A God-Designed Afternoon

Have you ever wondered what a real life angel looks like?  Have you seen one with your own eyes? 

Well, today I can say I have been in the presence of an angel.  Her name is Fidelina (fee –day-lee-nah), or as some of the kids call her, Hermana Fi (Sister Fee.)  

This woman has a sincere heart for the Lord, and a mission to share His love with the children of her community.  She walks with the joy of the Lord each day and I am so very thankful to call her my friend and my sister in Christ.  

Today was different than other times that I have walked with Fidelina.  Today we only picked up one family of kids.  Well, we actually didn’t pick them up.  The rain changed our plans into a visit.  Actually, I believe God changed our plans to pick-up kids into a visit with their family.  Which was surely His plan all along!  

This family is so precious!  Three of the kids come to the children’s ministry every, I mean EVERY afternoon since they started coming.  Their uncle (who is 15) joins them occasionally and they have a younger brother (1 year and 3 months) old who isn’t quite old enough to join them each afternoon.

These children have stolen my heart.  They are so innocent and so sweet.  I spend a lot of time playing the game Memory with the two boys and a lot of time playing dolls with their younger sister.  She’s a hoot!  And she’s taken a liking to sitting in my lap…I often can’t get her out of it!  Which is just fine with me.

Last Friday, I was chatting with one of the boys.  He was asking me questions about my house and I was asking him questions about his.  He asked me where I lived and then asked if my house had light or electricity.  I told him yes.  He told me that his house didn’t, but it would get it soon.  I asked him if he had candles and he proudly replied “yes.”  

The kids had hamburgers for snack on that day.  Our conversation while while he was eating.  He looked down at his hamburger bun and said, “we never have food like this in my house.”  I said, “you don’t?  Well, what do you eat at your house.”  “We eat tortillas and beans.”  I replied, “Delicious!  I love tortillas and beans!  Do you like them?”  He smiled real big and responded with “yes!”

He described to me where he house is and I knew the exact area of the neighborhood he was describing.  Well, I thought I did until I went there with Fidelina today.  In times past when I’ve walked with Fidalina to pick up the kids (before this family began coming with us) I learned well a particular part of the road that has been completely washed out by the rain.  It looks like a gigantic drainage ditch.  Today when we reached this spot, Fidelina began to turn and walk towards what I viewed as a ditch.  She looked back at me and explained that their house was down that “road” and we would need to walk with care.  It would take time to get there, she explained.  I was already making a plan to stay and wait for her to return with the kids when their grandmother walked up from behind us.  She greeted us and motioned for us to visit her home, ensuring me that she would help me get there.

So these two, sweet ladies, each at least half my size, took each of my hands and guided me down into the “ditch.”  One in front of me and one behind me the whole way, helping me with each step.  It was precious and very humbling all at the same time.  I didn’t think we would, but we made it to the house.  And just as soon as we got settled in some comfy chairs, the bottom fell out of the clouds and rain began pouring.  And the road-ditch that we just traveled down became a roaring river.

The ladies explained to me that we would need to wait for the rain to stop and for the water to clear before heading to the church.  No problem for me!  I got to visit with the sweet family.  The grandmother, the mother, and five kids.  My lap was full with a little girl while we chatted.  

This family has a story that is fairly typical in my experience in El Salvador.  The mother and her children have recently moved in with the children’s grandmother and  15-year-old uncle because their father recently passed away, leaving behind a single mother and four children.  I don’t know the exact illness, but it was described to me as very rare, and very fast, and that towards the end of his life he was unable to move much.  Their whole life was uprooted in order to move in with family that would help them.  The children had to change schools in the last quarter of the school year.  

I imagine it’s a pretty difficult time for this family.  Thanks to God, they have supportive relatives who have welcomed them home.  And the mother has temporary (6 months) work through a government program that provides jobs for women.

The smiles that illuminated from the faces of each family member told me that this family is full of the joy of the Lord.  Joy that illuminates no matter what circumstances are present. 

Well, it turned out that we didn’t go to the church after all.  Norma, the other teacher who helps each day in the children’s ministry called Fidalina to ask if she was coming with children.  When she explained we were waiting out the rain, a decision was made to wait to have class tomorrow.  That’s when the crying began.  The little girl of three years, was very, very disappointed.  She loves going to class at church each day.  She was so disappointed that she really didn’t talk to me anymore.  Hopefully, by tomorrow I will be back in her good graces!!!

On our walk home, I told Fidelina that I was thankful that God allowed me to have that visit and to see that place.  Even though I went with different plans, God’s plans were a beautiful, adventurous surprise!

Afternoons like this are so important to the work I am called here to do.  It would be so easy for me to remain in the comfort and safety of my home writing lessons at my computer.  I could simply go visit churches on Sundays and write lessons Monday through Friday.  But spending afternoons like this helps me understand the context in which many of the children who will receive these lessons live.  God loves them personally and wants to help me speak to their specific situations.  I praise God that He gifted me with this beautiful afternoon!

Wherever you go I will go,
    wherever you lodge I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people
    and your God, my God.

Ruth 1:16

Faithfully Still

Sitting still is something I have never been good at.  I drive my husband crazy almost every night because I just never get still!  I literally have to wiggle, just to fall asleep.  You know, toss and turn to find the perfect positioning.  (Brian really is a saint!)

So, God has been giving me this advice to focus on pretty regularly lately.  “Be still.” 

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”  Psalm 46:10

Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again.   
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”  Exodus 14: 13-14

But the last thing I really want to do is be still!  Honestly, I feel like I’m not doing my part if I’m still.  In the past my work has kept me very busy.  As a pre-kindergarten teacher there was rarely a dull moment.  And later as a children’s minister in a full-time church staff position I don’t believe I ever sat still.  

Yet lately, I hear God telling me, “be still.”

But, God, there’s so much to be done here.  So many people who need MY help!  How can you ask me to just “sit still?”  

In stillness, I begin feeling guilty.  Guilty that I’m not pulling my weight.  Guilty that I don’t have fabulous deeds to write glowing blogs about that will cause my readers to send in so much financial support that the office in New York will love me so much that they hang my picture on the wall.  Guilty that I am not giving food to every hungry person in Ahuachapan.  Guilty that I haven’t produced a year’s worth of  Sunday School lessons….

And there it is.  The heart of my guilt.  Why haven’t I produced more Sunday School lessons?  I’ve been here a year and a half and the teachers I serve have only received one completed unit with materials from me.  I must be a failure.  And to make it worse, I have a bag full of supplies separated by church and ready to go as soon as the next unit of lessons is completed and printed.  The bag stares at me in my office, mocking me each time I go to the computer trying to complete the last few lessons for this unit.  And so…I just avoid my office.  I don’t want to be mocked by a bag of supplies!

And so God says to me, “be still.”

Are you kidding me, God?  People are counting on me?  Teachers are waiting for the lessons I’ve promised them.  And you are telling me to be still?  Can’t you just help me get these lessons done so they can be printed and distributed?

“Be still.”

And so…I have no choice but to be still.  Well, I can clean my house while waiting for inspiration.  I can look at Facebook.  I can play a game on my iPad.   

But, is that really being still?  Probably not.  I’ve now turned God’s advice to be still into plain old procrastination.

Until this week.  

I faced the mocking bag of supplies in my office and sat down at the computer.  Reviewed where I was in writing the current unit of lessons and was pleased at how much was actually ready.  Then I saw it…the lesson I had left hanging.  Jacob’s night of wrestling with God.  Ugh….what a difficult story.  I really just don’t even get it.   It’s such a strange story.  But, it’s got to get done, so let me just begin.

So, I start by rereading the passage.  Which leads me to needing to read passages from the lesson before.  Which takes me on a hunt to figure out a few contextual things.  And by the time I’ve done all that it’s time for a break!

So I sleep on it.  God wakes me up early the next morning still wrestling with getting this lesson complete.  He encourages me to just go sit at my desk and get started.  So I do.  I read what I’ve already written.  It’s okay, but I’m just not comfortable with it.  Not comfortable giving it to the teachers who will be teaching all the Methodist children in El Salvador.  I don’t want to give them something that is bad doctrine or just plain wrong.  So I struggle with the story in hopes to find an answer that I can be comfortable with – a way to share this story that feels true to the whole gospel message.

And God starts moving and together we begin writing.  He takes me all the way back to his promise to Abraham to bless him, give him land, and to make a great nation from him.  And then we look at his promise to Isaac which is the same.  And then his promise to Jacob to protect him and not leave him until his promise is fulfilled.  

And there I have a truth that can be taught.  We are to have faith in God that is strong, like the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Faith that is willing to wrestle with God until a blessing is given.  Faith that is able to wait still – for years at a time – until a blessing is fulfilled in God’s time.   

God is teaching me to be faithfully still.  To wait on him faithfully.  Not in procrastination, but in constant seeking of Him, in His word and in the world in which He has placed me.

Yeah, I have the intellectual ability to crank out a year’s worth of lessons in a month or so.  But that’s not what God has called me to do.  He has called me to a holy task of eternal impact.  And has called me as a woman who isn’t fully equipped, yet is fully trusting in Him.  And He regularly has to remind me to be still, waiting and trusting in Him.  Listening for the truths He would have me share with the teachers to teach and pass on to His precious children.  

Now that the Jacob lesson has been conquered, I hope to wrap up this unit with the story of Joseph.  I hope to get it finished this week.  Next it will be translated, edited, printed, and distributed to each of the 12 Methodist Churches in El Salvador by the end of October.  But my trust and faith are in God’s timing.  

Please pray that I will be faithfully still in finishing this unit.  Not moving forward without God’s inspiration and not sitting at a standstill of procrastination.  Pray that the lessons written will be ones that with the help of the Holy Spirit, have the power to shape hearts and transform lives for Jesus Christ.