WHY I AM GOING TO PERU - PART 1

After a wonderful whirlwind of a summer, the kind that tempts me to list it all to earn your empathy for why I am this tired, I find myself questioning the decision to join this physically strenuous journey to a people whose language I don’t speak. Before my newlywed son was ever engaged, before our life-saving doctor closed shop, before any of the details that swirl like debris in my mind and collide with my conscience in the middle of the night, I heard the call.

Yes, this particular expedition at this particular time.

As is characteristic for clear convictions, I remember exactly where and when this certainty impregnated my spirit, the way sperm reaches an egg. Once conceived, the vision sort of grew into maturity on its own while I went about my busy life.

Surely, He who planted it knew exactly the level of exhaustion and the longing for ‘normality’ brought on by unexpected circumstances for several on our team – why did He juxtapose those with this adventure?

I’ll report back when we return, but for now, these make sense to me:

1. WE ARE NOT COMING AS SUPERIORS.
Whatever shame tastes like, that’s the icky flavor in my mouth at the admission that it takes deliberate effort as a wealthy westerners to not arrive with a Santa Claus complex. Well-meaningly barging in with armfuls of materials easily creates a barrier between ‘primitive’ and ‘privileged’ Although that idea is utterly repulsive to most of us, too many travel experiences nonetheless testify that it happens. A lot.

Fatigued and keenly aware of our inadequacies, any air of conquistadores has been replaced by the raw prayer of “God, give us strength.” Drained of brazen self-sufficiency, we teammates huddle on the sweeter common ground of the daily grace that has brought us this far – and really, that is all we have to offer.

2. WE ARE NOT COMING SO MUCH TO GIVE, AS TO EXCHANGE.
Though we bring crayons and vitamins along with plans to build, teach the children, and assist in any way we can, we are the unskilled primitives in this environment. The art of not just surviving, but thriving among poisonous snakes and innumerable biting bugs, without electricity, but with a night sky that outshines any neon light, fascinates me and awakens a thirst in me for seeking their contentment and thereby deepening my own.

3. WE ARE NOT COMING TO IDEALIZE.
Only truth sets free, no matter the environment. While I wish my own children had grown up climbing more tress and watching less TV, while I myself long for more stargazing and less emailing, nowhere on earth is perfect. Each paradise has a price.

For us, the culture of comfort and convenience comes at the expense of contentment, replaced by stress, and hi-tech complexities. What the jungle costs its inhabitants remains to be seen by me, but our briefings describe preventable diseases and traditions of intoxication, even for children, with the wreckage of abuse that so often follows in its wake.

4. WE ARE COMING TO MEET NEW FRIENDS.
For some reason, God has always delighted in moving His people around. Something about the interaction between strangers who become friends, leaving both limits and laziness of familiarity behind to meet, simply to understand and explore, seems to unlock the best of being human.

Admittedly, there is an element of intimidation for me, at living 10 days among people I might not be able to speak a word with. But there’s a deeper yearning to then find a language beyond words. Hand gestures might suffice for the practical, and translators probably will bridge some gaps. But the one on one soul connection I hope for, the real encounter where spirit touches spirit – how much can our eyes actually express? I long to find out.

ULTIMATELY, WE ARE GOING BECAUSE HE ASKED.
Each of my travel mates has received a summon similar to mine. When we invited His Leadership, we surrendered our personal preferences to His command, knowing that His goodness and wisdom will always be the grander choice. We could decline; we still have free will. Excuses easily abound for me.

But what would life be if I turned my back on the One who paints every sunset?

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
(Isaiah 55:8-9)

Facing the unknown, we trust the One who sent us. When in a few days we enter the precarious boat ferrying us 12-18 hours into the wild, our hammocks will be held by the hands who formed the river, who formed our hearts for this adventure and the purpose behind it. It’s all we need to know.