LUCIANO FARIA

Obedience, Even in the Seemingly Mundane 

2 Corinthians 5:13-15

“For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” 

Going on Short Term Summer Missions (STSM) this year was always a guarantee, ever since I came back from India last summer I knew that I would go on STSM one more time as a student, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind. My prayer heading into the next season of STSM and the mission God was inviting me into was simply this… “God, I had this amazing experience in India last year, I learned so much… but I want you to use me in any way you see fit. To expect the same experience is to limit the ways that you could work, Lord, so God use me in whatever way you want, I just want to be in your presence.” Praying a prayer like that comes with a great deal of promise and trust, a promise that you will be willing to be used in whatever God sees fit, and the trust that God will protect you and be by your side no matter what. Now that my Ecuador trip is over and everything is said and done, I can confidently say that God answered my prayer, but not in the way that I expected. If I were to title my mission experience in Ecuador, it would be titled, “Obedience, even in the seemingly mundane”, a title that might seem peculiar given the nature of STSM and the thrill that comes from living a month in another country, but a title that very much encapsulates the struggles and blessings that I experienced while being in Ecuador this July. 

During our one-month stay in Ecuador, my team spent one week in the city of Tena, a city neighboring the Amazon rainforest, where we stayed with Missionary Abraham at his house, a time that was so exciting because of the unfamiliarity of my surrounding but also the weirdly nostalgic comfortability of being in a Latin American country. Our time in Tena, though very short, was a great display of the wondrous work that God was already doing in Ecuador, pronouncing his grandiosity for all to see, but it was also a beginning to how personally different this Ecuador trip would be from my trip to India, particularly with my familiarity with Spanish, allowing for actual interaction with locals and children. Though I ironically didn’t expect to use Spanish almost at all on this trip, God gave me this massive privilege and opportunity to delve deeper with the locals, whether they be taxi drivers, restaurant workers, church assistants, grocery clerks, or the loving children that were so happy to see us… God was presenting instances of opportunity for obedience, whether small or big. So going to Cotacachi, the city where we spent the bulk of our trip, I found myself coming in expecting a very similar experience to the one I had experienced in Tena, but what my team and I were met with was completely different than what I expected. To be very frank, I was not physically challenged at all, Cotacachi being a city that sports a very cool climate day and night and the fact that we stayed at a hostel, one where we met with cleaned rooms almost every day, showers, breakfast, and dinner services… we were comfortable… and that didn’t sit well with me. Our day-to-day schedule would only consist of 3 hours of ministry time, as opposed to the 8+ hours that I experienced in India, and we would have almost 3-4 hours of rest/free time every single day. I remember the third day in Cotacochi, it was earlier in the afternoon and I found myself sitting in the common area of the hostel by myself just thinking “I can’t believe I’m feeling this but I’m bored…”. I was thankful to God for the ample rest and the privilege that it was to be “bored”, but I was restless to do something, anything, something that I could do to essentially earn my merit of the trip. God, in His perfect and caring way, quickly showed me that despite my efforts to do work for His kingdom in the ways that I was used to, He was calling me to seek and obey Him in the smaller things, the less apparent things, that the things that required reflecting, contemplation, observation, patience, and one that every time required a call to response, an accepting of His invitation to join in His glorious work. I began to see the ways that God wanted to show me His goodness in the normalcy of life in Ecuador, the amazing blessing of having so much time to read my bible and journal, the time to explore and sit in silence, the time to physically rest if I truly needed it, the time to pray for my team and my surroundings, and the opportunities to minister, God sending so many opportunities to share the wonderful name of Jesus to the people I would encounter, and all of these opportunities would have been otherwise overlooked if not for God calling to respond in quiet. He had so much to say to me but I was too focused on expecting or comparing the ways that God worked in India, so much so that I forgot my prayer, God humbled me, and for this I am thankful.