A few months ago, I was listening to a lady speak at a Christian conference here in the DR, and her speech was titled “I’m the Problem.” She spoke about how we always pray things like, “God, change that person! Look how terrible they are!” or “God, change this situation! It’s so hard!” when really, what we should be praying is, “God, change me. I’m a sinner who needs to change.”
Obviously, I didn’t think this speech pertained much to me. I instead texted it to Katelyn, thinking it could help her in that season of her life.
As I reflect on this past month, I’m beginning to realize that maybe… just maybe… I’m the problem.
As Alejandro and I dive deeper into our roles here at Solid Rock, my brain is constantly churning with what needs to be changed and fixed. It’s my silly business brain that was trained to always look for ways to make more profit. I guess in the world of ministry, that would translate to looking for ways to make more disciples? Or maybe it doesn’t translate at all.
So, in a month when we were supposed to be resting as a ministry with no teams around, my brain said:
“Go fix everything that needs to be fixed at the guest house. Learn everything you don’t know yet. Go visit everyone you haven’t met yet.”
Spoiler: that didn’t happen.
Lots of plans got changed based on circumstances outside of my control. I was feeling good, however, because we had found someone to help paint the kitchen and laundry room and fix some fans and lighting fixtures that hadn’t been working for a while.
The day the painting project was being finished, I really wanted to get everything back in order in the kitchen and laundry room so that the Powers and our full-time kitchen ladies would come back and say, “Wow, this looks great!”
As if from a movie, however, just as I was putting the last few things away in the kitchen, it started to rain.
And it kept raining.
And raining.
Until I heard Alejandro yell, “It’s happening! It’s coming inside!!”
I turned around to see water pouring into the dining room from outside and making its way into the kitchen, laundry room, pantry, and bedrooms.
We scrambled to get everything off the floors and put everything from the bottom shelves onto the counters. I looked around at the mess being created by the muddy water rushing in and thought, “God… is this some sort of a joke?”
When the Powers returned later that evening, and the kitchen ladies arrived the next day, no one said, “Wow, this looks great!”
Everyone just looked around at the muddy water and thought, “This is a complete mess.”
The good thing about having children, however, is that they always manage to help put things into perspective.
As I was watching all of our hard work get destroyed by the dirty water, our sons had gotten out their monster truck toys and were having the time of their lives playing in the water.
Aiker, our oldest son, said, “This mud is perfect for these monster trucks! Now we get to test out their true strength!”
As I watched them find joy in a frustrating situation, I began to think that maybe I really am the problem.
I guess I reallyyyy needed to learn this lesson because, after we cleaned everything up from the first flood, a week later it flooded again.
And to add the icing to the cake, all the time spent in the cold rainwater and cleaning up mud, along with the start of the new school year, has made our family a little sick.
I feel like these past few weeks have been spent cleaning up mud and snot non-stop.
As I was reflecting on the month of September and thinking about what to write in this blog, I could only think about all the frustrating ways my plans got changed.
But then I started to think, “You know what? It all got cleaned up. Everything got fixed, and everything was actually okay.”
The last week of September, we were able to host a team from Brookside Church, and the guest house was back together in one piece to receive them.
They were a great group of people who showed up with cheerful and energetic hearts, ready to go and serve wherever they were needed. Brayden came to the DR to join our team right before they arrived, and his energy has been a great addition to the team as well.
I’m learning my lesson that we make plans, but the Lord decides.
I like the way one Bible version writes Lamentations 3:37:
“Who can speak something and have it happen, unless the Lord commands it?”
Hopefully, this next month is a little kinder in teaching me whatever lesson I need to learn next.
The good news is that our kids are getting healthier and doing great in the new school year. Alejandro and I are excited to see how the Lord moves in this ministry over the next few months, and we really enjoyed spending time with the Brookside team as they supported a local church here in San Juan.
Our little Isabella started crawling too and is, to no one’s surprise, getting chunkier every day.
So despite everything, God is still really good.
If you’d like, you can pray for our team here in San Juan as we continue to grow and consider how the Lord is calling each of us to serve Him here.
We have just 5 more teams before the end of the year, so it’ll be a good season of serving, resting, and hopefully not cleaning up too much mud.
