just bananas

there she was again.
a lady...well, a woman that I always see in the town of Playas.
she is short, dark skinned, with a mess of dark hair and walks uniquely...i can spot her blocks away, swinging/dragging her right leg along. maybe she had polio as a child, or at some point in her 30-odd years? in any case her leg is good for nothing but bearing weight now, and even that obviously painful...her knee bending backwards and her foot loosely askew. usually dirty and sometimes barely clothed, she is distant, with dishonest eyes, and no smile.
yesterday I got closer to her than I've ever been.

she begs. she's asked me for money from time to time, sometimes while sitting eating seafood at a local restaurant, or just passing on the street corner, though she never gets too close. i'm just another gringa. and playas always has its gringas. i have never given her money, she seeps the typical 'user' persona, but i have felt the same pang of regret each time i have denied her request, wishing to have had in my hand something to offer her.
yesterday i was coming out of the market, the back side, and walking alone towards the public yellow bus which would take me back to camp. i had bought eggs, and bananas.
and there she was again. standing near some other local drunks, looking so forlorn...lost.

my first thought was my bag of bananas, at least i had something this time.
bananas in Ecuador are like.... maple leafs in Canada (if they weren't seasonal and could be eaten, ok it's a lousy comparison but you get me)...a dime a dozen. well, now with the inflation, you are lucky to get 3 bananas for a dime...but that is still cheap, and they are always everywhere. they are no treasure, nothing special ...and in fact, in parts of Ecuador, they are used only as pig food, void of value. nobody goes out of their way to thank you for a banana...it's only worth three pennies.

yesterday that was all i had. i approached her.
now, i can't even remember what i said, but i looked into her eyes. they were kinda glazed over, but she looked back at me and started to mumble something that i couldn't make out. i realized then, that in this particular interaction we weren't going to communicate well. she reached for me, and i reached into my little plastic bag to give her a few finger bananas, "how many could she eat?" a pained expression came over her face, tears spilled down her cheeks and she continued trying to tell me something, but her sounds made little sense. she reached for the skirt of her tattered one piece jumper to lift it and show me, but i stopped her, touched her hand before she exposed herself there in the middle of the street.
i held onto her hand. scarred, with homemade tattoos, it shook and i squeezed it tighter. in her mumbling i made out words like "smoking" (which here probably means some concoction of cheap cocaine), and then she started making heavy pulsing hand movements that i understood better than i wished i had. before i could move back an inch, she touched me inappropriately and just shook her head, angrily. i joined her in the skaking of my head. her tears continued to fall.

in that moment i could only imagine a fraction of what this woman has suffered, time and time again. hard, cheap abuse and abandonment. maybe some of it due to her choices? or maybe not.

i wanted to say "this life is yours, you can choose ..." but i cut myself off in my head. is it really hers? hasn't something else got control of it?"
Jesus name came to mind, "He can make you whole again"...but again i stopped myself, then why doesn't He?!

she squeezed my hand back as i continued holding tightly to hers. i let go to give her a few bananas, and she half-peeled one and discarded it onto the ground. i shook my head for her not to throw the bananas away but to eat them, but she continued to make un-intelligable noises and look at me with such empty hopelessness in her eyes ...

thoughts raced through my head. how to get her out of here? she needs so much help...she's roamed these streets, day and night no doubt for years. i'm just a silly gringa.
and sure enough, while turning to leave her, i heard someone yell from across the street "don't give her anything" ...and i was sure i was the fool in the eyes of those who had watched our interaction.

my eyes welled-up. Jesus WHY DO YOU LEAVE HER HERE?! i wanted to yell as i walked away, leaving her exactly where i desperately wished she weren't. i felt so powerless - my presence was only momentary (and my misealy banana offering, useless). and YOU LORD, have all the power in the world, why not end her misery? it wouldn't be hard, an overdose, a swerving car...is hell really worse than what she is living?

or does heaven hold a place for her?

how i longed for You, Jesus in those moments, wishing i could touch her and heal her, give her You...quick and easy. Just like Peter and John who made the blind man see; 'Not gold or silver, but what i have i give you...' and the beggar who only asked for alms, was freed from his bondage in darkness.

O God, and somehow, i just have bananas?

maybe next time we will be able to talk better...
i hope somehow she'll remember through the fog that we connected.
i would really like to know her name.

for the love

I've been parked in John 21 lately, and it's been so significant. I feel that the LORD has been so purposeful in speaking these truths to me, for such a time as this.

It strikes me, as I read through the gospels, that Peter had a devotion to Christ...that perhaps went beyond that of the other disciples. Maybe? At least the impulsive nature of his words and actions made him stand out from the crowd on a number of different occasions during his three years with Jesus. The morning that the LORD appeared to His disciples on the beach (after His resurrection) was no exception. Peter was in the boat with the others, he had returned to his fishing. He had denied Jesus, abandoned his friend in the hours of His greatest need, and what would Christ still want with him anyway? He was a failure of a disciple. But, that foggy morning, as Peter recognized his Rabbi standing on the beach beakoning to them all once again, he, with characteristic reckless abandon, jumped into the water and swam the 100m to shore. The others followed in the boat.

What has caught my attention these last couple of days is Jesus question "Peter do you love me (He even adds, 'more than these')?"... And we read that Jesus asked him three times.

And then... at Peter's desperate attempt to convince Christ that he did indeed love him, Jesus tells him that one day he is going to suffer...he is going to be led where he will not want to go, he will be handed over to death, ...but he says, "Peter, follow me".

And what strikes me...is that Jesus knew that the ONLY thing that would enable Peter to follow Him to the end...would be Peter's LOVE for Him. I think Peter knew Jesus love for him more deeply than the others because of the grace He was experiencing that morning on the beach. For he had failed miserably in his committment, "Lord, even if all abandon you, I will not." But yet Jesus, singled him out, and called him again. "Peter, do you love me...? Come what may...but "follow me". Jesus knew that no other motivation would last! It would only be love that would compel Peter to follow the LORD faithfully to his death.

Paul says in 2 Cor 5:14 "for Christ's love compels us..." I have been thinking, reflecting on my own life and observing the lives of others...that if it's anything else that compels us...approval, pride, fear, competition, insecurity etc... it will fall short. We won't make it to the finish line. 'Only love compels to the death. Life is hard. Opposition is huge. Circumstances will happen in all our lives that will defy all discipline, determination and conviction. Love keeps burning when everything else disintegrates in an anshen heap.' (Beth Moore). Love will be what gets us up again after falling. Love will stand the test, the trial.

And Jesus here, believed in Peter. He knew that there would come time after time when Peter would have to answer that question again, as Christ's words would echo long after He was gone. "Peter do you love me?" And Peter would say... "yes LORD, you know that I love You." In suffering, in pain, in doubt, in fear, in lonliness, in heartache...."yes LORD, I love you..."

Jesus believed that Peter would make it to the end.
And Jesus believes that I will make it too.

Dios manda lluvias

I am listening to raindrops tonight. Finally.
Today it finally has sprinkled, after a long, dusty, 8 months of 'dry season'.
And tonight as we sat around a little circle in block 10, singing to the Lord together, and i watched the drizzle outside and listened to the drops on the tin roof, I couldn't help but remember that it is God who sends the rain.

Tonight it had felt new. It had felt so fresh on my face and arms and sandled feet as we walked down the dusty streets to the church...finally.
And it came to me quickly as we sang, that even these last couple of weeks i have journeyed through a wasteland, a lonely place of discouragement, loneliness and fear that has felt void of fruit and purpose. But tonight something stirred so deep within me as I listened to the rain. Tonight I was sure in that moment, of the God I know, who surely would not waste one opportunity to teach me, if only I would ask that of Him....He loves me so.

I was reminded in that moment as well, of different 'dry seasons' in my life when I sought Him, but heard nothing and felt nothing in return. Times when I opened the Word but nothing stuck with me, when I prayed but my utterances bounced back from the ceiling, when it felt as though God had abandoned His work in me. But looking back on those times once they passed, I could see that God used those wastelands to create in me a hunger for His presence, and His voice...a thirst for a little rain.

The God i am getting to know on this journey, hasn't wasted the 'dry seasons'. He hasn't sat back and let them pass without purpose, and He loves me so much He is willing to take advantage of any circumstance to shape and mold me, that He might receive greater glory through my life.
And then...
...after emptying the storehouses of tears and bringing me to my knees in desperation and need...
...then... He sends rain. It feels new. It feels so right. And such a relief.

Tonight i knew I needed to share with those who sat around our circle about God's desperate love for me, for us - our God who is not willing to waste any circumstance, but use it for our good and His glory. A passage of scripture came to me, but i had no idea where to find it. I searched briefly in the minor prophets, and then thought maybe Isaiah? I opened to Isaiah haphazardly and there it was. Chapter 55.

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My Word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."

Oh God, with great purpose you speak...you send rain.

Tonight rain came to me from heaven; I could feel it as it fell around me, I could even smell it.
Tonight rain came to me from heaven; I could hear the Lord's voice, and He opened His Word for me.
Tonight rain came to me from heaven, and I could see God's hand at work in and through the life of a dear friend...
... a friend to whom this blog entry is dedicated and, because of a little rain, whose fingers are sore tonight.

a precious little nose I know...

They call her Ñata ("little pointed nose") and they think she is six because she can touch her right ear with her left hand, from behind her head. This, apparently a common diagnostic tool for age... in the jungle. (I don't think i'm a believer.) She is one of two; her brother is probably seven. From their former home somewhere around the river 'hub' of Borbon, their mother wished to give them away, but their father did not agree at the time. Some months ago he brought them up-river 3 hours, and deposited them on the wooden doorstep of his aged grandmother in the little village of Santo Domingo de Onzole. He, according to community members, rarely visits and passes much of his time drunk, or working the land further up-river. Ñata and her brother Alex have since shared a roof with their great-grandmother who, due to undiagnosed pain, has lost the ability to walk and due to advanced catarachs, also cannot see. This dear woman passes the day away, observing what she can, only a cloudy view from her crickety porch, and smoking fresh tobaaco in her pipe. An aleged cousin of the father is supposed to deliver meals to the three of them from around the corner, however both Alex and Ñata's hair has discolored and their bellies extended providing evidence of mal-nutrition, parasites and/or worms etc.

I met this little wonder as she screamed/cried in my face that the boys had taken her balloon. She was SO very loud. Really it was just a piece of what was once an inflated balloon, that made her so upset that first day of camp. The kids who have grown up in Sto Domingo, have gotten to know her and Alex since they arrived. They pick on them. They bug Ñata and bully her because she is great at entertaining them with her reactions: huge wails, flailing fists, a mouthfull of abscenities...you name it. They notice that she and her brother wear ratty clothes, are not very clean...and spend all day outside playing while others are tucked away inside for a bath and siesta, and to do their homework. Neither of the two can go to school because both are without a birth certificate...unregistered. Dear little Ñata doesn't even have a name.

el rio onzole

Tomorrow night a group of 11 of us (youth from Bastion) are headed north to the Onzole River (jungle) where we will help run a camp for kids from the communities there. We'll be gone til next Saturday. Please pray that God's Word will be planted in the hearts of many children and youth, seeds that will take root and grow and produce fruit for Christ's Kingdom. Pray too for God's work in our lives as we serve, and that our team will be a blessing to the community there. This pic I took last October during camp in Onzole.

inspirations

It's been a little too long since I've posted anything...but I have been asking God for some inspirations. And on Monday night, to eat lasagna and rice...

God sent me eight.

lamentations 30 : love ?

Today Nikki and I played tennis.

We chased the balls, hit them around a bit, and sweat a lot! Hoping to get better at it.

It's our new committment, to take one afternoon a week and spend it on some fun exercise...adding a little refreshment to the scurry of life here in our little corner of the world. It was fun today... we provided some amuzement for the "regulars" and finished off in the pool to cool down. I guess it's one step for us, although it feels like a big one. We both think, a healthy one.

See... we just gotta beat it the 'ugh'.

I've tried to describe it in more understandable terms in conversation with a few people since I last wrote. This past week since I've arrived back, it's felt like I've been at the circus. (Well not exactly, but bear with me.) And at the centre of the circus ring is a roaring, RAGING lion, an empty, hungry, mercyless beast with a hollow leg. A bottomless pit? It will need far more than me to be filled and satisfied.

And here I am, very free to choose the extent to which I engage in this circus entertainment (although it feels more like the Roman gladiator games), I stand on the edge. I can prance around, walk around, dance around, and the lion rages, somehow confined to the centre of the ring. I can carefully step across the ring, enter into its space, but still keep my distance. I can step in, and step out again. I can more bravely approach, gaining the approval of the crowds...and slink back again as if to tease. However, if I were to dive right in, engage with this wild raging lion as I'm expected to, i might surely and very simply.... be consummed.

I wonder if this picture helps... to read between the lines.

It's so easy here, in day-to-day living, to allow the countless needs to overwhelm, and to consume; to order my day, to dictate my plans and over-rule my oringinal job assignment.

There have been times, when I know I have become more like a slave to the raging lion, or riped apart by him, and rendered 'not so useful' by the circus Master.

I was reading yesterday and came across a precious promise. The king james version struck me.

"It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because HIS compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is THY faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

His compassions fail not. His are un-exhaustable.

And so while I know that in order to dance with this pacing lion (and not be eaten alive), it'll take tactic, careful planning and lots of deliberate time with the Master...I know that God's mercies will not fail the people I have grown to love.

And this means that I can sleep easier, step lighter... and I can even play a game or two.