Image by Trynes via Flickr
What it look like if the whole world really were gloriously free? What it would look like if I was really FREE, if I stopped living as if I were afraid? What would it look like if I claimed my identity as a true daughter of God created for so much more than fear and complacency and stunted growth?
The second week of August, we had another short-term trip join us: the Young Adult Mission Trip. It was a small group: 13 people including staff. During the week, we visited an ejido called Agua de la Mula. As we began walking house to house, inviting the people to come to the prayer meeting, we noticed a group of five boys walking down the road behind us and asked if they wanted to come with us. The boys agreed to go with Charlotte (my mission partner’s sister visiting for the week) and I down one path to invite the families who lived in that section of the ejido.
A shot of the whole group!
The previous day’s rain created a lot of clay mud in this ejido. As we walked closer and closer to the other side, the boys said they wanted to show us something. I thought to myself “This could either end very badly or this could be a great adventure.” Yet for some reason, Charlotte and I agreed to go on this adventure. As we continued, the ground was getting muddier and muddier. We hit huge puddles. There was no keeping our shoes dry on this little trek through the Mexican desert. In the middle of my conversation with one of the boys, my feet slipped out from underneath me and I landed in the clay mud in my skirt. All I could do was laugh. And the boys all began to laugh with me. How I missed being able to laugh at myself! The Prophet Isaiah tells us that when the anointed, the Messiah finally reigns,
“Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; The calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.” – Isaiah 11:6
Charlotte and I with the boys, our own personal tour guides.
After another five minutes of being led by the boys, carefully treading the mud and puddles, we reached a beautiful stream of water flowing over the rocks. I was stunned that the boys wanted to show us such a simple, yet stunningly beautiful view. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, says: ”Something I constantly notice is that unembarrassed joy has become rarer. The world needs people who discover the good, who rejoice in it and thereby derive the impetus and courage to do good. Joy, then, does not break with solidarity. When it is the right kind of joy, when it is not egotistic, when it comes from the perception of the good, then it wants to communicate itself, and it gets passed on.” The boys knew where to find the good, and wanted to share their joy with us. Jesus is constantly telling us in the Gospels in order to enter the Kingdom of God, we must become like little children. We have heard this message so many times and the importance of trusting in God the Father as children trust their parents. One “revelation” the Lord showed me this week through this beauty-adventure with the five boys is that because it is easier for children to trust, their hearts are not bound by the chains of fear or torment.
Their very freedom exists inasmuch as does their unembarrassed joy.
Enjoying the unembarrassed joy of the children of God with Hector, Francisco and their friends.
On our way back to the chapel for the prayer meeting, we had to cross many large puddles. Our “young guides” were adorable and pointed to spots for us to step as we crossed these mini-lakes. I reached a spot where I was going to have to step in about 5-inches of water to reach the other side, and I notice one of the boys had a sizable rock/boulder in his hands. As you can imagine, when he threw it into the puddle I was in the process of crossing, water went everywhere. I thought he was intentionally splashing Charlotte and I. When he looked at me with a big smile and said, “Para ti,” “For you,” I realized he dropped the rock there so we had something to step on as we crossed. As I walked back to the chapel, my backside covered in mud, my socks and shoes entirely saturated, I had a grin from ear to ear. It took some mud, splashes, a beautiful albeit small waterfall, and five of the sweetest boys to remind me:
“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.” – Romans 8:19-21
Ridiculous and loving it!
