Wrestling with the bigger picture

So today was our last day in the communities. For some of us, it is a sad day because we don’t know if we’ll ever be back again. For others, we are excited to return when we can to continue serving, fellowshipping, and learning from our family in Tijuana.

Jared:

It seems like this week has been plagued by things that are incomplete. The first year I was here, we completed a roof, the next we poured a cement floor, doubling the size of a woman’s home. This year, I had a chance to see some work I had done previously, in which we spent quite some time digging through sand and rock to form a trench that would later hold the foundation for a retaining wall. I asked Katherine Raymond (who now responds to K-Ray) if we could see that work we had done. As we walked over, I had hoped to see rebar, concrete, or even a finished wall, but what I found was our entire trench filled with sediment washed down the hillside by rain. This was disheartening for the rest of the trip, as time always seemed too short to finish what we had started.

Today, we worked on finishing up some work on a retaining wall involving making wooden formwork to house cement. I was halfway through cutting the very last piece to finish the formwork I had been working on for 45 minutes when Barbara, a World Vision representative literally made me stop the circular saw in my hands to eat lunch. I just stared at her for a second, as anxiety brewed inside of me, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to finish what I had started.

So looking back at the work that I’ve done, and the seed of doubt that was planted in seeing previous work foiled, I’ve had to grapple with what all that means in the grand scheme of things. Why would God send me to a place where only a few days of work aren’t stretched to their fullest? Why would there not be enough time to finish what we had started? Perhaps it’s a somewhat painful way of keeping the people of Tijuana in our thoughts and prayers, and to keep the fire to serve others burning inside us.

Brian:

I wonder as I look back on today how all of this fits into the larger picture – visiting the beach (“playa” in Spanish) and seeing how the Wall between our countries has impacted the lives of people here, building a retaining wall to protect a small community center in a canyon, playing with children or even a simple soccer match – I wonder how these experiences can be brought home with me. Kathryn Compton challenged us to look beyond the small tasks, to try to understand the deeper issues of poverty, and that is a thought that I am wrestling with tonight. How does God work in situations like this? While this was brought up in discussion this morning, the weight of the situation here in Tijuana is overpowering.

This is not to say that our time here has been for nothing. As we said our goodbyes, many thankful words were exchanged, and tears were shed. Our brethren here value us as much as we value them – and through our shared time all of us leave feeling blessed to be a part of God’s family. In Tijuana, we are shown just how powerful God’s love is, and what people can do when we are united by this love. And even though our stay is short, the effects linger for a long time. Ultimately, when we return to Ann Arbor, we come back knowing a little more about the brokenness of our world, but also understanding our roles in God’s plan and having hope in His promise to make things right in the end.