Rain

It’s raining for the first time in two months; the kind of slow, steady rain that Mom likes, that the parched ground can actually soak up. I’m making brownies for I’s fourteenth birthday tomorrow and cookie bars for the day after that, when the whole ministry team will be up here at the farm for a workday. Beef stew is simmering for this evening’s meal. Bibiana is on her way back here after being in her home country of Venezuela for a week. Little J. is up the hill playing at another house. The girls here have finally finished their chores, which they started approximately five hours ago, so there’s no more fighting in the house and the peace seeps in around our roots.

Listening to a sermon today, Greg made reference to a time about two years ago when I and a couple of people at that church tried to start up a new ministry, and it flopped. Comparing that with this venture I’ve been on for a year, I can see what he means about God’s gifting and calling and equipping for his work to be done. When we were trying to reach out to the neighborhood around us, I remember feeling mostly frustrated and unsure. Here I feel that I flourish, even when I get aggravated with J. or other situations. A couple of sermons back in the series, he mentioned a missionary who said he knew for sure that God had called him to Uganda when the plane landed there, because keeping him from arriving was the final thing the Lord could’ve done to stop him. But, looking at Greg’s own experience in Uganda, where, as he puts it, he hid in the mud hut reading comic books to escape while his wife made friends with the village women, I think that the arrival is only one part. Flourishing or faltering demonstrates a lot about calling and capacitation.

I’m not saying that I’ve always felt like I’m thriving here. You just need to go back and read entries from March, April, May to see a glimpse of some difficult times I’ve been through. Confronting my dream with the reality of what it means to take care of neglected children in a family-style setting caused winds of doubt and disenchantment. But God knows when to send the rain; the confirmation, the salve to our wounded souls. My parent’s mid-year visit was a two-week long oasis. The early-December vacation with friends was another time to relax and soak up.

In Colombia, when it rains a lot of activities get cancelled. People stay home. They don’t go to their parties, don’t run their errands, they rest and wait.

In February I’m going home for a month, then I’ll head to Chile for my Discipleship Training School. My heart is divided: I want the time with God, the rest time to focus and fall in love with Him, time to hear his voice, to wait for confirmation and direction. But I ache for my foster son, worried that he won’t understand, that he’ll feel abandoned again, worried that I won’t be allowed to keep my promise to return to be with him. I’m jealous for all that will happen here while I’m gone and all that I’ll miss.

But I’m not God. The Lord is J’s father; it is the Lord who takes care of him, whether I get to be His hands or someone else here. And there is so much that I don’t understand, so if what I need is six months of resting, of focusing on God instead of pouring myself into these children, then I will go. I will wait out the long, steady shower.