getting dirty

It is hard to imagine how yesterday, I was building a house with a group of people from our community of faith and Amor ministries for a family in need of a safe, dry place to lay their heads at night. It was an amazing experience as within two and a half days, we built relationships with each other and the family we were building for and put up a house that is significantly better than the structure that was on the property already.

One of the images that I can't get out of my head is of 2 boys playing outside in the sand with my tool belt. As I sat in the house we just put up for Josephina and her family and ate my delicious lunch, I watched Jesus (age 2) and Jorge (age 1) play in the sand, pull out my tape measure from my tool belt and pull it out a few feet, take my hammer out and swing it a few times, pull out my dirty, sweaty gloves and start boxing with each other. After they put a couple handfuls of sand back in my belt, they reluctantly returned the gloves to their pocket after their grandmother told them to stop messing around in spanish (I think that is what she said). This image left me thinking about 2 realities of my life.

First, this experience made me reflect that I did not travel outside of the western United States until I was 18 years old and a senior in high school. When I started to travel and see the world, nothing could hold me back. Travel around the world and mission gave me a new experience of what God was doing in the world and how I might join him in his mission. I long for a day when my 2 boys will experience the wideness and vastness of the world and God's creation. I hope they get to fully engage with our world before they are 18 years old.

Second, this experience made me reflect on my own two boys and how I thought they would love to cross the border and share in this type of play with 2 boys that speak a different language and live in a different culture...they just might discover that they have more in common than first assumed. Playing in a pile of sand with a tool belt is a beautiful image of how I would like to introduce them to a culture that is so different than the world they live in . I can see myself telling my boys to stop playing with the tool belt and to put the gloves back where they belong like Jesus' and Jorge's grandmother.