Trying to teach a cat to play in a sprinkler and enjoy it. Its messy and quite unproductive. That's pretty much what its like trying to teach me anything new on a computer. I check email, I can handle the basic functions of facebook, and I can even pin a thing or two on pintrest. Beyond those boundaries...I am like a cat in a sprinkler...scrambling to get away and hide before things get ugly. Can you relate?
Today I had to put on my big girl britches and learn something new. Blogging. Its scary, a bit overwhelming, but worth it if more people know about what God is doing in Ecuador.
Before 12 days ago not too many people really knew about Ecuador. It was a small little country in South America that didn't get much press. And then it happened. A huge earthquake put this little country on national news and all over social media. Ecuador got its fifteen minutes of fame for all the most heart breaking reasons. Hundreds of people dead, towns decimated, and those who did survive are forever effected.
Life is like that sometimes. You going about your business, doing what you do, and then BANG, everything changes. Someone close to us dies, a job is lost, we are betrayed by someone we are close to...the unexpected lurks its erie head and we are forever changed. It happens. No one is exempt and for some it seems they have been overdosed in difficulty. No rhyme. No reason. What do we do with that?
For those who have not walked the darkest of roads, sometimes pat answers seem sufficient. Statements like, "God has his reasons" and "You just need more faith" seem enough. But when your staring in the face of tradgedy and all around you is settling dust from the nuclear bomb that just went off in your life...where is hope? How do you take one more step forward? How do you breathe?
Jesus' diciples were in just this situation after Jesus died on the cross. Their leader, their close friend was dead. He was betrayed by one of their own. All the things that Jesus had taught them regarding what would come in the future seemed impossible. How was he going to be the reigning king when he was dead? How was he going to take away the sins of the world when he was lying in a grave? All that they knew to be true was on the line and didn't seem viable. What did they do? What would you have done? They hid for the first few days. We do that too sometimes don't we? We go and hide from reality hoping if we peek our head back out that we will find it was just a bad dream. But as time goes on and the reality continues to rear its ugly head we must begin a process of acceptance. Bad things happen and no one is exempt.
After three days, which probably felt like three years, Mary Magdelene shows up at the disciples door saying that Jesus is alive. They take off for the grave and when they got to there everything changed. They found that Jesus was not there and shortly after their discovery they found Jesus! They thought the story had ended and yet it had just begun. Jesus had conquered the grave and claimed victory over Satan. Hope won and had a forever claim on each live that surrendered itself to Christ. Although pain and suffering has not be dissolved for Christians who walk this earth today there is now a beautiful hope because we know our "days of mourning" will someday end just as suddenly as it did for Jesus' disciples. Jesus will come back and all things will be made right.
As a Christian I have hope. I know that no matter what comes my way in life, that God always has his thumb on the "stop button". As James MacDonald says, "God says, This far and no further" to Satan, and what God does allow...he uses.
Have you seen tradgedy? Have you seen destruction? Does your life more resemble a dark war movie rather then a fun romantic comedy? Have hope. Jesus is calling you to Himself. He wants to walk this road with you and be your comfort. He has a plan. He loves you.
Many people are walking around the nornthern coast of Ecuador faced with these questions. Where is hope when your family has been torn apart, when your home is a pile of rubble, when your entire town is no longer a town but a pile of broken homes and businesses? Where is God?? They need to know that there is hope. They need Jesus. And while we as OMS missionaries make plans right now on how to meet the physical and emotional needs of the victims of the earthquake we are also planning on how to reach the spiritual needs of so many broken lives. Jesus is the hope of the hopeless. While we bring the supplies for the physical need we bring so much more by brining the hope of Jesus. We bring a future.
Satan wants to use this earthquake to forever turn peoples hearts away from God. He wants to indelibly write "forever broken" on these lives. As we go to the coast and fight for victory, and even as we go into the dark province of Loja where we work daily to bring Gods light to the broken, we know that the fight is worth fighting. It's not easy. It's not pretty. But we too have hope.
If you would like to donate directly to the relief efforts that OMS is involved in you can go to this link (https://onemissionsociety.org/give/Ecuador-Earthquake) to make a donation. You can make a difference. Please keep Ecuador in your prayers as the recovery is just beginning. Join us in being the change.
As missionaries we face Satan's attacks again and again. Some are quite blatant and sometimes they are more subtle. Currently we are in the "not so subtle" stage. We know we need to be here. There is too much need to walk away. However, since arriving back in Ecuador to work in the dark corners bringing light, we have had 6 of our supports who have died or due to unforeseeable circumstances, had to stop giving their monthly pledge. It has been tough and our support account is suffering. Will you consider standing in the gap and giving? If you have wanted to give in the past and just not had the opportunity to partner with us would you consider now to be the time? We have decided to take a salary pay cut for right now until our support account recovers a bit. We are currently lacking $400 monthly. Will you prayerfully consider joining our team? Here is a link to our donation page https://onemissionsociety.org/give/TheWilliamsons2 .
Difficulty is everywhere. We don't have to look very far to see people in need. We have hope that can make a world of difference for a world of people. We need to take a step outside of ourselves and see what is before us. We need to be available to do things that aren't comfortable for us because they are what the world needs. Some days those are big things.....other days its learning how to write a blog.
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