Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: FLEXIBLE (07/09/20)
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TITLE: Expect the Unexpected | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marilyn Borga
07/15/20 -
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”The by-word I want you all to remember,” he began, “is flexibility.”
I furtively assessed my companions, most of whom were well on the road to sixty or even seventy. Not a lot of flexibility in these bodies. Nope.
I soon realized that our leader wasn’t referring to physical flexibility. He was talking about sudden-change-of-plans flexibility… the be-ready-for-surprises, expect-delays kind. Not my favorite modus operandi.
I’m the get-it-done type. My ideal day starts with making a list and crossing off each accomplishment as the day goes by. Surprises aren’t for me; careful plans are. I shook off my misgivings. I knew that it was God who had nudged me into this commitment. Why shouldn’t I trust that he had things under control?
Our leader’s next words were not reassuring. The missionaries that served our project area were currently on furlough. In their place, our denomination would send Ryan and Luis, two young men from Costa Rica, to lead our group. But we hadn’t heard much from them. Their internet was sketchy, communication was sporadic. We weren't sure yet about accommodations, plans were fluid. At subsequent meetings, information was doled out a widow’s mite at a time. But we did all we could with the information we received. At last, the departure time came.
When we stepped off the plane, Ryan and Luis were there waiting. They hoisted our luggage on top of the hired bus and loaded us inside. As we sped to the church camp where we’d be staying, I was mesmerized by the trash-strewn streets and colorful metal-roofed buildings behind chain-link fences topped with spirals of barbed wire. The streets teemed with people walking or waiting for buses. Scrawny streetwise dogs mingled with the crowds. I had entered a world very different from my own.
Enthusiasm bubbled up inside me. We were here to be the hands and feet of Jesus. It didn’t matter that our beds had flimsy two-inch-thick mattresses that sank to a deep bowl shape when we crawled into them, that plumbing was inadequate and the showers cold, that we must watch out for scorpions on the floor, and, oh yes, we probably shouldn’t drink the water...
Our bus driver took us each day to the church that we had come to help. There was a myriad of projects: plumbing, electrical, painting, laying tile, installing ceilings, and mixing stucco. But someone had recently broken into the compound and stolen many of the tools and supplies. One of the first tasks was to use our project funds to replace the stolen items.
I was to paint the outside stucco walls of the newly-built kitchen where the church had started a nutrition program for the neighborhood children. I was given a shaky ladder, a bucket of paint, and a cheap two-inch brush rigid with dried paint. I opened my mouth in protest, and quickly closed it again. They had given me the best they had to work with; I would not be as inflexible as that stiff paintbrush. So I massaged the bristles until they had the tiniest amount of give, mounted the rickety ladder and got to work. The inferior brush made the job harder, but I managed.
Later, as we sifted seashells from the sand that was used to make stucco, I noticed a hole in the metal screen. My instinct was to toss it and buy new. But I was humbled to watch our instructor, Sergio, painstakingly repair the hole with a small square of screen and a wire.
So it went with the rest of the projects. We all learned to make do with what we had. Together our team and the church members finished nearly all of the planned projects.
“You have come to build up a church,” Ryan had told us the first day, “and if you have time, you can work on the church building as well.”
So that’s what we did. We learned to communicate beyond spoken language. We formed friendships. We worshipped, ate, and laughed together. We built up the church in ways we hadn’t expected. I can imagine that God smiled down on our flexibility.
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Wonderful writing and message.
Thank you.
Blessings~