PR ok, I thought I can do that. Can't be that hard right? programming probably involves papers, pictures and coming up with ideas, and whatever ease they throw at me. One small detail I forgot to consider, IT'S IN SPANISH!
Jenni excitedly chats with me, telling me how excited she is to have me help her. still clueless that I had spent $600 on a plane ticket to come do, I smile at Jenni's commit.
"Come over to my house when you're finished eating breakfast." she tells me. "Ok" I reply, blissfully launching into my food.
I march over to her house to receive my work, a notebook, a hole puncher and a stack of receipts a foot high! little did I know how many hours I would be spending hunting, punching, filing, and cross checking with the computer's list! I was to receive a head ache to every fifteen receipts. And at one point I fell asleep filing them, to have Ever telling me "Wake Up, you still have more to do!"
65% of the receipts would be missing, meaning I would have to hunt for about ten minutes to make sure it didn't get shuffled and then if I couldn't still find I would mark the number in color in the computer and later go back to fill in the receipt by hand. then there would be random receipts that just appeared to have no home. what was I to do with them? Yes I came all the way to Peru to file receipts written in Spanish. How insane could I be?
I stared at Francis who sat across the table from me. dirt and grim staining his clothes and sweat dripping off him. within three hours of arriving in Pucallpa, by air, he was handed a machete that was to be his companion for the next three weeks. He would be spending hours in the hot sun attacking weedy invaders on the pineapple the lemon, and the yucca field. I wondered, God you sent us here to file receipts and banish weeds? why not something exciting like construct a building or help some one with a health issue. I wanted to touch a life in some small way.
But as I question God he reminds me patiently that He is trusting me with the small things and if I can achieve the small things, He will give me bigger things to tackle.
And so I wait for the next mission that God will set before me and I Pray it will not be receipts again but if it so, I know how to tackle it. And if you ask me if I would go back? I would go back on the soonest flight out.
2 comments:
I like this post a lot. It reminded me of how I felt in Africa. It was funny, after I had been in Africa a couple weeks, I found myself saying "I wish I was doing "real" mission work." Then it dawned on me, I was doing real mission work. Real mission work isn't always gloriously saving someones life or building them a church, it's being friends with with the people and showing them that you care, and being faithful in the little things.
I think the biggest lesson I've learned is that God often requires us to work for him in those seemingly insignificant ways. I've also learned that in those times I have learned the humbleness of Jesus and faith that somehow I made a difference. What a great experience await us when we get to heaven and see how everything has worked out for His glory :)
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