Unclean

Living close to the city but working out in the villages is like bouncing back and forth between two different worlds.  Sometimes when I'm at work I feel like I have stepped back in time. Visitors who have come to Huehue think we lack modern conveniences here in the city and to some extent we do, but it's nothing compared to life in the villages where the majority sleep on boards, cook over an open fire or a wood-burning stove, and have no electricity or running water.  I have run into some crazy stuff out there--witchcraft, old wives' tales, gossip that would curl your hair--but just when I think there's not much left that can surprise me, something surprises me.  

Some months ago one of the new ladies from the program called me to confirm the time of our weekly Bible study.  I gave her the time, and she paused as if there was something else she really wanted to say.  Finally, she lowered her voice and said, "I'll come, but I have to sit outside the church." Curious, I asked her why.  After another few seconds, she answered, "I'm not clean." It took a few seconds for it to dawn on me what she meant.  I have heard of indigenous cultures in other parts of the world who have the belief that menstruating women are unclean and therefore are not allowed in places of worship.  In fact, in some countries--Nepal, for example--there are villages where women are banished from their homes to sleep out in the barn every month, even during the winter.  But I have never run into this belief here in Guatemala until recently. Honestly, I didn't even know how to respond in that moment other than to tell her that she was most welcome at the church, regardless of what she'd been told.  And she came, although hesitantly.

I have since asked my assistant, Marina, if she has heard of this belief before.  She told me that she most certainly had--that she'd even heard some evangelical pastors preaching it from the pulpit!  Then she informed me that others of my LI ladies have had this same concern.  Until the LI ministry center is built, we are using a church building to divide up the food.  The ladies know that everyone has to come inside to help, and I occasionally get frustrated when I see one or two of them just hanging around outside while everyone else works.  Now I understand why, and I believe some biblical teaching is in order.    

In the Old Testament, there were laws regarding a person's physical purity and when they were and were not allowed inside the tabernacle.  Check out Leviticus 15 if you're curious.  When amazes me is that preachers will zero in on the second half of the chapter that refers to a woman's uncleanness while completely ignoring the first 18 verses that deal with a man's!  I've never heard anyone ever telling a man not to come to church because he's unclean.  I suppose that's enough of that soapbox.  What's even sadder to me though is that rural people here are not taught that we are under grace. Most of us have heard the story of the woman with the issue of blood who actually touched Jesus who is far holier than any earthly place of worship could ever be, and yet He had no rebuke for her. In fact, He called her daughter--the only place in recorded scripture where Jesus refers to a woman this way. Then He comforted and healed her.  We know this story well.  We understand that Jesus took all our uncleanness, both that of our bodies and that of our souls, and that we can now stand before the Father in purity.  The fact that my friends do not understand this deeply saddens me, and it's something I plan to rectify soon.   

This whole thing has really made me think long and hard about myself, not just as a woman but as a believer in general.  I have put myself in these women's shoes and imagined how I'd feel if some man, a supposed Bible scholar, told me I was unclean and couldn't come to church.  It'd make my blood boil!  I'd probably read him the first half of Leviticus 15 and tell him to go stew on that for a while--definitely NOT a Christian response--which leads me to my next thought:  the fact that without Jesus I am unclean...unimaginably dirty, in fact.  That is something that we Christians seem to have forgotten these days--our own filth...how incredibly rotten we are at our core...how many skeletons are in our own closets...how much it cost our Savior to clean us up and make us "white as snow."  It's so easy for us to turn our noses down at the people marching in rights-of-various-types parades, at people addicted to heroin, at the drunk guy passed out on the sidewalk, at the parents who raised the kid who shot a bunch of people, or for that matter at the young mother in the store who can't seem to control her 2 year old.  We secretly judge everyone, somehow deluding ourselves into believing that we're just a little bit better.  The older I get the more amazed I am that God loves any of us at all.  I can't wrap my brain around why He would want to; we're not a lovable bunch.  And that is why this holy day, Easter, is my very favorite one.

Catholics here in Guatemala make a very big deal of Holy Week, especially of Good Friday.  People make intricate "carpets" out of colored wood shavings in the streets and then have long processionals through them with elaborate floats portraying Jesus's crucifixion and burial.  Images of Jesus anguish  or of His dead body are all over the place, and it just makes me want to scream, "That's not all there is!  You're missing the BEST part!"  It is the resurrection that gives us hope! It is the resurrection that secures my place with Jesus one day.  It is the resurrection that makes me a joint heir with Jesus Christ...ME, a rotten sinner, a joint heir with God's perfect, holy Son.  It is the resurrection that makes us able to say that the "sufferings of this present life cannot be compared with the glory that's coming!"  Because He lives, we too will live!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, that never fades away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time!  --Peter, an eyewitness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ

  

Reaching Cochico

See that zig-zag near the middle of the photo?  That's part

of the crazy road to Cochico.  Being at the end of a dead end 

road, no one goes there unless they live there.

Loving InDeed is expanding!  Cochico has been heavy on my heart for the past few months, and I've been thinking and praying about how God would have me help there.  For those of you who have forgotten or are new friends, Cochico is a village I found way up in the mountains at the end of a dead end road about five years ago. At that time their church building was a tiny, crude room made out of sheets of metal roofing.  It was flattened by a rockslide soon after I found it.  Since then, a much larger building has been erected out of cement block and Carlos has been through seminary. Cochico is a very spiritually dark place.  Of the roughly 600 families that make up the village, there are fewer than 10 professing Christians. The others practice witchcraft or worship idols and are very opposed to the gospel.  I foolishly thought that once they had a solid structure in which to worship and their leaders had good training that the work of the ministry there would go smoothly.  I honestly don't know what I was thinking.  Chalk it up to being a newbie here; I was only 3 years in.  We have since realized that Satan has had a stronghold in that community since its existence, and he's not going to give it up without a fight. Carlos and Aracely have worked hard and endured much including life-threatening illnesses, constant ridicule, extreme poverty, damage to their home from the big earthquake we had last year, the loss of their best friends when they divorced, moved, and fell away from the faith, and much, much more.  Their faithfulness to be there for others when their own lives are so difficult tells me that they truly have shepherd's hearts.  It would be so much simpler for them to just move, but they know that God has called them to Cochico, so they stay even though on the outside it looks like very little spiritual progress has been made at all. 

My role in Cochico has mostly been to be a sounding board for them. They have no one to talk to or pray with and need to vent sometimes.  Recently though, I have begun to feel like I should make time to be more involved there--carefully, and in a behind-the-scenes kind of way since they are truly quite capable.  To that end, we have decided to bring a modified form of Loving InDeed to the village.  Instead of having specific people receive help on a regular basis, I will deliver large sacks of dry goods to Carlos and Aracely every month and let them divvy it up into gift baskets that they can share when they make home visits.  This might not sound like much to you and me, but to starving people, it means a lot.  When people live in extreme poverty, the tendency is to hoard, guarding what you have for you and your own.  Sharing is rare.  We all know that actions speak louder than words.  When a pastor who lives there and experiences the same poverty as everyone else starts sharing what he has been given with others, it will speak loudly that they are different...that Jesus is different. The thing I really love about this plan is that Carlos and Aracely can be trusted to not just speak with their actions, but with actual words.   I don't believe all the nonsense about preaching the gospel only with our good works.  Words are necessary.  The gospel has to be explained, and Carlos and Aracely are great at it.  I've heard them.  I've watched them pray passionately and tenderly with sick people and with unbelievers.  I've heard them tell the good news.  This will not be solely a humanitarian effort, but it will be a small means of getting their foot in the door.

Carlos is not that far ahead of his son, but you 

can barely see him at the top of the hill.  Making

home visits in Cochico is HARD work

The monthly cost of adding Cochico to LI will be about $100.  For that we can make 9-10 food baskets with 5 lbs. each of beans and rice, 2 1/2 lbs. each of oatmeal and sugar, and 3 bags of incaparina, a fortified drink made specifically for malnourished people.  Those baskets will last about a month as they typically make about 2-3 home visits a week.  It takes so long to get from home to home in that steep, rugged terrain and time to recuperate between trips.  I walked around some of the village with them last week and it nearly killed me.  My calves are still screaming days later! The other benefit to this is that a tithe portion of the food will stay with the pastoral couple themselves, which will help take a smidgen of the financial pressure off.  I saw their church records when I was there last week.  One month's worth of offerings totaled just under $7.  Of that, $.70 had to be sent in to the denomination's main office and the church electric bill had to be paid.  That means that Carlos and Aracely lived on literally pennies a day.  

Carlos (bottom row third from the right) graduated in

November 2015; Aracely will graduate in two months.  

The  other way I plan to be involved up there is in helping to plan activities to draw people in.  Things like maybe a weekend kids' Bible club or a conference or weekly Bible study for women.  Those things are hard to come up with out of thin air.  Imagine having to host VBS with no theme or guide book!  So I will help them with outreach ideas, the planning of lessons for those types of events, and buying materials like balls, balloons, and snacks for the kids. This part of the plan still has to be fleshed out some, but I'm sure it will get clearer as time goes on.  The majority of my work will still be in Santa Barbara.  I don't have time to go up to Cochico every week, but I can do something.  And I should.  Please pray that God gives us direction and stamina, and that Carlos and Aracely don't get discouraged in the face of all the difficulties they're experiencing.

Thanks for listening!  And thank you most of all for your faithful support, both in prayers and donations, for the work of Loving InDeed.  May God bless your socks off for your kindness!