Joy in the Midst

As we leave the airport, I try not to make eye contact.  I’ve been here before. This same place. Seeing their dark, curious eyes on me. I know if I look up, I’ll see their faces. Desperate faces. Faces without hope. I don’t want to see that now. Not yet.  I thought I was ready for this. Prepared myself well with memories of the last time. But nothing prepares you for seeing life in the third world.

We drive to our host home and I see the poverty. Poverty that I knew existed but had long since become a faded memory.

We settle into our home for the next week. It is here that we are safe and will have a reprieve from the sights, sounds, and smells of life outside of these walls. I am grateful for a bed, running water - even though I can't drink it, and a real bathroom. But for many, they will have no reprieve tonight. I ache for them.

Throughout the week, we visit with believers. Members of the body of Christ in Guatemala. It is here that I see it. HOPE. I hear their prayers and their songs of praise and worship. I see true joy on their faces. And God says to me "Your circumstances are not an excuse for your lack of joy." 

It cuts like a knife. I am a chronic complainer and whiner to God. I tell him everything that needs to be improved or made better. I suggest better ways for things to work out. I take note of what I don't have, what I need, and what others have that I think would be good for me. And when those things don't happen, I fall into the pit of discouragement. All because of my circumstances. I forget that I serve the One can give me true joy despite what's going on around me.

Yet here, in the middle of desperate poverty, with dirt floors, no running water, and little to eat - there is joy. Maybe it's because they have nothing that they are able to completely depend on the only One who can give them joy and hope. Because even in the midst of nothing - He is everything.