Rain is a Good Thing

As our first week closes on this whirlwind adventure, I've decided it's time to take stock of what I've learned so far. Here's a list of my top 5 Guate discoveries:

1) Guatemala is breathtakingly gorgeous. Its mountains, rivers, and hidden valleys hold amazing surprises ripe for exploration.

2) The toilet paper smells like baby powder.

3) Black bean cooking is an art. They can either be really good or REALLY bad, but you're required to eat them either way. (Does anyone have some hot sauce?!)

4) If you can survive eleven hours on steep backcountry gravel roads in a church van, you can do anything.

5) Rain is a good, good thing.

While Luke Bryan already told us about #5, the importance of rain in our lives is the discovery that has most shaped my attitude on this trip. As my teammates' posts can attest, we've been outside a ton, and while I love the outdoors, that kind of exposure in the crazy Guatemalan climate really forces you to get in touch with your caveman side - and also with the Lord.

One night this past week, when we were in Rio Dulce, I was lying in my hammock and trying to sleep. I say "trying" because I was sweating so much that I was practically percolating like a pile of coffee grounds. In the midst of debating between removing my bug net and facing the mosquitoes or continuing to drown, I sent up a wild prayer that God would send us some rain. Maybe in order to teach me about life in the mission field, he didn't send us a drop. I woke up in the morning not because I was well-rested but because I was suffocating from the hundred-degree humidity.

I can chuckle about that misery now because we're in the mountains in San Bartolo Aguas Calientes  - wearing multiple layers and (amazingly) rain jackets. It has rained every day we have been here, and I love it. The sound of it on the tin rooves outside, its ability to drive away pesky bugs, and the smell of it on cement are all answers to prayer. More than that, the weather has been a reminder to me of how  fundamentally dependent we must be on God. We need him even to bring the rain; somewhere in the midst of college, in the midst of my selfishness and pride, I forgot that.

Last night, as we sang praise songs and read scripture to the accompaniment of a downpour, the Lord nudged this verse into my mind:

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3

When I was in that hammock in Rio Dulce, sweating away into nothing, my parched body was a reflection of my parched soul. So when the rain came - when the Spirit came - during our worship last night, it was all the more quenching because I saw with new eyes how desperate my soul is for God's deep, thirst-quenching, perfect love. Sometimes our bodies need rain to bring us comfort, but our souls will always need it more. And he promises us that his rain will come. Keep seeking, sweet friends. Keep thirsting. His shower of grace will take your breath away.