My day of outreach begins at 6:30am every morning. We finish breakfast before the sun comes up, and when it finally rises the sight is a beautiful water color painting- if the clouds over the sea don’t conceal it (and if the clouds cover, we see only a unimpressive ‘gradual lighting of the earth’ SHOUT OUT LAURA AND LAUREN!)
I will show you an example of our daily schedule based on yesterday:
After breakfast, we skip the showers and set straight into base cleanup. This YWAM base is unique, as the dining room, kitchen and lounge are all outdoors, so things get dirty very very fast. We pull weeds, pressure wash the concrete, paint the walls and fix benches. After this we went to a community where we cleaned up the trash around a community center and pulled out the thorn bushes. 3 hours and 2 dozen full garbage bags later we were about halfway done with the job. From here we go straight to an orphanage and teach english and math. Insert half an hour break for lunch. Once we’re finished with the dishes we went to another community where we started the massive project of building a house from scratch. Insert half an hour break for dinner. Before we were finished eating, we had to scrape our plates and run to sweep, mop and repair a church building where a meeting was to take place- myself and three others on my team left half way through this to hold a small group for the teenagers of the community. When we returned to the base at 9:00pm, we had to do the dishes and clean the hall after the meeting, but this was AFTER taking an hour and a half to babysit the pastor’s kids. So 11:00-11:30pm, we roll into our rooms, filthy and exhausted, and climb into our beds not to sleep, but to work on our outreach journal assignments, ministry report and book reports. Finally we go to bed around 1:ooam to wake up five hours later!
Whooah! So for those of you thinking I’m spending my time standing on street corners, or riding on top of elephant’s backs screaming: “Jesus loves you!” Let me correct your thinking! Mercy ministry is all about practical work- and the blisters on my palms is the evidence of that! We are bettering lives here- whether it be relationally, or giving them a new house and cleaner living. It’s good. It’s very good. The Bible says that to be first you must be last, and I interpret that as, to do the most important work for humankind, you’ve gotta get a little dirt under your nails!
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Oh Stephanie! I am so glad I came across your blog today, I forget to check it a lot and often times am pleasantly surprised when I remember. Life sounds so crazy, so busy, so dirty, so hectic - so fulfilling. I love the last paragraph that you wrote, it made me laugh and it made me cry, all within the same minute! I am not exaggerating. I never really envisioned you riding on elephants and screaming about Christ's love, but it is an entertaining image for sure :) but when you made your final point about simply bettering lives and your interpretation of the biblical words, I was so happy and amazed that I started crying! I can't explain it very well, but I'll try.
ReplyDeleteThe other day on campus here in Bellingham, it was a beautiful sunny northwest day. Keller and I decided to meet up by a fountain in the middle of campus, to talk about life and catch up on the past week.. and there were multiple men wearing ridiculous clothes or holding staffs with crosses and signs saying, "Forgiveness is NOT FREE you MUST repent!!!!!" and these men screaming at the top of their lungs at students who were just trying to get to class. Calling people out as sinners, asking questions about eternity, you name it. I found it sooo offensive, and went home that day a little disheartened thinking, "No wonder people think Christians are crazy, these guys are so terrifying and judgmental and crazy!"
I wish more people, especially some of these so called believers or preachers or whatever they are, saw things like you do Steph, saw things with a loving heart and through Christ. If instead of just preaching at people, they'd just show kindness and love and what it means to have a servant's heart - the world would be such a better place. I applaud you Stephanie Anne Brucher, for you are truly making the world a better place. and I love you & miss you so much. :) p.s. thank you for the shout out about gradual lightings of the earth! its so crazy to think you are witnessing that all the way over in Africa, probably about the same time I am watching a gradual dimming of the Earth... haha.