It is so quiet this morning.

I can’t hear the birds singing, nor are there any sounds of people stumbling around getting ready for their day. I listen for the sounds of breakfast being prepared, but the only sound that reaches my straining ears is the steady ticking of my watch. I finally hear the sound of water rushing in the shower, but it is only because I have stumbled into it myself. It is warm and there is no pressure to finish quickly. When I decide I am clean enough, the silence drips down around me again like the last few drops of water falling from my body. It is cold and I am alone.

I seek out the people I have spent the past 12960 minutes with, but they are nowhere to be found. I check Facebook for signs of life, seeking the community I have lost. I recognize their faces, but I don’t hear their laughter, and I don’t feel the warmth of their smiles. I do not ask them how they slept, or ask about the plan for the day. We do not pray together before we start our tasks, and our lives are no longer intimately dependent on each other.

In Nicaragua we are blessed with inescapable community for a short time, and it is messy, it is hard, and it is wonderful. Paul is no fool when he writes of the church as though it were a body. In Nicaragua we find that we are disparate parts of one body, united in purpose, but each unique in function.

In North America, I find we are not disparate, but rather, distant. It is as if we have been cut into twelve pieces and dispersed to the twelve tribes of Israel to teach them a lesson. The lesson I draw from this painful hewing of limbs and ears and eyes is that God loves community.

I believe God meant for his people to live in community, each sharing with each as they have need. In Nicaragua it is impossible to avoid this, as Dayspring and Tabernaculo de Agua Viva depend on one another for strength and resources. Sponsored students find provision in the generosity of their sponsors, and return encouragement and love to fill hearts to a new fullness never before imagined. Community lives around us in Nicaragua because it must! There is no other way to cope with the absolute poverty we are swallowed by everyday. 

Our Nicaraguan community!

This weekend, I may see many of the team again, but we will all be clean, fresh, with styled hair and clothes that do not smell like sweat and we will find that our faces will be slightly less familiar to each other. We will reminisce about our time in Nicaragua, and say how much we miss the people and the place, but I think that under all of the memories and jokes, will lie a strong longing for the community that is no more.  

And this must be, because to live in this past would be to ignore the body that aches to be drawn together more closely around us here in Indiana. The body of Christ here must be willing to be drawn even more closely together by God. Each part finding its own place and purpose in Gods time, and depending on the others for the fulfillment of needs outside of itself.  Community is not simply living in proximity with each other, but rather, living in proximity to a mission and being drawn to its completion.  If we do not unite around the mission God has placed before us where we are, living in proximity is not enough to keep a community together.  

If you meet one of the twenty people who just returned from Nicaragua this week…do not judge them too harshly for their distance or inability to engage with the task at hand. They have been severed from the body they grew to love. Gently draw us back in and grant us time to heal as we rejoin the body Christ has for us here.

When we stand together against the waves of life…can anything separate us?

As always I welcome your thoughts and discussion.  Comments will be reviewed and approved as quickly as possible.  Add your voice to the conversation!