Lori assisting Sierra on a recent hike to a village.
You ever had one of those weeks? You know, the kind where nothing seems to go right. The kind of week that by the end you are not surprised by another breakdown. That has been the kind of week we have had. Lightning played with our solar panels and additional problems with the fuses left us without much electricity. The water pump wouldn’t work, so that left us without water. That is until it starting working again and wouldn’t shut off, which successfully started moving the rain water we had collected from the tank out through a burst pipe in the house. The excess water would eventually help the grass, but unfortunately the mower broke down…again. Though the mower was dead, the computer took on a life of its own and started randomly shutting down and took an enormous amount of persuasion to turn on again. But we did finally hear from the shop about our broken boat motor after four months. They said it is still not working. And those are just the main things. It was a week that seemed like the more I worked on things the more things would break.
Long hours and late nights of frustration, lack of replacement parts, and failing tools was the kind of week that we had. But in many ways it is a matter of perspective. Compared to Job it was a wonderful week. We experienced none of the physical trauma that our partner Madonna faces with her cancer. We faced none of the persecution that has visited our lives in the past. Nonetheless it was a tough week for our equipment.
Yet in this stormy week, we did have a ray of sunlight. We finished up studying through the book of Galatians this week with the Patpatar church. The believers could not stop talking about all they had learned. Nearly every day they told me or I overheard conversation of them talking about their standing in Christ, talking about their freedom from the law, talking about the Holy Spirit and wanting to be led by Him, talking about the work that God has done for them and in them.
I am so glad that this life is more than the stuff we have. It is so good that the story is not just about the equipment and things that we amass. It is so reassuring knowing that when everything of the world falls apart our spiritual standing is secure. It is so thrilling that in the tribe, even amid broken appliances and things, we are among people whom God, the Master Fixer, is continuing to work on.
Still under construction,
Aaron