Kari Nelson - Day 4

What a blessed day we are having in Lima! What hit me most today is an accumulation of what has gone on since we started preparing for the trip. It is not about me! Pastor Matt wanted us to keep this point in mind throughout the trip and had us write the sentence somewhere in our journal as a constant reminder. When we went to church for the first time here, I was amazed but not surprised to find out that Pastor Kim was preaching on the same topic. He taught the church about pride and said that a person with an attitude of humility will be exalted by God and have His grace. How easy it is to talk about ridding yourself of pride, but I always find myself struggling with that issue. I pity myself for not getting my way in simple things that have no impact at all on the rest of my life or even tomorrow.

Seeing the examples of selfless people here is truly convicting. Yesterday at dinner I was talking to our bus driver, Erwin, who is incredibly giving. He started by showing me pictures of his kids and telling me sweet little moments that he has with them. He told me about going to the movies and buying them popcorn, soda, more popcorn, candy and more popcorn. Erwin also told me that a couple nights ago his youngest son was sick with a high fever so he stayed up with him until 4:00 am and then had to get his other son up at 6:30 am to go to school. After that, he had to be here at the seminary at 9:00 am to pick us up for the day and we don't usually get back until 8:00 pm or 9:00 pm. Erwin is so devoted to his family and takes such pride in his sons who I can tell are respectful and love their father a lot. But he works such long hours and doesn't get to see them much anymore since taking this job. It is not uncommon for him to go back to his house late at night on work days. His willingness to serve us and serve God creates the kind of conviction that you can feel in your chest. I mean, it really makes me long to be that kind of servant.

One last thing that I want to share is a little story of what happened on the beach this morning. We went to Miraflores, which is on the coast, in order to have a prayer walk. We asked God to bless our day, bless Lima, anything that we felt we should pray about. After sitting in the pebbles and telling God how big he is to make the ocean of which we could only see such a tiny part of, Andria told me that there are more stars than there are grains of sand on the beach. So we picked up a handful of pebbles and counted out nine of them to represent the sun and the planets in our solar system (poor Pluto doesn't count), which I have always thought is pretty big. Then we threw those rocks out onto the beach and they became unidentifiable. They were completely lost among all the other pebbles out there. How awesome is God that, as Brenna pointed out, He created space in one day of which we haven't even been able to see a notable fraction since its creation! The size of the God we serve is too big for us to have any pride in ourselves or take ownership for the things we have done.

Un abrazo fuerte,

Kari Nelson