Sunday, July 27, 2014

Moments Like These

We've been having nightly Bible Studies for the believers in the barangays with each team for the past three weeks. They're always set for 7pm which means that, according to FST (Filipino Standard Time), without fail we were starting sometime between 7:30 and 8:30. I may have said this before, but out here 8 o'clock is the new midnight. Our days start so early, and mindless tasks that take a fraction of a second at home and only require the turning of a knob or the pulling of a lever entail long minutes of labor in the draining sun out here. Not always, but often. No complaints--I think it's a beautiful way to live, and I actually love it. But at the end of a day (or sometimes the middle, depending on cloud cover and amount of laundry), I am spent.

It's much harder out here to live life past nightfall. Most places lack good lighting, and "brown-outs" (power outages) are so common. Cooking, using the toilet, washing dishes, reading--everything is harder by flashlight. At at a late Bible Study one night during a brown-out, I was sitting on the stairs overlooking the group, just beat. It was after 8, and people were still just trickling in. In the weakness of my flesh I did not want for there to even be a study that night. I felt it was just too late. My woven grass sleeping mat was calling out to me from through the ceiling. I wrote in my journal next to the date and time, "When I feel like Filipino time will be the death of me.. Give me perspective."

Not 15 minutes later I looked up at the Bible Study that had finally started. This is what I saw:

Nine brand-new baby Christians hunched over their new Bibles, hungry to learn more about this great God who had only just become real and personal to them, pouring over every word in flickering candlelight. At that moment, in the appalling weakness of my flesh, my eyes were opened to see the beauty of the work that was happening before my very eyes. By grace, he sent his Son Jesus to make it reconciliation possible. By grace irresistible, he drew my heart to himself. By grace I am here on this island, by grace I get to be a part of life-changing work and by grace in my moments of weakness and struggling I am given eyes to see.

Pray that these new believers on the Dolores River will continue to meet together faithfully to spur each other on. 
Pray that the Holy Spirit would be powerfully present and active in their midst.