Yesterday afternoon there was just the most beautiful rain, complete with the stunning clouds and cool sounds of rain on a metal roof. Since visiting the family we have been ministering to for the last two weeks wasn’t a practical option, I had a little extra time to just sit. Outside.
We have a huge concrete slab out in the field but usually it’s so covered by ants that it’s impossible to walk on it barefoot without feeling the tingling caused by hundreds of tiny bites, but yesterday the rain cleared them all away and I was not only able to walk, but to splash in the puddles left in the unlevel surface.
Normally one looks down at the slab and the ants are going every which way and I’ve often wondered where they are going. They are all scurrying, seeming to be in such a rush. I’m sure there is a justifable reason in their minds and they take their task with the utmost seriousness, but from above, it looks so chaotic, so lost. From above it looks humorous in a sad sort of way. Running for the sake of it.
Only when the rain comes and clears away the clutter can one truely appreciate the how large and how perfect that slab is for lying down and watching the clouds. Where else can you make a snow angel’s cousin in a puddle.
Only up in a tree can one really appreciate the excellence of the wind’s massage as it causes the branches to gently sway beneath ya. Yes, it took 20 years, but I can finally understand the urge to just sit above the commotion but below a gorgeous canopy which just lets enough light seep through to make reading possible.
Little by little I’m starting to see things as simply as would the child I never let myself be. Keep off the grass signs just don’t make sense. Kids can’t (or won’t) read them anyways. Puddles are for the sole purpose of splashing in them. Trees were made to be climbed.
It really has been another awesome week. I got to sling a sledgehammer when we went to help out at the construction site for MTI – I believe it stands for the Missions Training Institute- either that or Mexico. They currently are in the same ejido, but they have such a large building for their 6 students in the area (four of their students are on a 3 month trip to Oaxaca) that the utilities are simply too much right now. I had an awesome conversation with one of their teachers this morning and received her permission and encouragement to take advantage of the fact that they are still within close walking distance and visit them and join in on some of their services and just enjoy the fact that there are college aged native spanish speaker missionaries in training that are longing to get to know us. Turns out some of the guys have been going over to play the drums, but there still hasn’t been too much interaction, especially since we stopped using one of their classrooms last week after clearing a room off of the meal area of bunk beds and filling it with chairs. The icebox is cool, but I’m excited that it doesn’t mean that we’ll never have another chance to hang out with the MTI kids. I’m really looking forward to get to know them now that I know we had the freedom to do so all along.
I guess sometimes someone just has to point out that it really is ok. Walk ya through it the first time so that you can come back and do the same thing again and again, this time without help, or even without anyone noticing at all. Climb for the fun of it. It’s not as hard as it looks.
