglass, and the days go by so quickly and so slowly that I don´t know what to make of it.
I see our ministry align more and more to the ministry of Christ, and it makes me glad, and at the same time it is exhausting and requires the pouring out of every last ounce of self, until I am so empty and broken that I must depend on His healing and filling to get up every morning.
I never imagined I would be buying a casket for one of our precious sponsor children, but that is how I spent my husband´s birthday weekend. I never thought I would be singing in a concert for thousands of people, but just weeks later, there I was. I didn´t think I would ever see one of the poor little girls from Kid´s Club give her pair of shoes to another little girl who needed them even more, but I did. I didn´t think the most difficult trouble-makers would run to the front of the room to be chosen to dance for God, but they do. I had hoped I would never spend sleepless nights in the hospital, pleading with God to keep my daughter alive and breathing, but there we were. I never knew what it was like to feel an earthquake every day, but now I do. I would never have thought that a simple workshop for parents would have us all in tears, but there we were, crying together.
I see in Jesus´ ministry a love for those who the world pushes aside, marginalizes, looks down upon and hates. I see him touching the untouchables, dining with the unworthy, teaching the uneducated, healing the sick and walking along the road as just another man, though He was certainly anything but ordinary. And I pray that our ministry would every day become more like His, until we can find no difference.
When we opened our church and Kid´s Club, my husband received advice from a pastor, telling him to set up shop elsewhere, because the people in our neighborhood are just not worth the effort. That day we loved our assignment 100 times more.
Give us the outcasts, the addicts, the wretched, the foul, the destitute, the souls that no one else wants. Our church is full of people like this, and it is chaotic and noisy and smelly and frustrating and there are roots growing below the surface and tiny shoots beginning to find their way through the murky soil and we are blessed because we get to see it all happening.
And all of it, every last moment, hurts.
Because suffering and pain are the divine prescription for what ails us. Because true joy is closer to heartbreak than happiness. Because every day is so full of frustration and challenges and pain and sadness and love and peace and joy and blessings that you feel you may just break apart for trying to contain it all inside you.
Because no matter what you do, you will never be more than a piece of the puzzle, and no matter how far you reach, you will never reach them all. You will never meet every need, you will never dry every tear, you will never save every soul.
But you can, today, reach one person, meet one need, dry one tear, minister to one soul. You can listen to the person who has no one to talk to, even though you don´t have time. You can keep hugging a little longer because you know the person receiving needs you to stay where you are. You can be patient and kind through the behavior that disappoints, frustrates and infuriates you because you know that God is so patient and kind with you. And little by little these moments add up, and you look back and see how God is weaving you into a tapestry too beautiful to imagine.
I look back on this year of ministry and life and I see the tapestry forming, and it is full of these moments. It is full of these moments and it is full of you, too. Because every kindness, every generosity, every prayer, every word, hits this ministry and our lives like a tidal wave of encouragement as we walk through the wilderness. I read how Mary, when she saw how people honored her tiny son, cherished all of these things in her heart, and I know exactly what that means because I do the same with every kindness, big and small, that you share with us. We cherish you in our hearts and we want you to know just how thankful we are for you. You could not be more a part of our work if you were here in person. I´m only sorry that you can´t see it for yourself, the tremendous impact you have on so many.
It is too simple, and it will never be enough, but we will continue to say it: Thank you. We would not be who we are or do what we do without you.
