Bless the Bony Steed...

Living here has helped to open our eyes a bit more in terms of how God meets our needs at just the time we need to have them met. I want to tell you about one way God provided for the FBC team when they came a month ago, to build a house in Los Cedros.

The road to the construction site is steep and has deep ruts right next to huge rocks. These form an obstruction that makes it impossible to drive past a certain point. So when it was time to have the sand delivered for the concrete, the truck drove up the hill as far as he could go and dumped it at the side of the road. The problem was that wasn’t close to the house at all and it certainly wasn’t anywhere near the top of the hill!

This meant that sand needed to be hauled by hand up to the building site. The fellows worked out a method using the one wheelbarrow we had. They hooked a piece of rebar to it in the front so that one guy pulled while the other pushed. Although it worked, it was hard on backs, shoulders and arms. Plus, it was extremely tiring for them trying to navigate the hill with its various rocks and ruts. The two guys doing this could only do several loads at a time before it was necessary to rest and take a water break.

Each grain of sand in itself was so small that it seemed almost insignificant. But all those tiny little grains of sand put together became a mighty force with which to be reckoned. The team took that object lesson to heart. Any one person on the team, by themselves, trying to move that mound of sand up the hill would not have been very successful working within the time frame we had allotted to us. They certainly would have quickly become exhausted from the heat…add to that the physical taxation of the task and trying to traverse the uneven terrain of the hill and it was obvious to see that we needed to work as a team.

We then opted for a bucket brigade system in addition to the wheelbarrow. We used the handful of available buckets plus Juan’s mother’s dishpan to transport the sand up the hill. This helped as it kept anyone from having to walk very far carrying those heavy buckets of sand. Now to the folks there in Los Cedros, the buckets may not have been particularly light, but to us gringa gals…each succeeding bucket seemed to weigh a pound more than the preceding one did. Because of the weight of the damp sand, the buckets could only be filled partway.

This method helped to move some of the sand up the hill to the necessary destination, but it was also a tiring way to do it. The sun and the heat would quickly drain everyone’s energies. Even so, I don’t believe there was one single person who wasn’t glad they were part of that particular process. Every bucket of sand that was passed through those weary arms helped to build a home. It was satisfying for all of us…even if it was a slow method and not as efficient as what we would like. But there’s more than one way to conquer a mountain.

In Numbers 22, there is a story of how God used a donkey to get Baalam’s attention. I won't go in to the story...it would be better if you read it yourself. Well, one day, He used a horse to come to the aid of all of us weary sand haulers and as a result, He also got my attention.

No matter how many buckets of sand were being hauled off that sand pile, it sure seemed like there wasn’t much of a dent being made in it. We saw a woman with a horse cart go past the house, heading down the hill. We jokingly said something about wondering if we could hire her to haul that sand up for us…that joke quickly turned in to a serious proposition and it wasn’t long before we were cheering the buckets of sand being loaded on to the horse cart after which the woman urged her bony gallant steed up the hill. It wasn’t exactly a full-fledged cavalry that came to the rescue but that skinny ol’ horse and roughly made cart was enough. I’m sure if we had listened closely enough, we could have heard the faint sound of a bugle off in the distance.

We cheered them on and there was such a sense of exhilaration to see our brilliant idea unfold in front of us. One would have thought that we had just invented the wheel as we congratulated one another on this great idea. It would have been easy to overlook God’s hand in all of this, but in truth, not one of us missed the reality of His provision at just the time we needed it most.

One of the best parts about spending time with a God-centered group is that they are always looking to see where God is working. This is a key point to the study Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. Jim and I took that study some years ago in our church and although we enjoyed it, we didn’t bother to apply the teachings we had learned.

A few years after that, we took the course again. That time, it was different. We were much more open and willing to learn those lessons. It was a difference of night and day for us. After Jim and I allowed God to work in our hearts, our eyes began to be opened to the reality of how God truly is always at work not just in us but also around us. Often we are just too self-centered to see that in action. We had been eager for God to work in us, to change us. If He was working elsewhere, well that was great…but that impacted ME how??? When honestly, we can always benefit from God’s work if we’re willing to recognize it and then be a part of it. Jim and I came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to miss out on a thing God would have for us, whether it involved us directly or whether we were to learn through someone else’s experience with God.

I think all too often, we tend to wait for the “big” moments. I believe more and more that all moments are “big” moments and it’s not that God hasn’t been working in any given situation, it’s that I’ve not been seeing it…sadly, more times than I care to confess, my eyes have been on myself, or believing my own ideas on who He is using and who He’s not and how I think it’s all supposed to go. I’m so thankful that I serve a God who is bigger than anything my mind can conceive and bigger than any box in which I try to make Him fit. I’ve learned a lot the last year and a half…Nicaragua is a humbling place to live.

Now here’s the thing that’s been rattling around in my mind about this whole horse cart and lady situation. We went to bless some people in Los Cedros by building them a new home. There’s no doubt God used this team to do that. But I think there’s something more…there’s something about that lady and her horse. I know for a fact we helped the woman financially that day. She received what would have been a week’s pay for her if she were able to rent out her horse and cart every day. But there’s something more that’s been niggling at me about her.

I don’t know if she was a Christian or not. Someone gave her a tract. Sadly, I found the tract thrown on the ground like trash a bit further down the hill. It almost hurt my feelings that she would do that, even though I wasn’t the one who handed her the tract. But then I thought that maybe she couldn’t read, which would not be at all far-fetched. Or maybe it fell out of her pocket. Or maybe she just plain didn’t want it. I don’t know. But what I do know is that woman was where we needed her to be when we needed her. She was available to be used. And she was willing to be used. I would love to think that maybe she saw God working around her and joined Him. I don’t know…but I think there’s a lesson in that.