Our little blue house in the plaza of Pucacaca, Peru is the 20th house I have lived in during my 24 years of life. Frequently moving has been a normal part of my life since I was 5 years old. One of my favorite things about moving has always been the adventurous feeling of sleeping in a new place for the first night and waking up kind of forgetting where you are. After a week or so, you stop waking up confused and start to feel at home and love waking up in the new place you call your home. That growing warm feeling of home is such a special feeling to me.
Moving to Peru was nothing different. The first morning I woke up here, I heard the roosters crowing outside of my window and had that disoriented feeling of looking around the room and briefly trying to remember where I was. Then came the excitement: Wow, okay. I live in Peru now. Time to make this place my home. If any of you have moved before, you will know that it takes awhile to feel completely at home in a new place. This is especially true in missions. Making a home for yourself in a town with a culture completely different from your own takes quite a while. Trying to get involved in community activities, making friends you can relate to in another language, and starting new ministries takes time.
We have been here for 6 months now, but this morning during my prayer time that I felt farther from home than usual. The world does not stop when you move out of the country to do mission work. Friends get married, siblings fall in love, cousins grow up without you being there, and close friends start having children. One difficulty in missions is that you have to miss out on many of those beautiful things to faithfully focus on the mission and the people around you. I am so grateful that we have the technology we do to be able to keep in contact with family and friends, but not being truly present to them is difficult. I brought this to the Lord this morning in a moment of real prayer, real surrender. Lord, how can I truly offer to you my family and give you my desire to be with them? How can I be even more satisfied and content in my home here that you have given me? Help me to be truly and wholly present and not to live a life divided between where I am and the things you asked me to offer you.
After a few moments of honest prayer, of truly seeking and desiring God's will for me, I opened my Bible to where I had left off, Matthew 19: 27-29:
Then Peter said in reply, ''Lo, we have left everything and followed you. What then shall we have?'' Jesus said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of man shall sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit...And every one who has left house or brothers or sisters of father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold in this life, and inherit eternal life.
I closed my Bible and looked around. For my prayer time I had hiked through a friend’s cacao (the fruit chocolate comes from) farm and set up my hammock by the river that flows by our town. I took a deep breath, and in only a brief minute, I remember how breathtakingly beautiful the jungle surroundings were in my favorite spot in town. I heard the lapping water of the river flowing by, the slight breeze blew through my hair and moved the pages of my Bible, and I heard the beautiful melody of a bird serenading me on the branch above my head. I realized how at home I truly felt. My home is not the home I left in the states, but it is still my home. My home right now is hiking in a dress with a Rosary in my hand and rocking gently in a hammock in my favorite spot by the river. My home is very hot and is filled with mosquitoes and ants, but it is my home. My thoughts went to the people here, to those I already love so much. I realized that if I was at the home I once knew in the States, I might be with my family, but I would miss my home here. I wouldn't be able to have dance parties with the children who visit us every day, I wouldn't be able to spend time walking with the teens who are deeply thirsting to understand their identity and wholeness in Christ, and I wouldn't be able to open the doors of the Church every morning to pray with two of my faithful friends Candy and Esperanza. Maybe I could go to Chik-fil-A with old college friends, but I wouldn't be able to visit my friend Nila who spends the last of what she has to make me a special lunch when I visit her and her sons, one of whom will soon be my godson.
I went back to Scripture and opened up the Psalms, where I found myself reading Psalm 84.
Blessed are they who dwell in your home!...I had rather one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere!
I was chosen to sacrifice being as present as I would like to be to my family right now because I was chosen to be present here with the people around me. I would rather spend one day here in the heat getting bitten by mosquitoes with my beloved Peruvian neighbors than a thousand days in the States, since I know that Peru is the place the Lord has sent me to be right now. This reminder from Jesus was one of those warm and unexpected moments of peace that comes from Him to remind us that we belong right where he has placed us and that when we truly follow Him, he provides us with a hundredfold in this life. My hundredfold is my spot by the Huallaga River in Peru. My hundredfold is the people I serve and encounter daily. What is your hundredfold?
And every one who has left house or brothers or sisters of father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold in this life, and inherit eternal life.
The feeling of home that God provides for us where he places us in this life is only a reflection of the eternal home he is preparing for us. Jesus's home in Nazareth was simple, comfortable, and with those whom He loved so dearly. He lived with great saints and probably loved his house and his job as a carpenter. But Jesus knew His real home was in Heaven with His Father and His Spirit. And so He left the comfort of His home to follow where His Father was leading Him. Like Jesus, we are living in our own Nazareths, whether that happens to be in the States or in another country like Peru. We are pilgrims in this life, on our way home to eternity to be with our Father. We are not called to seek comfort and security in this life, but rather, like Christ, we are called to seek eternity spent with the Love who created us. Are we only seeking that feeling of home and comfort here in our daily lives, in our jobs and relationships, or do we truly desire to be with Him in Heaven? Are we willing to sacrifice anything and everything to get there? The only path home is through unity with God’s Will, through the way of Calvary and through the beauty of the Cross. Are we willing to walk, or even to crawl at times, though the Calvary of seeking sanctity, to carry the Cross of Christianity in the plan God has intentionally made for us?
We walk as pilgrims to eternity when we seek His Will for us every day. This starts with a daily prayer life, when we encounter Him face to face as often as we can and open our hearts to Him who wants to be with us more than we could ever know. Sometimes we are literally called to leave our families and move to other countries for His name's sake and sometimes God's Will for us is right where we are. Either way, we are called to be detached from becoming too focused on the world around us that we lose sight of what we are really here for, complete abandonment to and unity with the Will of God, which will ultimately lead us to eternity.
And every one who has left house or brothers or sisters of father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold in this life, and inherit eternal life.
Let us remember that we have a good and faithful God who desires to bless us both here in this life and in eternity. He loves us and wants to give us good things. I pray that as we grow in faith and virtue Christ will continue to provide for us and teach us how to sacrifice everything for Him as He did for us.