Love More Deeply

I spent the weekend in Mexico on a "Family Mission Trip", as pretty much the only single guy in the group of 200. We built houses for families in the town of Puerto Penasco, or "Rocky Point", off the coast of the Gulf of California.

My group built a house for a family of six, the Valenzuela family. The father, Jesus, was so grateful, and helped willingly in every aspect of the building. He didn't sleep much while we were there, since he worked nights and helped us during the day, but there was always a smile on his face. There were tears in his eyes when he thanked us for his house, a house that people in America would pass by without a second thought... 22x22, 4 rooms, unfinished on the inside (they have to pay taxes on finished houses), with walls made of tar paper, 2 coats of stucco, and chicken wire.

There were tears in our eyes, too... we had brought the family along with us, and they had eaten lunch and dinner with us the last two full days. We took them out to eat, then let them experience a night in our camp the next night. They were grateful and graceful in every situation, and their love for us and for each other was evident in every movement.

Serving others allows us to love more deeply, and I love that family from the bottom of my heart. I think their love ran so deeply because they didn't have an over-abundance of "stuff" to choke it out or stunt it's growth. I had a sense that their love ran more deeply than we could imagine.

I want to love more deeply. Maybe I need less stuff.

4 comments:

Romi said...

Here, here to less "stuff" Richard! I often think it's those serving who are impacted the most! : ) Thanks for sharing your experience. Kirk and our daughters were there too and they said you did an awesome job leading worship!! Wish I could have been there, but someone had to hold down the homefront.

leanna said...

um, to the less stuff, i'd say most definitely. my friend franklin just wrote a brilliant blog on the american's obsession with stuff. i practice minimalism. granted, i'm not that great at it yet, but we're working on it.

Anonymous said...

Man, you said it. Everywhere, people are 'outgrowing' their houses. What that means is they've acquired too much useless junk. So they have to go get a bigger house with a higher mortgage. Look at the stats on the increase in rented storage facilities. We are a people enslaved to stuff.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for 'following.' I hope you enjoy as much as I do.

In response to your comment on my post, yes the Baja is a real car - produced in response to other masterpieces of design such as The Element and the Aztek. Sadly, I think production ceased after everyone who saw one in person threw up all over it. But there's got to be enough used ones floating around for all the pastors to have.