Celebration

Sorry about the length of time between posts, my friends. Maybe before I start this blog I should explain how I go about writing these and when. Most of the time I will write a blog whenever something happens in my life or to our team down here, to update y´all on the things that are passing here. Other times I will write a blog whenever I feel the prompting of the Holy Spirit to do so; take the last one for example, and at least one of my entries from a while ago. This blog will mostly be the latter, but I will also throw in some of the things that are happening down here since it´s been a while since you have had much news.
The last few days have officially been Carnaval here in Bolivia. I say officially because for pretty much the last month, the youth have been celebrating it in one way or another (usually involving water thrown at someone). The celebrations I have seen the last few days are incredible compared to anything I have seen in the States: people dancing and singing in the streets with a band following them everywhere (traffic doesn´t matter to these people), families standing on their balconies with water balloons, water guns, and buckets filled with, yes, water waiting for the unsuspecting passer-by, and the all-out water balloon wars in the main plaza between the youth. It seems everyone gets caught up in the celebration of this holiday here: children dress up in costumes, young people enjoy their water, and even the parents and grandparents have been spotted throwing the occasional water balloon, and then playing it off like they are innocent! I have a confession to make… even I, the serious, hard-working Jeff :P, have been caught up in the celebration the last few days. I have no idea when this came to be, all I know is that I now find myself laughing trying to dodge water balloons and shaving cream (and even an egg once) aimed at this poor gringo while I am trying to pass through the plaza and streets downtown. A week ago I couldn´t stand the celebration but something in the air, something electric, almost palatable, has transformed me into someone who enjoys getting water balloons thrown at him!
This has led me to think about life back in the States: the mostly monotonous routine we live day-to-day, with a little variation on the weekends perhaps. We, as children of the Most High, as followers of the King, as citizens of the Eternal Kingdom, might be going through life with no celebration whatsoever—minus our singing on Sundays—that others can see. People notice no difference between the followers of Christ and other people with regards to joyfulness. In fact, some may say they notice that we are shockingly less joyful than others; the ¨typical Christian kill-joy.¨ How can that be?? How can we, who have the promise of eternal life, be any less joyful, celebrate any less than those we label ¨non-Christian¨ in this life we have?? Yes, we know this world is not for us; Jesus said as much (John 17:14). But that doesn´t mean that we aren´t allowed to be joyful! On the contrary my brothers and sisters; we are supposed to be the most joyful of all people because of our relationship with the Father through the Son! The Psalms are filled with expressions of the joy we should feel; 4:6, 5:11, 13:5, 21:6, 30:6, 92:5, 95:1, 100:1, 118:24. The Gospels preach joy from start to finish, from the angel visiting Mary in Luke 2:10 to Jesus himself speaking on it in John 15 and 16 to the discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene in Matthew 28:8. The Apostles´ letters are also filled with joy: Romans 15:13, Philippians 2:2 and 4:4, 1 Thessalonians 2:20 and 5:16, James 1:2, 1 Peter 1:6, and 1 John 1:4. We should be exuding joy so that it becomes contagious, and the people around us are caused to wonder how and why we are so joyful. Joy is a vital, prevalent part of the Christian walk. Our situation should have no affect whatsoever on our joy, in fact we are advised to ¨rejoice¨ and to ¨have joy¨ when we do suffer! This wonderful oxymoron that we are called to follow is just one of many that the world says makes no sense, but we know the truth. ¨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, because God´s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.¨ Romans 5:3-5. This is one of my favorite passages from the book of Romans; it is just so powerful and inspiring to me. My challenge to us as the body of Christ is one that may be hard for some. I challenge all of us to rediscover the true joy we have in Christ through His sacrifice on the cross for each and every one of us. Let your co-workers wonder and marvel at this joy you have, and when they ask about it curiously, you have the perfect opening to share the wellspring of your joy.
Right now, and actually for the last few months, I have shifted in the type of work I am doing for our team here in South America. I have moved from being a ¨front-line, mountain walking missionary¨ and have become the administrator of our team. My job has involved many different aspects of things in relation for our team: from producing promotional materials for our Latinos and for the churches in the States, to coordinating several features of our annual team meeting next month, to pretty much anything in between as my boss sees fit to assign me. Our Bolivia team is doing well; Roberto and I are here in Sucre after a month in Cochabamba for Roberto´s Quechua classes, Efrain and Javier are in Cochabamba right now taking Quechua classes, and Trent, Kay, and Jack are getting back from a three week trip into the communities tomorrow. Please be praying for all the travel that will be taking place next month from all over South America to Lima, Peru for our annual meeting. Thank all of you so much for all of your support and prayer thus far in my journey here; as of today I am sitting at my one year and four month anniversary and only eight months to go.