Good day, as they all are given to us by God, each of them should be called good. Sleep was a gift last night and i am rested to my normal hyperactive state of excitement to be filming in this place, with these people and this team. I must say again that if all who would so readily cast stones at our youth could see the work they are doing here they would never utter contempt again.
I watched to teams comprised of at least very young people today break their backs for God. I watched a crew build a stove in the home of a family that will, by its practical replacement for open fire cooking, change the lives of that group. Here, as in most developing countries, food is cooked indoors on a wood fueled open fire, much like a campfire. The homes here are filled for large portions of the day with smoke so acrid and thick that one must decide which is more torturous, the burning lungs or the stinging eyes. This ongoing condition contributes to chronic health problems of the people. Fortunately, an ingenious Guatamalan designed a stove built of cinder blocks, fire brick and sand that works wonderfully. Not onlly does is vent the smoke out of the home, it cuts wood consumption by two thirds. While this savings might seem a bit drab to our Western minds of limitless resource, here, these stoves save women an average of two entire days work of gathering wood in the hills. It is a difficulty and solution that is difficult to understand from our perspective. This week, these young people, and their, shall we say, more......hmmmmmm, you know, older folks, will install some 40 of these stoves. It is a significant benefit of Shawn's stewardship of the funds raised by the volunteers.
Beyond the stoves, I watched a crew install a concrete floor today. The vast majority of homes have earthen floors which, by contact with the feet, leave most of the people here chronically infected with parasites. Like the stoves, these floors change lives in the long and short term. I watched a senior in high school, a young artist from Florida, an Occupational Therapist, an Executive Assistant, a Constible from Pensylvania (certain I have mispelled that one) and a local family "Install a floor"today. In short, this involves a series of back breaking steps such as hauling sand, rock, and bags of concrete and spreading them on the floor. BTW, the materials were about 50 yards from the floor which was at least 20 feet long and 12 feet wide. Then, a bucket brigade brings water to the mix and allows it to settle. Then, the crew picks up shovels and hoes and turns the entire mix over three times before adding more water and finally leveling the floor. The accomplished this feet in an hour and twenty minutes. A handful of Christians from the most diverse corners of society imaginable come together as the Body of Christ and make this happen.
I was honored and humbled to travel with both teams today. I wish you could see the work, the love, the expression of Jesus Christ in the flesh serving our brothers and sisters where there is zero chance of re-payment. I thank God that He has delivered a sinner like me to be witness through my lenses.
Let me finish with a final observation. I watched an old man carry a stack of wood on his back today. There was nothing unusual about this at all. Spend more than five minutes on any street in this area and you will see the very same scene. He was quite elderly, perhaps 70 or so, hunched over so far as to appear nearly doubled in two. The stack of wood was almost as big as he was and I would estimate that it weighed a minimum of 75 pounds, perhaps much more.
I shot away as I always do and noticed something I had never realized before in watching so many before him. He never once flinched. He never glanced to the left or to the right. Never up or down, always straight ahead. His steps were as steady as the leader of any drumline. He was even, rythmic; he was determined. I have no idea about the faith of this man and I would add it does not matter to me.
I sat and wondered what my faith would be like if any aspect of it had something remotely similiar to the determination of that man carrying that burden year after year after year. I know his bones must ache unspeakably and I can only guess at the lonliness of his enduring stride. Still, he never flinched. I wonder what my walk with Christ might become if I never flinched, if I never allowed the constant fears in my heart to be the obstacles of my spiritual development. I flinch at the wind, I turn my gaze away from God all too many times, glancing left and right away from His Son and towards the things that stand between us. My back aches and I complain bitterly. His back aches and his stride never changes.
I wonder what I am supposed to learn in this place beyond the images that shape my heart, more times than not, painfully. Is my ongoing discomfort and disdain for my Western life my glance away from where God has planted me and where He would lead me?
I sat at the edge of a dark street tonight and watched the people walking past. A dog approached me and looked hungry and so I fed him my peanut butter sandwhich. A man lay drunk and passed out in the gutter some 20 feet away while his wife and son tried to awaken him. A young couple sat on a motor bike half a block away, lit by the dim light of her doorway and kissed. I could here the young people from our group laughing and talking excitedly on the roof above me. I tell myself I could stay here forever and just "be" but then I recall my kids, my Jelly Bean, my Westies, my family and I am pulled firmly to my own terra firma, home. Can a man live in two worlds at once? I know sometimes I have and the outcome was nothing pretty.
It is late and they are about to lock the inner gates of this hotel. Even here, the world must be barred from our time of sleeping.
There is only God. Nothing more. Nothing Less. Amen.
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