For Sale: One slightly used umbrella

For sale: One umbrella. Location: Costa Rica. Only used twice. May not be useful in normal applications. Cost: $1.00 primarily to remove my shame.

What you see here is a picture on my walk home from school. What you don’t see is the amount of water I had already walked into soaking me to mid-shin. I stayed after for tutoring to catch up from missing some work. When I left there was a downpour. It was like a waterfall. Then the winds picked up. Imagine anti-Mary Poppins. Then imagine picking up a cloth from a bucket of water. The cloth well that was me. My umbrella obviously not functioning at full capacity ensured that I was drenched including all of my school books . Thankfully I was only half way home.

What do you do when your life serves up a thunderstorm and you have a broken umbrella? Let me tell you what I did. I laughed and asked someone to take a picture. Trust me at this point, I could have reacted negatively. I could have gotten mad but really what was the worst part? I was soaked? My backpack was holding water. My school books soaked. My shoes wouldn’t dry for days. In the US, we have a statement, “Don’t cry over spilled milk.” Here in Costa Rica it is, “Don’t cry when water is on the floor.” The saying makes sense especially with our history here. In two months, our ceiling has leaked twice, water came under our door once flooding our living room, and 4 windows leak when we have rain from the east.

A little water isn’t worth crying over. In fact, I think I make a big deal about too many things. I do this mainly because I think too much of this life and too little of heaven. Please don’t misinterpret my reasoning, longing for heaven is good but heaven is good because Jesus is there. If I make Jesus my supreme desire the stuff in this world doesn’t matter near as much.

While this is good about suffering, I’m not a sufferer. I’m a Christian and a missionary. What does this have to do with missions? Well everything. After my time in language school, I will be transitioning to the mountains in Ecuador to work with the Highland Quichuas. I am not going there because of them. I’m going there because I love Jesus. Every day I have to put in the front of my mind that I am learning Spanish not for them or for me, but for Jesus. So with that, I’m off to study more irregular verbs.

Take off the training wheels

Do you remember when you first tried to ride a bike with no training wheels? I remember like it was yesterday. I remember when the training wheel first came off. I was balling. I was terrified I was going to fall off my bike and die. My father assured me he would hold on. He was stern. I had to do this. There was no backing out. This happened long before kids started wearing helmets and pads to learn how to ride a bike. Back in the good old days.

I was terrified as I started riding. My dad kept his word and held on… for about five seconds. As I was riding, I turned around and I had left him in the dust. I should have known. There was no way I was going to get him to run down the street. He lied but I was riding!

Speaking a new language is the same way. After being here a couple of weeks, I had some language. Enough to get a ride in a taxi and return home. While this may sound childish and it is, my address is: San Franciso de Dos Rios, 100 mts este iglesia catolica. 25 mts izquerda, casa aldo de izquerda color es café y crema. You don’t exactly put that into Google maps. There came a time when I needed to get a cab and give him my destination and then return home with my ridiculously long address. In order to speak Spanish sometimes you just have to... speak Spanish.

There are many similarities to our own spiritual walk. Probably what people have told me more than anything else relating to their personal walk with the Lord is that they don’t understand the Bible. Let me say two things before I give you the answer I give them. First, reading the Bible is important. God gave us creation, his Son, and a book. We need to look outside, believe in his Son, and read his book. Secondly, reading the Bible is not a substitute for knowing God. There are stronger believers with greater faith who cannot read and who don’t have the Bible in their language.

So back to my answer. How do you understand the Bible? You read it!

You read it fast, read it slow, read it early, and read it late. Read it in bed and at a desk. Read it so your life won’t be a mess.

Read it in sections and read them again. Just in case you don’t get it at first. You will get it once in it you’re immersed. 

Don’t be afraid of all of the pages, they have been there for ages! Let them become familiar to your fingers. Read them often to answer any question that lingers.

So by now my answer should be quite clear. If you can’t read just make sure you can hear. For in times past, one person would read and all would stand near.

Still today there are many who don’t read at all. Many of them live in the mountains and are not quite tall. They are the ones whom we will teach, so their people they will reach.

I hope you enjoyed Dr. Seuss inspired poem. Do not take your literacy for granted. God has given you a great gift. Would you pray for Katie and me as we embark on learning a new language? 

Blind Spots

The first two months here have been difficult to say the least. Katie spent a week in the hospital and still needs a couple more tests. We are in a new country, learning a new language, and meeting new people. Maybe one of the greatest challenges is being a parent during this whole process.

We have had ups and downs of language. At first, Hannah did not like her school. They only spoke to her in Spanish and she knew only English. She finally started catching on and has now surpassed us! Just this last weekend she was not being obedient at all. In order to get her to come I had to speak in Spanish, “Venga aqui!” When I told her to “come here” she came immediately.

It has been a little different as we navigate Costa Rican sicknesses. She had a virus. It was similar to viruses in the US but it was stronger and lasted longer. She had a fever for a week and a three day rash followed. She now has a lingering cough. Other kids have been sick with other things and I’m praying it passes without another trip to the doctor.

What has been most difficult here is my hidden blind spots. Well, that was being too positive. This has challenged my prayer life and my faith like nothing before. Over the past two months as we have went from one difficulty to another, I have prayed like the man in the Bible whose child needed to be healed by Jesus. Jesus told the man all things were possible for the one who believes. In a moment where the depths of his soul were peered into by the Lord, he prayed, “I believe, help my unbelief” (Mk 9:24).

I don’t know what it is but when someone you love is sick it is bad. But it seems when your child is sick it is the worst thing ever. My reference point for sicknesses in Costa Rica has been things at a week-long interval. It seems that with each day there is a new depth of my heart that is being exposed and revealed. When NASA released pictures form the Hubble telescope everyone (including myself) was amazed at seeing the deepest pictures of space. I feel like those pictures are a Polaroid compared to intense gaze of the Lord upon my heart. So I pray, “I believe, help my unbelief.”  

Has God failed?

Has God failed?

Hannah woke up this morning with a cough. Today, it was a little more pronounced than yesterday. So yet again, we are missing another day of school to keep her home. Katie is feeling much better so we are alternating during the day. What gets me about Hannah being sick is that Katie and I have prayed for her to be well and not get sick. She is sick. Has God failed?

In one sense, yes. God has failed. He just hasn’t failed as you may think of it. God has not failed to be good, righteous, just, loving, or sovereign. In other words, he has not stopped being God. But he has failed to be a get well genie for us.

Two years ago, John Piper said, “God is always doing 10,000 in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” Ouch! So Hannah is sick. I am not sure why she is sick. I would love her to never get sick, ever. What I don’t know is what God knows. He knows each virus and bacteria she will face in her life. He knows that for her to have a strong immune system later she has to have these little coughs and sicknesses. Sicknesses build immune system strength.

I’m staying at home first. We will probably take her to the doctor tomorrow. We will have extra tea parties. She will take an extra nap. I will continue to pray she gets well but in my prayers I will pray to God who is always good, always righteous, always, just, always loving, always sovereign, and has seen his own Son in far worse shape than my daughter with a cough.