Have you ever experienced something that was so unique, so vivid, so moving that putting it into words only seems to diminish it?
That’s kind of how I feel as I struggle to put into words what the last three days have been like.
I’m currently sitting on the floor of the third story of Immaculate Conception Convent Hostel in Kingston Jamaica, having just finished the half way mark of a week long mission trip. And while I rarely have difficulty communicating what’s on my mind, right now I’m struggling to come up with words to describe what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard, what I have felt both with my senses and my heart.
It would be rather exciting to be able to say that I had a “St. Paul” moment of graces striking me like lightning, or a “Transfiguration” moment where Jesus showed himself to me in all his glory amid clouds and thunder. But really what I’ve been experiencing over the last few days are more like “Elijah moments,” where God reveals himself not in fire or earthquakes or thunder but tiny whispering sounds,(see 1 Kings 19:11-12) like the light trickle of a peaceful summer’s afternoon shower.
He’s whispered humility through lotioning and massaging people’s feet, whispered patience through feeding a woman lunch and a child desperate for attention biting my arm, whispering compassion through a teenage girl who was left at the women’s center simples because she had crippled feet and her parents didn’t have the means to care for her anymore.
I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone more time than I’ve been in it, woken up before 7 am every day of my spring break, eaten rice and vegetables at almost every meal, and sweated probably a gallon a day. But really, those things begin to fade to the background once you begin priming your senses to receive Elijah moments, to perceive God’s whispering a in each moment.
Unfortunately, because of the rather unreliable and sketchy wifi I think I’ll wait until next week to do the daily updates with pictures that I was hoping to do in “real time”. But I hope for the present that this gives you a little glimpse of what yours truly has been up to in the middle of the Caribbean these last few days.
God bless and please keep our little group of Belmont Abbey missionaries in your prayers!
