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| Minus the Starbucks this was my morning view most of the time |
My thought begins as I sat on my porch Monday morning August 8th, four days after we woke up to Hurricane Earl’s aftermath. I looked out at what not even a week ago was one of the most gorgeous sights I’d ever seen. From my chair on my porch, where I sit every morning to spend time with God, I can see the clear blue ocean, I have a nice sea breeze, the grass is nice and neatly cut, a large coconut tree provides just enough shade from the rising morning sun, I can smell the ocean, and I think you’re getting where I’m going…it is a simple yet breathtakingly beautiful scene to look at, or at least it was.
The Thursday morning after the hurricane I opened my door to complete and utter destruction. The beautiful sight that I saw just the morning before was no more. In fact, as I started to walk outside nothing about my home seemed pretty; it was quite the opposite—hideous. Chaos was everywhere as fallen trees, trash, huge debris, sea grass, and bugs all of sudden cluttered my once serene scene.
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| My house is the blue one |
Clean up began almost immediately because we realized we needed to clear a safe path for people to walk on to our meeting area. As we raked through piles of trash, sea grass, fallen palapa leaves, and trees to clear a path the full force of this hideous scene still hadn’t hit me. All day Thursday and Friday were filled with optimistic working (despite not having power or the proper tools) that we could get things cleaned up and back to normal, or as I thought in my head if we just all worked really hard to clean up then it would look nice again…wrong…it’s been a week of cleaning up and although things are starting to look better it’s nowhere near the scene I so long to see again. I not so quickly realized this is a marathon not a sprint. It’s going to take time to rebuild and clean things up and even with time things will probably never again look the same as they once did. Sights may be similar but it will be a new beauty.
Now back to my Monday morning, four days after the hurricane, lots of work already done, mess still everywhere. (oh and did I mention the base caught some sort of stomach virus over the weekend so I was recovering from a full day of toilet hovering?) I’m on my porch for my quiet time and I clearly hear God asking me, “Are you still going to serve Me here?” I must say I was blown away, how had He known what I was thinking? I buried it so deep down even I wasn’t sure the thought to leave had crossed my mind. Duh Brittney He’s God; He knows everything! I looked out and just said, “God it’s ugly. I’m tired of raking nasty smelly sea grass, I’m tired of going to my house and my feet are squishing in mud and whatever else, I’m tired of bucket washing our dishes, my hands hurt with blisters, I’m tired of everything feeling dirty, I’m tired of not feeling physically well, I’m just tired.” He said, “Are you still going to serve me even though it’s hideous?” I’m not going to write that I immediately said, “Yes Lord I will” because the ugly truth is that I didn’t. I really had to think about this. Honestly, my life wasn’t easy pre-hurricane. I was still making a daily decision to be here fully as I was and am going through some pretty challenging personal things, but at least when I looked out I could say I live in a beautiful place, now I couldn’t even say that in my opinion.
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| Morning before the storm |
I felt Him lead me to the crucifixion story and He gently pointed out the disciples’ lives. Now, I must admit I didn’t jump for joy that He lead me to the disciples because I read the book; I know how it goes with them and how it ends. I know what all they had to endure so I have an idea of where this is going. Just like I thought, He pointed out to me that It’s not like the disciples had it super easy pre-crucifixion. They had to deal with some pretty tough crowds, new ways of thinking, and probably some personal things as well, but at least they could look to Jesus and see
His beauty in who He was and the miracles He was performing. Then The Temple they had known was destroyed. The beautiful sight they had seen just before as they took communion together was now bruised, battered, unrecognizable as a human—
hideous. I believe they were faced with this same question, “Are you still going to serve me?”
As I thought about this I imagined how unbelievably gruesome the sight of Jesus on the cross would have been, and yet, there is something so unbelievably stunning about it. I believe one of the beautiful things about the cross is that the story doesn’t end there. Spoiler alert- Jesus overcomes death to reunite us with the Father- BAM. How about the fact that He rebuilt The Temple and although it was still Jesus He was made new. There was, actually there is, a new beauty in Him. I believe the disciples made the decision to continue trusting and serving Him while they stared up at that ugly sight of Jesus dead on the cross.
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| Joy filled the base as we cleaned up the morning after |
As I sat there Monday morning with all of this running through my head and heart I felt Him ask me the question again, "Are you still going to serve me here?" However, this time there was an added question of, "Are you going to choose to see Beauty in the midst of chaos?" I was stunned for a minute as I sat there to think about this. I decided that yes, I'm going to stay here regardless of the "mess." I'm going to choose to see beyond what seems like an unending amount of manual labour and instead see the potential for God to move and in fact see the ways He's already moved. So many amazing things have happened since the hurricane. The biggest has been seeing our community ban together in the midst of tragedy to continue to love well and serve selflessly. Thousands of people are praying for us and are aware of the situation. We are perfectly positioned for God to blow our minds and I have no doubt He is going to because He's never let me down before.
Please continue to pray for us as we venture on this journey. It's going to be a process for us as we rebuild our home, but I know we can rebuild it with Him and not just for Him.
**If you would like to join us in rebuilding click here
*Photo credit below goes to Barbara Sandiford, Jonathan Whitten, Ian Christmann, and a cluster of others on base!
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| Dining palapa before (top) and after (bottom) |
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| Our dock before (top) and after (bottom) |
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| Working to rake up debris on the beach row |
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| A huge tree that fell on the path (my casita is the blue one) |
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| A beach front casita got destroyed (See below) |
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| The only entry point to casita 9 pictured above- Yes, that's me! |
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| Our deck got destroyed |
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| Beach row the morning after |
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| Cleaning up the remnants of our palapa |
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| A large tree that was uprooted |
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| The top half of the fallen tree pictured above- There is a house behind it! |
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| The tree above finally cleaned up! |
