Church on a concrete floor

Jesus meets us anywhere -- of this I am certain. In Peru I have encountered him in a variety of surprising settings, which keeps making me smile because I think Jesus likes to see different places. I do too. I’ve met him at a cacao plantation, at Machu Picchu, and most recently on a concrete floor attached to the kitchen. 

A strike is in full force here. It’s been this way for a week, but I’m assuming by the time I post this it will have been longer. We have stayed inside the house to keep safe. This experience has taught me things I never would have realized. I am not nervous about our safety. I am surprisingly confident. I believe God will keep us protected and safe.

On Sunday we couldn’t go to church because of the riot, so instead we decided to have some worship on our own. There are eight of us, but we invited the housekeeper and groundskeeper who are married and live here with us, along with their three kids. When we entered the room on Sunday morning, instead of the thirteen of us I thought would be present, there were twenty-five people. I started to laugh. Word had spread and there we were, our own tiny congregation.

We didn’t have to go to church -- the church was already there. People who love Jesus were gathering together, and the church was right there with us, unfolding on a concrete floor in the jungle.

Tat and I played some worship songs. Spanish and English voices mixed, all singing the same song but with different words, and I looked at my white skin and their smooth caramel-brown. Our worlds crashed together like the clang of a symbol and the sound could not have been more beautiful to me.

Segundo, the groundskeeper, read Matthew 5 and 6 in Spanish, and then Tat’s father, Scott, read it in English:

Here is the bottom line: do not worry about your life. Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will drink. Do not worry about how you will clothe your body. (Matthew 6:25)

We have more food than most of the people in Peru, I know, but even our food supply is running out with this strike happening in the city. The markets are shut down, and the roads are closed with blockades. I thought about the people sitting in front of me. I wondered if they had enough food.

Scott continued reading.

So do not consume yourself with questions: What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear? Outsiders make themselves frantic over such questions; they don’t realize that your Heavenly Father knows exactly what you need. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all of these things will be given to you too. So do not worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Living faithfully is a large enough task for today. (Matthew 6:31-34)

I’m not sure how we’re getting to the airport on Sunday, what with the blockades taking up the roads. We will most likely have to walk. The strike is causing me to ask so many questions, and yet, as I sat there cradling my ukulele, looking at the other twenty-four people around me, I kept hearing: do not worry about tomorrow.

And then I remembered it’s the start of Advent. The King is coming, and he is not afraid.

Our voices rang out one last time, my fingers strumming the strings. Our Jesus is coming. Sitting on the concrete floor surrounded by jungle, I smiled. What a way to begin ushering him in.

Finding Jesus at Machu Picchu

I met Jesus on a mountaintop.

I was at Machu Picchu -- a stunningly enormous collection of ruins, high in the Andes mountains here in Peru. We had hiked up and down the mountains that morning, exploring the rocks and gorgeous architecture. I loved looking at the details, tracing my fingertips along the stones, fascinated by the artwork that stood in front of me.

But my favourite spot was sitting at the top of the mountain.

I had lugged my ukulele on my back all day, and I was determined to find a quiet spot to play it. It was hot and sunny and, though it’s tempting, I’ll do no romanticizing. We sat down in a shaded area, and large mosquitoes devoured my arms and elbows as I played. They hurt and left huge, itchy bites. But take note -- I was determined.

I played one of my favourite songs for Jesus on a mountaintop in Peru.

Lord, I come, I confess Bowing here, I find my rest

“Without you, I fall apart,” my friends and I sang. “You’re the one that guides my heart.”

People on the mountain walked past us. We kept singing. A woman took a photo of us. We kept singing. An older man whistled alongside us. We kept singing.

Lord, I need you. Oh, I need you.

There was nothing anyone could do or say that could break that moment for me. There was no mosquito large enough, no sun hot enough, no reason that could unfold me from that sacred moment in the Sacred Valley.

Every hour I need you.

I didn’t play perfectly -- not even close -- and our voices were soft and breathless from both the altitude and the heat. But we were determined to sing a song to Jesus on that mountaintop.

For so many years of my life I have fallen for the lie that Jesus’ love is meant for everyone but me. This has been an enormous struggle. I finally had to make a decision:  I could choose to believe the lie I kept falling for, or I could decide that what Jesus said is true -- that he does love me, as I am.

This is a choice I make now, even when my heart may not believe it.

I chose to believe he loves me when I gaped at the statue of Christo Blanco, high above the city of Cusco. I chose to believe he loves me when our taxi driver, Santos, was kind to us, his name literally translating to the word holy. I chose to believe he loves me while I sang a song to him on the Andes mountains at Machu Picchu. I choose to love him in return.

Over and over again, I choose to love him in return.

I lettered this verse before we went to Machu Picchu. I read it and thought, yes, this, this is what I want my life to represent.

May we have the power to understand that the love of God is infinitely long, and wide, and high, and deep -- even higher than the mountains of Machu Picchu, even wider than the star-spread skies, even deeper than the Atlantic ocean -- surpassing everything any of us have previously experienced.

That’s the kind of love we have. I’ll keep choosing that love -- even over oceans and stars and the staggering mountains that fill up Machu Picchu.

Where sin runs deep, your grace is more Where grace is found is where you are And where you are, Lord, I am free Holiness is Christ in me

I don’t ever want to quit choosing that love.

I keep falling in love

I stand in voiceless awe.

I have no idea what I can possibly say to describe the sky that looms above me -- the stars, thousands of them, stretching out for miles and years, and I stand in inexplicable awe.

I am falling in love with Jesus all over again.

He is wooing me with the stars; he is captivating me with the cosmos. I am impassioned, flinging myself into him, and beneath this blanket of ebony darkness and dazzling light, he is cradling me, softly whispering, "This is for you, my love. I did this all for you."

I stretch my neck as far as I can beneath the sky, begging my eyes to remain open a while longer. I am nothing here, just a girl beneath the starlight, standing in the centre of the thick jungled Amazon rainforest. My Jesus, I think. I love you -- and it scares me. I taste the salt on my lips, wiping my damp cheeks with the cuff of my sleeve.

This love terrifies me, and not in a way where I feel threatened, but in the afresh recognition of both my finite smallness and his infinite grandeur. Of his strength, and his might, and his wooing, relentless love. And I am plunging headfirst into the ocean, my chest gasping more for this incessant love than for oxygen.

So help me, I am falling in love with Jesus again.

I fall in love with him every time I stop and stare at the stars, and this night is no exception. They are swallowing me whole. Part of me is grateful that a camera can hardly capture this splendor -- then they remain my secret with Jesus, and I clutch my mystery tight against me.

I see Jupiter. I see Orion's Belt. I see myself twirling in a pink dress running toward Jesus, and he is lifting me, higher and closer, and we are dancing among the constellations.

I weep as I watch his fingertips press into both me and the sky.

I weep as I watch four stars shoot, curling over the inky night.

I weep as I lean into the love that never stops saving me.

And I'm falling in love beneath the stars again.

What it looks like to bravely follow Jesus

The number one thing I think of when I think of bravery, is what courage looks when it comes to following Jesus.

I'm in Peru now, surrounded by thick, green jungle. But on the airplane ride here, I saw something that made me stop. We were flying into Cusco, and when we looked down through the window, tears sprang into my eyes. There were thousands upon thousands of mountains, with clouds touching the tops of them, and valleys fracturing deep into the earth. I was immediately in awe. I'm working on trying to pause when I am in awe of something.

It's good to be in awe while in an airplane, because you don't have any other choice but to sit there and soak it in, a tired and weary traveler soaking in the glory of God.

And I thought, "How could I not follow Jesus? How could I not choose him, day after day after day, when his glory and his finger prints and the manifestation of his love sits below me?"

But bravely following Jesus doesn't just mean getting on an airplane and going to Peru or Africa. I think sometimes it means that, but not always. I think sometimes bravely following Jesus means going, and other times it means you should stay.

More and more, I am learning that bravely following Jesus means accepting and loving who I am, because it's who he created me to be. I am learning that bravely following Jesus means sometimes having a life that looks different than other people my age. I am learning that bravely following Jesus means being bold when it might be uneasy, and being stretched when I want to remain comfortable, and doing things I never imagined I might do.

I think more than anything, bravely following Jesus is choosing to decide that Jesus is worth it. There are so many days where I wake up and ask Jesus, "Is this worth it?" And even when I can't find beauty, even when I'm not in an airplane surrounded by a thousand mountains, I somehow also come to the conclusion that, yes: he's worth it. He always is.

My life would be nothing, shards of oblivion, without him.

There are dozens of things I long to choose brave for. But this, above and beyond everything, is the most significant and sacred to me.

This is day thirty. You can click here if you'd like a list of all the posts in this series, updated each day this October. If you would like these posts directly delivered to your email inbox, subscribe below.