Camping 24/365

When you say the word ‘camping’ we all have a different reaction and way we define that word.  For many, camping brings to our mind fond memories of doing something outdoors together as a family or with friends.  It’s a break from the normal routine and often adventuresome.  For some, camping means taking a tent to a remote place and really roughing it.  For others, it means taking your home with you in the form of an R.V. and staying at a well maintained campground.  And yet, for others, it means staying at Holiday Inn.  But, for almost all of us, it is a temporary situation.  A weekend, a week, or maybe two.  After that, we are ready to get back to our comfortable homes with clean floors that you can actually sweep, running water to wash things, a bathroom just down the hall or even in our bedroom, electricity to power all of our appliances to help make us comfortable.

None of us would want to live on a dirt floor with no electricity and no running water for very long.  That’s why we only camp for a short amount of time, even those of us who truly enjoy camping.

But, for some, including the family I had an opportunity to minister to this month, this is not just a weekend, a week or two, but, it’s life.  It’s 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for life.  No electricity, no appliances, and water from an outside faucet for only two hours a day.  They cook over an open fire, wash clothes, dishes, and their bodies in a concrete sink outside.  They have a pit-toilet instead of a bathroom.  The floors in the adobe house are just dirt and uneven and become muddy during the rainy season because of leaks and water leaching through the walls. The children are ALWAYS filthy.  (You know when you are camping, it’s next to impossible to keep the kids clean.) This is LIFE.  Families like this one live like they are camping 24/365.  Can you imagine?

When we see this, it makes us appreciate more the things that God has blessed us with.  We enter this world by the hand of God.  We are born to parents in an affluent country by God’s design.  As I watched a young teenage girl rolling out tortillas on a stone slab with a stone rolling pin and placing them on a steel plate over an open fire I realized that even though this life she has seems crazy to me, it is perfectly normal to her.  She seems to accept it.  And yet how often we complain about our life and wanting more stuff when we already have far more than this girl could ever imagine.
 

"But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.  But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness."  1 Timothy 6:6-11

I have to ask myself..Could I be content to live like this family?  Is the pursuit of stuff more important to me than the pursuit of righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness?  Where my treasure is, there my heart will be. (Matthew 6:19-21).

I worked with a team that chose to give of their time and money to add a concrete porch and replace the black plastic that was covering their cooking area with a metal roof.