In the desert the most urgent thing is---to wait. The desert does not take kindly to those who tackle it at breakneck speed, subjecting it to their plans and deadlines. It soon takes its revenge and makes them pay dearly for their presumption. Instead, the desert welcomes those who shed their sandals of speed and walk slowly in their bare feet, letting them be caressed and burnt by the sand. If you have no ambition to conquer the desert, if you do not think you are in charge, if you can calmly wait for things to be done, then the desert will not consider you an intruder and will reveal its secrets to you.
Alessandro Pronzato

mom sent me this awhile ago. i have it up in my room. it has been a comfort to me in the past weeks and months as i've been adjusting more and more every day to my life here in zambrano, colombia. i love the imagery of having one's feet be caressed and at the same time burnt by the sand. its a difficult blance to strike, but i find that after four months of living here on the coast, my feet are adapting to the hot sand and are learning to walk slowly and be caressed, allowing themselves to be burnt.
i don't like the word missionary. it represents, to me, a theology of arriving at a place with a truth, a knowledge, a development, or whatever it may be, that is needed...it is a system of taking something somewhere and "depositing" it. the community i live in here, however, uses the word missionary regardless of my feelings towards it. its a battle i don't fight. what i do know, however, is that this understanding is exactly what pronzato is talking about here when he speaks of "conquering" the desert. and the more i reflect on these words, the more comfortable i feel with my understanding of what my role is here in colombia.
i believe that any given person needs to do their little piece to help a world in need. but any given person is just one person. its the beauty of humanity - we need each other. any one person's gift is not any more valid or grand than anyone else's. so really, it isn't a big deal at all that i live in colombia, a country full of displacement, violence and poverty. it is also a country full of energy, joy, music, color, diversity, and beautiful people. and all i'm doing here is what i would be doing in any other place in the world: i am trying to make those around me better people, and trying to make myself a better person. attepmting to create the kindom of Godde on earth.
so the realization has come to me more and more as i'm normalizing myself to this place, that this is not some project i'm doing. this is my home. for now. i live in zambrano. there are difficulties. there are frustrations. but isn't that true in any place we live and move and have our being?
point being, here i am, in zambrano. and i think i am learning to allow my feet to be caressed and burnt by the sand of this earth. i think - and hope - it is beginning to tell me its secrets.