When Changes on the Outside Can Bring Changes on the Inside

SO, to continue where I left off…

These past days have been hectic! Ness and I arrived from Santiago on Monday the 7^th, and in that first week we had the chance to get situated, visit with Tio Emilio and Tia Monica (who are leading outreach to Espinillo), and head out for our first visit to Espinillo. And as I said earlier, things truly have changed in Espinillo!

Paved road & new homes

It’s amazing to drive in to the village and see paved roads throughout, to see nicely rebuilt homes scattered across the landscape, and it is especially amazing to see the people meeting together and being much more unified.

Inside of yellow house in previous pic we built

When we were in Espinillo nearly two years ago, the roads were unpaved, ruins of adobe houses were visible to the eye all around and the people met us, as well as each other, with a wary eye. One couple, Don Francisco and Senora Maria, used to be unsmiling and unhappy couple. Now they look you straight in the eye and smile with pure joy. You can tell that Jesus has come and changed their outlook on life completely. It’s absolutely amazing to see!

At the Women's Meeting

I’m adding several pictures to show you what Espinillo looks like now.

We attended a women’s meeting in Espinillo on Thursday, where Ness shared a bit about her view on their chosen topic of ‘Relationships’, and then the ladies shared with each other one happy and one sad moment in their lives. The ladies were very shy at first, but by the end everyone was smiling and we wrapped up by sharing a cup of tea and some cookies, sitting around a table. Lovely! Incidently, these women hope to share some of their practical talents with each other like sewing, weaving and pottery so that they can learn and eventually go out and earn more money. It seems to be the beginning of a little microenterprise.

Senora Isabel y Senora Teresa

Their rebuilt kitchen

On Sunday we went out again to go to the church service that’s been started. It’s really just the people fellowshipping together, singing a few songs, sharing a word, and then eating dinner together.

The ‘we’ this time included a group of 15 dentists, doctors and their assistants. They had arrived the previous day to offer free care to people in Pichilemu and Espinillo.

And that leads me to explain what we’ve been doing on the days we haven’t gone to Espinillo.

Ness and I were asked to help translate for the doctor and dentists for a few hours on several days during their stay here. A few hours turned into 2 very full days! I’ve been rapidly immersed into the Spanish language once again these past days, and have been going to bed at night and waking up thinking of Spanish dental terminology! Talk about having a fried brain J.

Another rebuilt house, baby w/ club foot

 

 

In fact, yesterday we went out Espinillo on our own, handing out audio and children’s bibles, praying for people and visiting with a family who had their kitchen rebuilt after the earthquake. And believe it or not, we came home feel more refreshed and rested than any of the 3 previous days we’d spent with the dental/medical team from the U.S.!

The dental/medical team has been a great blessing though, and they work 10+ hours a day fixing people up. They even checked our teeth, and took a huge splinter out of my foot. Yay!

Hopefully this gives you all a bit of glimpse of what we’ve been busy with!

Please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers!

On NOT Being Adventurous....During an Adventure in Chile

As I sit here, listening to the Pacific Ocean’s breeze passing by our cabin’s open door, I’m pondering what to write and how to update the ‘world’ (which in this case is very small ;)) about what is happening out here in Pichilemu, Chile.

As is often the case with travels and journeys, though, I feel more compelled to write about what I am learning thus far from this experience. God often tends to packages trips where we are permitted to give to others in combination with new revelations of what He is doing inside of us. In this way, I am blessed to have received much thus far.

All this to say, if you are looking for a more factual entry, wait for the next one!

So, I got here just last Thursday, after a long 20hr flight involving 10 hours of laying on cold hard seats in the Lima airport overnight. My friend Ness from Brazil met me at the airport and we went straight to Rodrigo and Male’s house (good friends of ours, read their story here) in Santiago. And the first thought I remember hitting me? How completely comfortable and at home I felt taking a shower in their less-than-stellar bathroom complete with water running either extremely hot or cold, and nothing in between! Ahhh, so good be back!

Incidently, Rodrigo and Male are now doing very well, and have an amazing testimony. When we met them before, they opened their house, offering their only bedroom to us even while they had no food in the fridge and huge debts to pay off. Male now is one of the managers at her workplace and earning a good salary, while Rodrigo started his own micro-enterprise, providing not only for his own family but also providing jobs to women from low-income families. These women can now work from home, be with their kids and earn an income!

Just being with Rodrigo and Male and their son Dani this past weekend was a blessing in itself.

That aside, our first ‘event’ in Chile was going to a conference in Santiago which we had been invited to attend with some of our friends from Chile and the U.S. Ness and I didn’t know what to expect, but we were blessed to get free tickets to the conference and felt it would be good idea to go! On the first evening, a lady named Eleanor Mumford spoke, and the one thing that stood out to me was how she emphasized that ‘we have to be willing to go on this adventure with God and to allow His Holy Spirit to lead us whatever it is we might do or wherever it is we might go. If we don’t, we’ll miss out on the best parts of life’.

I nodded my head sagely, feeling that I already knew this to be true. However, the last few days have been a testimony of how difficult it is to truly be open to every adventure.

I’ve arrived here with lots on my mind, including potential job offers, work, and various projects I’m involved with back home. And added to that, things have changed a bit around here (more on that later)! All in all, it’s left me a bit at a loss as to what I’m doing here and if I want to be here. I know, incredibly spoiled and selfish sounding right? What has hit me though, is that I’ve changed. That’s what revisiting old places does: it sets you to reflecting on the ‘before and after’. Some things have definitely changed for the better, others not so much. The past two years, through the struggle of lacking a job and getting one closed door after another, have refined me. In fact, oddly enough, I can say that I haven’t felt as content and settled as I have in the past little while in long time. Yet, as our trip has progressed, I’ve had to rethink my initial reaction to ‘being willing to go on this adventure with God’. I’ve realized I really am not so good at that, nor do I understand entirely well how to do that. I’m confronted with the need to constantly have to lay myself down and open myself up to this adventure. You see, as with anything in life that is unseen and uncertain, my reaction is often of fear, of need for control and/or apathy and lack of willingness rooted in pride. The unfamiliar and uncontrolled is not always fun.

And so I’ve been asking myself how willing I really am? I recently read a blog entry of a friend of mine, in which she writes about ‘resistance to the maturing process’ and how we often want to remain in the fun, carefree and often clueless childhood seasons of life. Even as children we like to try on a grown-up pair of shoes, but in the end we like to revert to our old comfortable pair. And that’s exactly my conundrum. In this past year or two, I’ve been given a new set of clothing, and new ring on my finger, and a new pair of sandals (see the story of the Prodigal Son). But everything in me now says, ‘I’m not ready!’ I’m griping about how the shoes don’t feel comfortable and don’t fit, and in the process I’ve taken a seat and decided to ‘sit out this dance’. And then, much like a pouting child, I’ve also taken on the attitude of feeling left out and acting like no one wants to dance with me (when in reality it is the other way around). Are you following me?

My basic challenge right now, as we are in Pichilemu and Espinillo, is to allow God to take me on this adventure, to wear the clothes He’s given me for this trip (and those to come) and to not be limited by my own lack of maturity or past grievances! I am ready, but not because of me, but because of Him who has given me a new Spirit, and Spirit of life and not death (see Romans 8).

Time to be “more than a conqueror”!

More interesting news to come soon….;) I've posted a few pics to tantalize your senses already!