moments.

we all have those moments. those moments that you cannot create but are simply stumbled upon. those moments that change everything. they come in all shapes and sizes, these moments. sometimes they bring unbearable pain. other times, insurmountable joy. but one thing these moments promise: you will never be the same.

I remember it well. I remember it as if it was yesterday, forever in the back of my mind, filtering each of my thoughts.

I can still hear the sound of water being poured down the toilet because there was no such thing as running water.

I can still smell the giant pot of rice and beans cooking in the kitchen because this was all that was affordable.

I can still feel the ungodly amount of heat that engulfed us, swelling my feet and drawing me into a restless sleep.

I can still see the joy. the hope. the light. the humility. the content. the love.

We only spent five days here. Five days that changed me forever. Five incomprehensible days. For five days we lived liked I had never lived before. No running water. Constant lack of electricity. No sheets on the bed. No car. No food I was used to eating. Sharing one tiny room with four girls.

And for five days we lived like I had never lived before. Uncontrollable laughter late into the night. Deep, meaningful conversations in broken Spanish. Learning through experience. Processing the discovery of joy in this tiny, concrete house wedged between two buildings with its barred windows and no AC.

At the end of the week, we all crowded - over twenty sweating bodies - into the tiny living room, spilling over onto the floor and out the door. People weren't the only thing overspilling that day. Tears. Joy. Confusion. Grace. Pain. Overwhelming emotion. Exhaustion. The kind of exhaustion that hits you to the core. We took the time to share.

What has this week meant to you?

I don't even remember my response. Because it didn't matter. My eyes were on her as she began to speak. I couldn't take them away. Her words reached clear across that room and grabbed my heart. And they haven't let it go since.

This woman. This single mom of three, all with different fathers. This cross bearing lover of Jesus, constantly reading her worn in Spanish Bible. All week I had been watching her. She gave up her bed for us. She gave up her time for us. She gave up her food for us. She gave her all for us. All week, all she did was give, it seemed. And all with a smile and with a joy I could never belittle to attempt to explain in words. With indescribable joy, she gave.

But she stood there, at this sharing time. And after all the ways she had unknowingly given to my soul, she looked at each of us, with tears flowing freely down her face and said:

"I just hope that, if you return, I can give you something more."

My mind refused to comprehend what she is saying. How can it be, that this woman, who washed more then her fair share of feet that week, wanted to give something more? 

I lost it, right then and there on the concrete floor of this beautiful, grace filled home.

As we pulled away from their house to head back up to the camp, I knew. I knew I had just experienced one of those moments. I knew that I would never be the same. 

Looking back now, that was the moment that changed everything for me. That was the moment that drew me down this path towards Latin America. That was the moment I saw Jesus more clearly then I had ever before. A life changing, life giving, grace moment. Because in that moment, little did I know I was beginning my journey of the discovery of what it means to be fully alive.

summer of 2011, working at the Young Life camp in the Dominican Republic.
here we are on the home stay.
the woman I wrote about is in the orange.

back again six months later because we couldn't get enough of this joy.
here she is on the right.