Don’t Judge the Cover

There were 32 of us who were on the trip to Juarez, Mexico, to build two houses. It was an interesting mix of people. There were old and young, married and single, male and female and white collar and blue collar. There were high school and college students, new parents and old parents, brothers, married couples, sisters, and several parent and child relationships.

I thought one of the things that would be good for me would be to meet some people I didn’t already know. I did know some people better than others but didn’t plan to spend too much time with them.

One of things that became apparent rather quickly was that I wasn’t going to meet people very easily. And that is unusual because I normally can connect easily with most people as I am deliberate in getting to know others.

There was a lot of excitement that developed between the people on the trip as many seemed to be drawn to others like themselves. I seemed to have a hard time getting into the flow of things.

After we finished the first day of work and showered and changed I spent some time reading the Bible and another book I had with me. I was always taking some time to watch people interacting and occasionally I would overhear parts of their conversations.

I began to ask God to help me to see or hear or understand what He wanted me to. I believe God helped me to realize that I was there to serve all the people involved on this project. But I still wasn’t getting to know anyone new.

That changed on Tuesday night. We had a great day and made a lot of progress on the houses. The team leaders decided that we would go out for ice cream. That was cool.

What I didn’t count on was that God was doing something I didn’t expect. I got into the last seat on one of the vans and no one sat next to me. It looked like everyone on the team was settled into one of the four vans and I was thinking I would be sitting by myself. That was ok.

Then I noticed a guy on the team coming toward our van and the only seats left were by me. I wasn’t too eager to talk with him because I had some preconceived ideas about him.

I decided to pray and said God bring whoever you want to sit in this seat. He got in and sat by me. We began talking and had a great discussion and I learned a lot about him and I gained a great deal of appreciation for him.

The lesson which I had to relearn is that when I do things for me I don’t usually have the right motives but when I can ask God for guidance then things turn out in a way that is much more honoring to Him.