Guatemala Day 3!

 

Guatemala (Day 3)

They closed one of the local public schools today so that we could paint it. So that we could paint the school. So that we could paint the WHOLE school. It was not a huge school, but we were tasked with painting five classrooms, a spacious open-air foyer and a two-story front exterior wall (with gates and steps). Needless to say, I began our day overwhelmed with the task before us.

You see, I love painting. I love neat, orderly, perfect painting. Straight lines. No drips. My clothes stay clean when I paint, and the floors do too. And if you are wondering if I am bragging, I am. I don’t even use painter's tape! But as I walked through the classrooms and observed that many of our students had gotten more paint on the floors and on themselves than they had gotten on the walls I began to feel a bit overwhelmed. This was going to be tough day. And it was.

But as I found myself stuck in what seemed to be the impossibility of the task, the team did what the team always seems to do. They rose to the occasion. Soon the school was filled with laughter, and singing, and encouragement and voices saying, “what can I do now?” And then the teachers who were enjoying their day off came to the school with cold sodas, fresh fruit, warm pastries, and words of gratitude. And then little by little the walls turned a new color, and the floors got cleaned up, and edges were made straight (sort of), and a bunch of sweaty, weary, and paint-soaked students declared, “We are done.” They did it. We did it. We were done.

Now let me be clear, the school looks like a bunch of students with basically no experience painted it. It is far from perfect. But you know what? It looks that way because that is exactly what happened. And it is beautiful.

Tonight, at porch time we read Matthew 22:36-40. In it, Jesus says that to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul is the greatest of all commandments. But he doesn’t stop there. He continues, and says, that the second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself and that is is “like the first.” Jesus says that loving God and loving your neighbor are “like” each other. Think about that.

As we thought about that tonight as a team, we realized that loving our neighbor, like painting a school, can be hard. And that when we love our neighbor, like painting a school, it can be messy, and tiring, and often imperfect. But separating our love for God and our love for others can’t be done. James makes that clear (James 1:19-27), John makes that clear (1 John 3:16-19) and Jesus makes that clear.

Don’t stay stuck, let’s get painting! Or as Jesus puts us, let’s get loving!

Privileged to Serve (and ready for a shower),

Rich and the Team