Called to Suffer as Christ Suffered

Happy Easter fellow bond slaves of Christ! It’s been almost a month since my last blog, but the reasoning for this gap of time cannot be claimed by nothing happening. On the contrary, quite a lot has been going on down here in Peru.
We had our Xtreme Team annual reunion a couple of weeks ago now, and it was amazing! Renewing old friendships, starting new ones, and hearing from all of the people connected to our team from all over South America is remarkable! We also shared the Bible chronologically from Creation all the way to the new church in the group times. The four days we had all together wasn’t near enough I thought to get to know all of the forty-ish people that were there. Afterwards, I had a couple days of rest in Lima to hang out with some really good friends (at Starbucks a lot of the time…) before I headed to Iquitos, Peru. I went there with my boss, Jeremy Taliaferro, and two other Xtremers, Adam Huser and Jonathan Jackson. Our main goal was to find houses for our team that was going to be starting up there this month. Amazingly, within three days we found two houses that are perfect for our team. That was truly an answered prayer because we had heard from other missionaries in Lima that it would take us close to a month to find a suitable house. Once we got those houses squared away, Jonathan and I stayed behind for last week to search out good places to have training for the new recruits at the end of May.
I recovered quickly my loathing of the jungle… haha I had somehow forgotten how the jungle was; I guess from all my time in Bolivia in the mountains. When we first stepped off the plane, I felt like I had walked into a sauna. The sweat immediately began pouring from my body like a river, good times, good times. :) To be honest with y'all, this is the most I’ve suffered in a while; and it's still nothing near to the level of suffering of others in "closed countries." The last three months had been pretty laid back for me, but now I feel I’ll more than make up for it now in Iquitos (look it up on a map…) and Peru between the climate, being at Jeremy’s side now to work, and the travel related to my job. What’s been running through my mind for the past two weeks have been the countless times in the Bible that we are called to suffer for Christ. Many have lost sight that to truly follow Christ is to suffer; there is no other way, no "easy Christianity." As Paul says in Philippians “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.” 1:29 Wow… we have been ‘granted’ the great gift of suffering for the name of Christ. How many of us, me included, count it something incredible to suffer? To Paul, there was no higher way to show allegiance to Christ than that of suffering. Why? What is so great about suffering? The obvious benefit of suffering is that those not really serious about the cause they follow would quickly ditch. How many examples of this have each of us seen? Or the number of people we can think about who would ditch if “things got hard?” The second benefit of suffering is that we grow exponentially from the trails we face. Here are just a few verses that talk about it in the Bible: James says “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” 1:2-4, Peter says “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” 1:6-7 and again “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed… Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” 4:12-13, 16, and one more from Paul “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame.” Romans 5:3-5. When we face the trials that life and this world throw at us, we have the opportunity to show them who we truly are, and that we are not just weaklings following a senseless religion that the world seems to believe we are. But that we are the real people (not perfect) whose strength comes from a source larger than anything we, or they, can imagine, Christ Jesus.