What are we doing?

Marty's Daily Diary #3

Everyone is exhausted. We worked until 2:00pm today and to be honest we could have stopped earlier. Our energy levels were completely shot as we pounded wall after wall after wall, and wheeled out wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow. But what joy! Slowly over these past 2 days Rahab's House is being filled from back to front with light. The darkness has NOT overcome and light has broken through. AMEN!

But amidst the joy and the light is my confusion and sorrow. I encounter face after face of young girls and women as they wade through our rubble and every single one of them causes me to wonder about who they are and what happened to them last night. I am so confused becasue I don't know if I am looking at someone who has been victimised by that young pimp who is sitting smugly on his chair only 20 feet away or whether she herself is part of this awful place. Yet, each of them cause me simply to smile and pray that perhaps they will know that there is something different in these white folks they see hauling rubble. Perhaps they will see in me and the others a love and respect which they have never encountered before. Perhaps they will see Jesus standing smiling on them from the entrance to Rahab's House beckoning them in.

I am also acutely aware of my sorrow. I so want to play with the little kids. I want to give them something to fuel their smiles and childish behaviour. I want to spend some time encountering these people rather than being so caught up in the art of rubble dumping that I am falling way short of the opportunity God has placed before me to be His ambassador. Perhaps I am beating myself up and expecting too much from myself? I am so tired right now. My body aches. (Not my head thankfully today!) My hands are sore. (Yes I have soft hands) I have scratches and bruises from all the work but in some respect I think the real work is to act and speak in a way that these folks have never encountered before. (Apart from the wonderful people like Clay, Helen and Christa, who really are awesome folks!)

But at the end of this very hard day 2 I am also full of HOPE. The light has broken in and despite the fact that I was part of a team that hammered down walls etc, the real Light is breaking in to that place and I truly believe that Jesus is working and His will is being done, right now as I write, as you read, in and around Rahab's House.

All I can say then is "Come, Lord Jesus, COME!"

Marty