You said, ask and you will receive…. Whatever you need.
You said, pray and you’ll hear from heaven…..and I’ll heal your land.
Tonight starts our continual prayer and worship sets for 72 hours straight. The above signs are what hang at the school inviting those to come…. And so we ask …. For the nations…. We ask for the youth of this area. Please pray for all involved as we go forward. That the spirit moves and that hearts are open.
Darkness.
This is one of the themes I have thought about a lot in the last month – figuratively, literally, and spiritually. The sun shines most days in Guatemala. There is color all around. It does not appear dark -but you can feel the darkness at times. Actually, most of the time.
I went to market today – an area that is bursting at the seems with people and chaos. People are shouting, kids are running around, everyone is moving. And as I walked through I heard screaming – very high pitched screaming. At first I thought it was a pig being led through the streets, but as I got closer I realized the sounds were coming from the back of a white truck. I tried to read what was written on the sign from a distance, but the screams haunted me and I did not want to get close. Written on the side was “Fantasia” but the sounds coming from inside were anything but a fantasy world. The screams were of fear and being hurt, not of enjoyment.
Darkness.
Ironically this truck was parked outside of the Catholic church. It was also accompanied by other demonstrations of “magic” and other “healings” that you could receive. To me – it was a demonstration of how dark this area is and how great the need continues to be. Sometimes while you live here you do not realize the oppression that falls on this place. You do not realize the heaviness that can entangle the people here. Yet when I leave, I realize it the most. When I set foot in a place that is not surrounded by this oppression. When I am among people who have not be strangled with this fear.
Darkness. While I was gone a boy who was only 12 committed suicide. 12 years old. Still in elementary school. A cry of desperation. A demonstration of the need to be released from this spirit that resides here.
And so we pray. More feverently. More passionately than we have before. That the youth in this area would step into the light.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. – Ephesians 6:12
An article came out about a year ago that I read titled – Why Missionaries Can Never Go Home Again…. and many of the comments resonated within. As I read it again, I was reminded of many of the things that struck me with this time back home again. Everyone who is serving in a different country chooses to do time at home differently. Some rotate home for a year. Others rotate home on months. Some come back to their home country very briefly and others choose to never return. For me it has been sporadic – and each time increasingly more disconnected. There is not easy way to connect.
I had someone ask me if I felt more at home in America or more at home in Guatemala – and the truth is – neither. You feel on a bridge. Only at home in some areas of your life. Never at home in all of them. Guatemala will never become home because a piece of you is in the states and the states will never be home again because a piece of you will always be in Guatemala.
Life continues on while you are gone and the changes magnify. Even if you have talked with friends and family while you were gone, there is so much of their lives that you have missed – each time it is like starting over again. Their kids no longer recognize you, people don’t know what to ask – so they don’t ask, and you have missed so much.
It is hard to relate to my American friends because you are so separated from American culture and living as Americans do – and they cannot relate to what goes on in Guatemala because the ideas are so foreign to them. Many times you talk about what you are doing, but you summarize by cutting out each part of your life that others would not relate to… and that leaves a three minute summary. When you come back from a short term trip, there are so many more things to talk about because each day was exciting and new. Now each day is real life. Each day consists of routines. And the days flow together to create life as it now is.
As I have returned to the states I find myself driving down streets in town noticing how far apart the houses are and how much privacy everyone has (previously I felt claustrophobic when living in town).
I notice how green and lush it is and how empty the yards and streets are – not cluttered with dogs and pigs and chickens and plastic chairs and clothes hanging on barbed wire fences.
When I see Spanish, I find myself reading the Spanish, before the English that is right beside it.
I walk through stores and on the streets invisible – without the pressure to greet everyone that walks by. And if someone does happen to say something, my immediate response is “Adios” – without even thinking.
I forget how scheduled lives have become and how strictly we stick to those schedules. And how I feel now that I won’t ever really have a schedule again in my life.
I notice that I am the only one who doesn’t notice it is raining and look to immediately go inside or that there is grass all over my feet and I don’t feel the need to immediately wash it off.
I notice that when the music gets fuzzy on the radio, I still think it is amazing to be able to be surrounded by music while driving on a smooth road.
You complain about less, and embrace more. And for this I am grateful for my years living with less and loving more. Days of frustration with living outside of my culture that have led to surrendering many of the things in life that don’t matter – there may be grass on the floor, my clothes may not completely match and the music might be a little fuzzy – but they are all now acceptable and welcomed.
I will quote the article here and add the entire link below if you would like to read it…
Home is no longer home. And sadly, that other place on the mission field will never truly be home either. Home is both places, and neither place, at the same time.
Missionaries are forever caught between two worlds. They can no longer completely identify with the people whom they left behind in the home country. But they can never truly identify with the people in their host country.
But that’s okay. There have been other travelers on this road.
“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” (Hebrews 11:13-16)
While here on earth, we will always feel a bit unsettled and out of place. Missionaries and those of us living away from the place we grew up may experience that more than others. But someday, all those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will finally be home again.
trustfall 