Brazil 2013: construction report

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My pastor asked me to give the construction report for our Brazil trip at church this morning, so I thought I would share my notes here. We’ll have a video slideshow of pictures to accompany the report. My two-fold hope is that people will realize that they, too, are capable of participating in a project like this, and also that folks will understand that the construction was about more than just a building.

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I was asked to give the construction report, and as I thought about what to share, I realized how dull it might sound to most of you to hear about the half-dozen pallets of bricks that we moved from Point A to Point B to Point C and back to Point A during the first couple of days. The pictures of sweaty folks spreading masa, painting with respiratory masks, climbing scaffolding and using power tools aren’t as flattering as the VBS team’s colorful and playful snapshots, I’m certain. I suppose we could have a show-and-tell about our scrapes, bruises, sunburns and Bob’s broken foot :), but what it boils down to is that building a chapel in roughly six days was a lot of hard work. But, it was also one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in my life.

In Matthew 6, Jesus demonstrated to his disciples how to pray. (It’s what we know today as the Lord’s Prayer.) One line of that prayer has always given me pause, and last week in Brazil, it finally dawned on me what it might mean. The line is “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

What does it really mean to usher in the kingdom of God here on earth? Philippians 2:10-11 gives us a glimpse when it says “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

As we were building the chapel in Guanabara, I realized that we were adding to the kingdom of heaven, heavy brick by crumbly brick. On the first full day at the site when Val showed me ever-so-patiently how to spread masa on cement blocks, I thought about people like him and his precious wife Luciana, who came to know Christ as a result of previous mission trips, and my heart rejoiced.

“… at the name of Jesus every knee should bow …”

On the day we finished the walls and began the roof, I listened to Fidelis (one of the pedredos) singing praise songs in Portuguese while he worked, and I thought about one of the last memories I have of my brother, standing next to him in church singing, and he looked over at me and smiled with that smirky grin of his, and my heart longed to hear his voice again.

“…every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord …”

When I walked across the street to use the restroom at the neighborhood bar – a place where many in the community perhaps sought escape from the stresses of life, I wondered about people who would happen by the church and stop in, out of curiosity, and my heart ached for them to find real refuge in our Savior.

“… to the glory of God the Father …”

This, friends, is the kingdom of God on earth. For now, we worship at a distance from the new church in Guanabara, but one day, we will stand together in worship of our God and Savior.

Go and be reconciled (Prayer Devotional for the week of July 14, 2013)

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Although the vast majority of our time in Brazil was full of awesome, memory-making adventures, not every moment was happy-go-lucky. The day after we got rained out of the construction site, for example, started out as a not-so-pleasant morning. We quickly realized that we were falling behind schedule, and to make matters worse, it started raining again. We desperately needed to begin painting the interior of the church that day, but the stucco was still damp – so much so, that chunks of mud periodically broke off as we rolled paint onto the walls.

To be honest, I would rather clean a toilet than paint a wall. It’s just not something I’ve ever been good at, and in the fast-paced stress of the moment, I had few instructions to go by: just grab a roller and a paint tray, pronto! We were tired, frustrated, cranky and feeling the pressure of staying on schedule. So, when someone came by and critiqued the way we were seemingly wasting paint (since the wet walls were sucking in the paint, rather than being coated by it), I took the criticism too personally.

I didn’t want to be the sissy girl who cried over something so minor, but I couldn’t keep the tears from welling up in my eyes. I pretended like I was wiping sweat from my face while I tried to take a deep breath and not let my emotions get the best of me. A few minutes later, the person who had made the critical comment came over and put his arm around my shoulder. (Apparently, my sweat-wiping trick wasn’t as inconspicuous as I had hoped.) He admitted to being stressed out and apologized for snapping at me.

Building that chapel was not only a ministry to the people of Guanabara, but it was also a gift of service to the Lord. As I reflected on the painting incident later, I thought about a passage in Matthew 5:23-34, where Jesus tells his followers that if they are bringing a gift to the temple but remember that they have a grudge with someone, then they need to reconcile that relationship first, and then come back and bring the gift to God.

We could have just trudged on and not made things right between us – and sure, the building would still have turned out the same – but we would have both missed out on experiencing God’s blessings because of hurt feelings. I think God honors our efforts when we take the initiative to reconcile with people. Life is too short to hold grudges.

What I need to hear

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There have been scant occasions in my life when I felt very confident about what next steps I should take, and only once or twice when I felt absolutely certain. I am a fan of C. S. Lewis’ notion of common sense, and I generally follow the rule of thumb that if I’m seeking God, then he’ll direct me where I need to go, even if it isn’t clear ahead of time. It can be maddening, though, because I like to dream and brainstorm and plan.

Before I left for Brazil, I submitted the final version of my portfolio, which is the culmination of my academic, professional and civic accomplishments and involvement since I began the doctoral program. Putting the extensive document together was a feat that took months; in reality, I’ve been working on it for two years. The most difficult part of the process was completing the goals section, because my department chair expected me to be specific about my career objectives. Putting on paper what I want to do in my career was harder than I expected. (In the end, I made up a position that doesn’t currently exist, but it sounded like a good fit for me, if it did.) It’s not that I am a poor planner or lack goals, but I feel like I am at a crossroads, and I have felt this way for a couple of years now.

Don’t get me wrong: I am utterly grateful for my job, and I enjoy what I do and the people I get to work alongside every day. But, do I want to spend ~20 more years in this position? People keep asking what I plan to do when I finish my degree, and I simply don’t know. I’m not just sitting on my haunches waiting for something to fall into my lap; I’m trying to learn and grow in my job, and I’m ambitious in other ways. I’ve applied for research opportunities, sought out venues to publish my work, and I plan to teach part-time again in the fall.

Now that I’m just a few weeks away from being ABD (all but dissertation … or, tongue-in-cheek: all but done!), I could probably apply for teaching &/or research positions at other colleges and universities, but there are so very many strings attached here. I suppose other places also offer tuition remission for dependents, but that is certainly a HUGE factor keeping me here. There’s also the fact that my folks are nearby, and as independent (read: stubborn) as I am, I readily admit that I need and appreciate their help. Add the single-again factor into the mix, and relocating across the country or around the world by myself with five kids sounds like a positively loony idea.

So, when people ask what I want to do, I’m guarded in my response, because my answer is hedged in by all the reasons that I need to stay put. I would absolutely love to do research and write, but those opportunities are few and far between [here] for an interdisciplinary, applied-research degree like mine. There’s a possibility that a full-time teaching position might open up at the community college within the next year, which wouldn’t involve relocating, but it would mean walking away from a more comprehensive tuition benefit for the kids where I currently work.

I’ve been thinking a lot about James 1:2-4 (MSG), a reminder that I need to hear again and again: “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.”

I had hoped that by getting out of the ordinary (and away from the pressure) for several days, I might glean some insight from God while I was in Brazil, but he worked on me in other areas — like my pride (ouch), which I’ll share more about on Sunday. I’m still feeling clueless about so many things, so until I sense God saying otherwise, I’ll just keep on keeping on.