It’s been raining for days here, and the roads that go up and down the mountain are sometimes closed, so we’re on our own little island. Things like rain and heat have not yet been driven from these parts by the airconditioners, and suddenly they are forces to be reckoned with. The river becomes a raging torrent and rises over its banks to attack all life before it. Landslides occupy the road, and fallen trees assault our supply lines of fuel and water.
But that’s only here. A few hundred miles away, down South, the dry season begins. There, it has been decided that there will be no rain for months. All green life dies, and one can only hope that the cows will live through and that there will be enough corn for the whole family to eat until April brings the new rains.
The Weather lives here. People still speak of hurricane Mitch with reverence. The power fueled the rivers to swallow houses, bridges, farms, cities. Tens of thousands of people were washed away. One of twenty requirements at the Kindergarten here is that in addition to letters, numbers, and Jesus, all children will learn about Natural Disasters. As Ramirez puts the walls on his house, he shows me the screw-nails he has bought. “Mitch wll not get these.” Santitos stands by the house he built by the river and tells me the story of Mitch. “My wife was afraid. But I am brave.”
The Weather takes their new seeds, knocks down their corn, drowns or fries their animals, and brutalizes their lives.
What am I to think of this? Tempted though I may be to ascribe strength to the weather, I know that it has no personality, it is not a god. It is subject to Yahweh, the Lord. He wields the weather at his will, and with His might. The Psalms tell us of the stormy power of His presence, and Jesus shows the storm-calming power of peace.
That is an answer I am content with, but I must say that it makes me uncomfortable. Why, God? Why bring them into poverty, grow them up malnourished, make them work someone else’s land to survive, send a disease, and wipe them out with a storm? Why all these plagues?
I know that you discipline your people, but this seems too much. These men are Job! They live their lives with love – when they eat beans, they make me eat chicken. When they serve me orange juice, I see them secretly watering it down for themselves. They live their lives with loyalty - at the end of each blighted day they cast an eye towards the Promised Land – the good ol` USA, sigh, and say “No. I must stay with my wife, my children, my father, my mother. They need me.” The live their lives for you – they thank you for the crops, they praise you for their children, and they cry for you in the church.
I cannot fix this, Lord Jesus. Rachel and I spend days tutoring Alba and trying to teach Meiner to walk. He is four, malnourished, and obviously mentally damaged in the realm of self-balance. We will spend this Christmas with Donya Nativa, who coughs and coughs and cries out to you with every breath she has to spare. This is wrong, very wrong.
You have made me a warrior in your kingdom, but I feel so weak. You’ve given me dominion over the earth, and it swallows me. My heart retreats daily from the fight - I don’t know who to fight anymore! Point us where you want us, and lead us.
If I cry with the cries of Job, then put me in my place. There is none beside You, and we live and die knowing little of your world.
But if I cry with the cries of Moses, and David, and Isaiah, then answer, oh God! Bring justice, rescue your people and lead to victory! The lips that want to bring forth your praises are tormented with sickness, and the wind drinks up the hymns of your children.
Rachel loves and teaches a small girl named Alba Luz, who lives in a small dirtfloor house with her family. As her father walks the miles up the mountainside to plant the beans, and as her younger brother drags himself across the floor, she works hard to learn the things that she cannot know, and about the things that she cannot have. Her name means “Dawning Light.”
How long, Lord Jesus?
Dear Joe:
Reading this morning's agonies, and feeling them with you, my initial reaction is: welcome to the real and more usual condition of humanity. America is such an unusual place in time. Sure, there have been other civilizations with their share of comfort and even luxuries, depending upon their stability and technologies, but most of humanity has always struggled and suffered its way along. Knowing that doesn't help the pain, but it helps us to understand why it's all such a shock to us from the U.S. Having lived in the Caribbean, I know what it's like. Having said this, we need to ask just how much a blessing prosperity really is, in its own way - it's debatable for sure.
Human existence is, at its root, tragedy (so says Oswald Chambers). True. This only makes the redemption of Jesus more starkly beautiful and our hearts more painfully longing for its fullness, and for every little manifestation of it in the present.
See also the goodness that is everywhere; see it in the little things. God puts it there; we need it, badly. "Poverty" is not all there is anywhere. God is there. The more we sense the tragedy, the more we try to see Him; the more we need to see Him, the more others need to see Him in us. Having Him, we and they have all, even in suffering.
Someone once told me: "the need is not the call." Needs are always everywhere. Jesus turned away from some towns to go to others. He could only do so much as a man in time. We have to trust God with needs we cannot touch, and seek Him to give us a plain path for the needs he does want us to touch; that He wants to touch through us.
I know you are hurting vocationally; I've done a lot of that myself and am going through a spell of it right now. The LORD is our shepherd and He will be our guide even unto death. May I advise you to keep plugged in with His people and give His providence regard. Don't look in much; there's not much help there. Look out. Look to the Word, listen to people, see what He has done, wait for what He plans yet to do; He will not fail to make each step plain, when you need it. Let Him gradually convict your conscience concerning what is right for you, now, later. I speak as one pilgrim to another, that's all, though with the brotherly love that is our common blessing.
Gotta quit rambling and get back to work.
Praying for you all and loved those pictures!
David
Thanks Pastor B. I really appreciate the wisdom and advice of one who has been there.
It is true that I cannot look within for answers. I have often sinned in thinking that the story of the world revolves around me. But it surely does not. God has been working out his plan, and I shiver with excitement at the joy of redemption even as I cry over the brokeness of humanity.