Some personal reflections on my most recent trip to El Salvador:
The first two or three times I was in El Salvador I found
myself being challenged to understand new things, to think in new ways, and to
grow in my faith. My understanding and
faith were challenged by all I learned and saw and heard and experienced. And as difficult as it was to be challenged
and to see and hear such horrible things as the atrocities of war and poverty,
I loved it. I love to wrestle with
issues and to think about big issues of justice and theology. I loved being challenged to grow in my faith.
This was my sixth time in El Salvador and I had seen and
been to all the places we were going to.
I knew the history. I knew the
stories. I had seen the poverty. I had heard how difficult it is to live life
in El Salvador. It’s not that the stories
and history of the Salvadoran people are any less amazing, it’s that these stories
and the history I know have already moved me as much as it will ever move me
(or at least that’s what I think is true).
About halfway through our trip, I was getting a little bored
and starting to get a little jealous with seeing my group members be moved by
their experiences. I was getting
impatient with wanting the Spirit to move in me and through my experiences in
El Salvador as had happened to me often before in El Salvador.
But then I felt the Spirit.
On our fifth day in El Salvador I had an experience to remind me that I
shouldn’t doubt the Spirit’s presence and ability to move.
We went to visit a church that my church could potentially
partner with. The church is in a small
community of about 40 families. The
poverty there is more than evident. And
gang violence is a significant problem in this community. My heart ached for the people in this
community as the pastor talked about the people he serves and the difficulties
the people face and as we walked around the community.
Our group's Bible devotion for that evening was based on a passage from Luke
8. It's a story about one of the times when Jesus and
his disciples are in a boat going over to the other side of a lake. They are all on the boat and Jesus has fallen
asleep and a huge storm comes up on the lake and the wind was blowing and the
waves were raging. The disciples, in
their usual fashion, freak out because they were afraid that the boat was going
to sink. They wake up Jesus. Jesus calmed the waves and the raging waters. The disciples were amazed at Jesus’ power to
calm the storm. Jesus responds to them
asking them where their faith was.
One of the reflection questions for our devotion that
evening was: what “raging waters” is Jesus calling you to go out onto? In other words, what is Jesus asking me to
step into with faith while trusting that Jesus will be with me and will protect
me?
Back home there are very few raging waters. Sure life presents challenges, but nothing compared
to the raging waters in El Salvador.
As I reflected on what my “raging waters” are, I realized that evening that God was calling me to join the raging waters of life in El Salvador, to walk with and along side the
Salvadorans as they endure hardship, violence, poverty, broken families, and so
much more.
I
don’t know if I’m called to enter the raging waters of the Salvadorans in that
church we visited that day, but I do know that God is calling me to walk with,
to accompany Salvadorans, to join them in their suffering and joys in a more
direct way than I currently am.
And frankly, this call terrifies me. I’m afraid of what it will mean for me and my
life to accompany Salvadorans. I don’t
know what this will look like yet…It may mean bringing more groups down to El
Salvador, forming a partnership between my church and a church in El Salvador,
living in El Salvador. I don’t know yet.
The one thing I do know is that it’s going to require a lot
of trust. Trust that God will bring me
where I need to be when I need to be there.
Trust that God won’t let me take the wrong path if I seek his will for
my life. Trust that God will give me
everything I need to fulfill this call.
Trust that God will give me the patience to wait for his full will to be
revealed. Trust that God will give me
the courage to accept whatever he calls me to.
And trust that God will indeed be with me through whatever raging waters
I am called to, just like Jesus was with his disciples through the raging
waters of that storm.
