Es el domingo: First Edition

There have been many experiences or seasons in my life that have stretched, shaped (and sometimes warped) me in more than a handful of ways and every time one of these certain season ends, I’m able to look back on it with such clarity and say, “see how God moved? Wow. He moved here / and here / and here / and even here, where I thought I was in a pit.” 

It’s so common for me to endure valleys and mountains and seek God throughout it but it’s less often that I have an attitude of constantly finding God through it. During it. 

And that’s something I want to change. So why not start now? Now, that I’m sitting in Casa Butler in Nicaragua, where the temperature fluctuates between “it’s hot”, “hot dang it’s hot”, and a Wicked Witch of the West “I’m melting”; where our vision for why we’re here is still clouded and confusing; where iguanas live and poop in the roof of our home; where I and my family will literally come face to face with orphans every day; where we have four months to do nothing but grow and bug and love each other and take long naps and find something meaningful to cling to.

So, I’ve decided to keep my Sunday (Domingo) blog posts targeted: where do I find God?

Where have I found God moving in the Word or Spirit?

Where have I found God moving in my family?

Where have I found God in Nicaragua?

It’s only been 5 days here but it feels like much longer. Honestly, we have moments where we are so very homesick - I’m not sure it would be so difficult if it were planned to be a shorter trip, or if we didn’t have young kids, or if we had a house back home that we knew was ours. We are homesick, yes, but we’re kind of stability-sick, too. We’re praying we feel stability here soon. 

Now, this is going to seem totally contradictory to what I just said, but Nicaragua feels like home. When we’re out driving around and exploring, there is nothing uncomfortable about it: John knows how to navigate the streets of Managua like a champ (chalk that up to Toronto driving), and we even have a desire to go further and explore further. We went to the most dangerous market in Nicaragua & felt like we were back in Kensington. Now, what about Granada? What about Jinotega? We know already that this is likely not our last visit to Nicaragua. What that looks like in practice is still totally unclear but this place is a good fit.

And as for what we’re doing… our plan is to take the first 2 weeks and just figure out some sort of normal as a family. The last few days we went out exploring, the next 2 days we’ll lay low at home, and we have a trip to the ocean planned toward the end of this week.

So.

Where have I found God moving in the Word or Spirit?

I’ll be honest. This one is the hardest, so let’s get it over with first.
There are moments where I’m sitting there and it’s like, just thank you Lord for your presence. Where the Holy Spirit feels like a tornado inside of me and I just feel His presence so strongly - I know He’s here. God, I just know you’re here. But honestly - honestly - these moments are so, so, quick. They come and they’re strong and serious (think, hearing the story of a pair of soon-to-be adoptive parents, while sitting outside at an orphanage, and gripping their vision for a not-profit they are starting to help heal children of from-birth deformities… boooooom.) But then we go home, and there’s screaming children eating each other’s poop - that’s real, that happened today - and I feel parched of His presence and like what am I doing here?


Sometimes in life, this feeling of God-loneliness happens, and my response is to wait anxiously for the boost of my community on Sunday. I think that’s all part of being a Christian: sometimes you just can’t feel God. I guess that if you always undoubtedly could feel his presence, there wouldn’t be much faith involved. That’s fine. But at home when Sunday comes, and I’m around the community God’s put us in, and people are bringing words and gifts forward that are necessary, I always go home recharged and ready to dig deeper into God. That “when Sunday comes” experience is what I was kind of anticipating today with church - we even made the decision to attend a gringo missionary church that speaks English and does things the American way and I guess our thought was, if we can understand the words and the customs of church, we’ll be able to connect to God better. But (for me at least) there wasn’t that natural click and I still feel parched. In fact, today I felt (and maybe still feel) totally and completely drained.

But I can't keep waiting and relying on Sunday coming. Even at home, I shouldn't be waiting to be refilled when Sunday comes. As it is right now, I have 4 months until Sunday as I am accustomed to it comes.

So to answer the question appropriately, then, where I have found God moving in the Word or Spirit is the fact that this God-loneliness (usually filled with a reliance on feeling the Spirit) is prompting me to push into the Word more - because while my feelings are changing depending on what’s going on around me, the Word is constant. It’s living, active, and it’s unchanging, no matter how I feel. 

Where have I found God moving in my family?

Again, hard.
This I learned the hard way also.
When we are pressing into God, our home has peace. It looks like the same house as it does on days like today (a day where we all took our turns being totally not at peace, totally not patient), but it’s a home. When we don’t have our focus on being God-like, pushing into the love of God, it doesn’t feel like a home… it feels like a house in another country with everything different and chaos. 

I have found God moving in my family when we sit together, just playing music, ending the day on a strong note together. It’s been a very intimate and peaceful thing that I didn’t know we could actually do with just a few voices of a toddler and an out of key lady-woman and a man who is learning to sing it out and a ukelele but there you are. God moves as we pursue him because we feel peace.

Where have I found God in Nicaragua?

The landscape. I'd post a picture but you have to come see it.




No, seriously, come see it. We have an extra bedroom.