Update: Kingdom Assignment

I recently received an e-mail from Judith Grossman with an update on a project they started while we were in Orosi. If you read the post "And on Sunday, We Rested," you'll see that near the end of worship services on Sunday, August 31, 14 volunteers from the congregation each received $100 to make a difference in the life of somebody else.

Been getting a little feedback on the Kingdom Assignment we gave to the fourteen people on Sunday. One young teen named Esteben used the money to buy groceries for a poor family he knows. Another, Leo, was walking with a friend at night with the money in his pocket. His friend suggested they take a shortcut but Leo didn't feel good about it so he took the long way. His friend was attacked and his things were stolen. Leo recognizes this as the miracle it is and is taking his responsibility very seriously!

I can't wait to hear more about how people are using the money to make a difference in the lives of others! There has been talk that when the Threshold VBS Team returns to Orosi in December, Rick and Judith will ask the individuals who received the money to give their reports. It would be great if we could get video of that to post.

La Gaviota Blanca Transformation

While we were in Orosi, I tried to post an update and some photos every day. That way, people could see the transformation of La Gaviota Blanca before their eyes. But what if you're just now catching up and want to fast forward through all the work and see what we accomplished in a single slide show?

Glad you asked! Click the arrow to give it a whirl.

Problems seeing the slide show? Just click here to jump to the album in Picasa Web Albums.

Reflections

I've been home about four days now, but I haven't really posted anything new to the blog. If you've been following along, you'll probably notice that I've edited some of the posts a bit (grammar, spelling, phrasing) and added photos in-line. But I've "avoided" putting up anything new. Part of it is that I'm trying to take time to settle back in with my family. I also came back to an overwhelming amount of stuff at work.

But there's more to it than that. I've been struggling (and I'm not sure if that's exactly the right word) to put everything from last week into perspective--and reconcile it with my day-to-day life back here in Charlotte. I've told my Costa Rica stories a dozen times or more, but that's just narrative. I'm having a hard time verbalizing the truly important stuff, so I stick with the "on Wednesday we did . . ." kinds of conversations.

The comment that folks made before we left was that "the experience will transform you as much as the people you are going there to help." Huge cliché, but true. Still, the wording bothers me. It was more like the experience shook the foundations of my world view and left me questioning the value and importance of pretty much everything.

I go to work, and it all seems pretty insignificant in comparison. My job is to design software that "transforms healthcare providers' operating performance and quality of practice through innovative patient-safety and workflow-orchestration solutions." That's a noble calling, right? If I'm "transforming" healthcare, that's significant, right? But what about when there really isn't healthcare available? Doesn't it make sense that the priorities should be a little different? Rather than transforming, how about simply providing? In my previous post, I talked about Marjorie, one of our interpreters. She has a little boy who has a number of medical conditions. She has to spend a couple of hours on multiple buses twice a week to get him to a doctor in San Jose. And she's lucky, because she has the resources to afford the bus and a job that provides a flexible work schedule.

And I'm not just talking about Costa Rica; I'm not so naive and uninformed to think that there aren't millions of people in our own country who don't have basic healthcare.

I work with some of the coolest technology out there: automatic workflow-orchestration software that dynamically evaluates and acts upon the status of patients, assets, staff, and rooms based on location, movement, and interaction data received from real-time wireless locating technology. Yeah, don't worry about re-reading that sentence; it won't help. It's the kind of thing I explain to people, and their eyes glaze over. When I'm done with my elevator pitch, they reply with, "So you work with computers then?" Bottom line, it's cool and very challenging. But then you go to Orosi, and most people don't have computers. Many haven't seen a computer. For that matter, most people don't have hot water or even plumbing that doesn't leak constantly and leave water (clean, "gray," or just plain raw sewage) standing on the bathroom floor. Basic plumbing isn't cool or advanced technology, but it's something I sure take for granted--but probably won't anymore. And I can guarantee that my longing for a marble-tiled shower with multiple adjustable shower heads seems pretty silly.

I got back to work, and one of our project managers was concerned about a meeting request I hadn't responded to yet. As I went to meetings and read my stacked up e-mails, I saw that people were all excited (in both the positive sense and the negative sense) about project x or y. But somehow, I just couldn't bring myself to care all that much.

When I was building the kitchen cabinets at La Gaviota Blanca, I worked with a local kid named Johan. He didn't speak any English, and my Spanish was limited mostly to "Donde esta el banyo?" and "Yo necessito burrito." But we were able to communicate, we got the job done, and we had a fun time doing it. Once I showed him how to pre-drill, counter-sink, and drive a screw with the cordless drill, that kid went to town. We had to force him to take breaks. And when the time came to cut the plywood backing, I handed him the circular saw. His eyes lit up, and he was so excited to use it. The cut was crooked and kinda jagged, but that piece of plywood backing was the best part of the entire cabinet. In my opinion at least.

Before we left, I learned a little more about Johan. He's a bright, hard-working kid with lots of ambition. He's a quick learner. He's popular with his peers. And he supports his family financially. Unfortunately, he had to drop out of school to do it. So this bright kid who should be getting an education to make something of himself will probably end up picking coffee for $10 a day for the rest of his life. Lots of bright kids who should be learning about computers, math, science, technology, languages, and the world outside Orosi will probably be right out there in the field with him.

So how can I honestly care if a guy at some hospital doesn't want to upgrade unless the main screen shows patients categorized in a certain way? All I can think is that for ten bucks a day, Johan can go back to school. I spend that much on lunch a lot of days. Where are peoples' priorities, mine included?

A four-hour airplane ride transported me a world away. But the return flight didn't necessarily bring me all the way home.

So here I sit. I'm not sure what the point of this post is, and I'm not sure if it comes across as inspiring, annoying, motivating, or self-righteous. I'm also not sure how to do the "God tie in" to end this post.

So how about this: God blessed me with an opportunity to see beyond myself. He blessed me with a perspective on just how insignificant I--and everyone and everything else--are in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, he blessed me with the understanding that I can make a difference, even it's "only" in the life of a single person. Quite the cosmic contradiction there: utterly insignificant, yet perfectly positioned to help change the world.

It's kinda ironic. For the last several weeks, Jeff Gardner (Threshold's pastor, for those of you who don't know) has been closing all his sermons and blog posts using a specific phrase. Maybe it's what God is trying to say to me right now . . .

Dare you to move.

Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before

From "Dare You to Move" by Switchfoot

Sunday Evening

It's mid afternoon on Tuesday, and we're on the plane back to Charlotte. It's been a while since I posted, so I wanted to get you new information as soon as we land in the queen city.

My last post ended about mid-afternoon on Sunday, and I thought the day was going to wind down after that. Not so much.

During the church services, the rain poured down for nearly an hour. And I'm talking about a torrential, buckets-at-a-time, soak-you-to-the-bone, better-build-an-ark kind of rain. The rain had been comparatively light all week long, giving us great weather to do our work. However, the heat and humidity had been building that entire time, and the deluge had to come sometime. Sunday at around 2:15 was that sometime.

After dinner that evening, Marjorie (one of our interpreters) learned that the rains had flooded her house. There was standing water and mud in every room. So we packed up all the brooms and towels we could find at El Jardin Sagrado, and the six of us--along with Ken and Sherri Dundon--headed over to Orosi. When we arrived, we immediately went into "get 'er done" mode. We moved out the furniture, swept out the water, hosed out the mud, and dried the floors with towels. It took us about 45 minutes, and the place was back in order with little evidence of the flooding.

Fortunately, Sherri Dundon was there. Being guys, we were just worried about solving the problem at hand. Sherri, on the other hand, comforted, cried with, and prayed with Marjorie. That was probably more important under the circumstances. You see, not long ago, most of Marjorie and Rosario's immediate family--mother, father, and several brothers and sisters--died when heavy rains caused a mud slide that buried the family's home at the foot of one of the mountains surrounding Orosi. I can't imagine what kind of terror and post-traumatic stress descended on Marjorie when she walked into that house and saw all the mud and water.

We were blessed to have Sherri with us to care for Marjorie's emotional and spiritual needs. And I know that God put us all there so we could help her recover from disaster and be a witness to His grace. When we first arrived in Orosi, Rick Grossman emphasized a very important point to us: Orosi is a small town, and everything you do will be common knowledge throughout Orosi and across the river in Palomo within 24 hours. The statement was meant mostly as a caution. But in this case, it foreshadowed an opportunity to spread the news of how six gringos on a mission trip did more than just renovate a building that will promote Christ-centered outreach programs. That was already big news in the valley.

Plenty of Ticos also saw what happened to Marjorie's house. Many of them were watching from their porches or windows when we arrived. And they saw how we jumped in to help somebody we barely knew--not because it was part of the project plan, but because the Holy Spirit moved us to help one of God's children who was in desperate need.

What an incredible witness to God's glory for the people of Orosi! And I pray that Rick was right and everybody in the Orosi Valley knew about it by sundown on Monday. I also pray that they'll look at all of our actions this past week and make room in their hearts for the love of Jesus.

The pilot just said that we're descending into Charlotte, so I'll wrap up this post. But don't worry, I still have to tell you about Monday-- plenty of good stuff there.

Thanks to everyone who prayed for us, read the blog, left comments, sent e-mails of encouragement, and supported us financially. We couldn't have done this without you. And thanks to God for giving us this opportunity to build His Kingdom and make a difference in the lives of the people of Orosi.