It Builds Character: Digging a Trench for Jesus

Yesterday, our trip took a turn for the physical. Up until now, our efforts largely focused on directly caring for the children at Blessed Assurance. Today, however, half of us took a break from that ministry to break ground on our week-long construction project: an irrigation trench, built to prevent the heavy summer rains from flooding the compound. While our team labored on the trench, the other group would continue to take care of the children all day, feeding, playing and praying with them.

The manual laborers began by digging out the foundations for the side wall of the trench. Since we had no access to industrial equipment, the digging was achieved the old-fashioned way: with pickaxe and shovel. The work was slow and tiring, but after an hour we completed the foot-deep ditch. Our team split up for the remainder of the day. One group trekked down to a dried-up riverbed, hauling enormous stones (up to a hundred pounds) all the way to the work site. The second group mixed concrete, shoveled it into buckets and hauled it to the work site. The third group, of which I was a member, remained in the trench, stacking the huge stones into a five-foot-tall wall and pouring concrete into the gaps between the rocks.

The work felt rather “medieval;” demanding a no-nonsense approach because of our lack of modern tools. As the wall materialized before us over the course of the day, we knew that our own toil had literally muscled those stones into their current arrangement. There was something refreshingly simple about it: all I had to do was listen to the two construction managers and follow their guidance. As I took the experience to prayer later in the afternoon, I was reminded that our normal lives aren’t much different. When God sends trials and sufferings our way, all He asks of us in response is a simple, childlike trust and obedience to His guidance. He doesn’t want anxiety, complaint or complexity: just to pick up the stone and to put it in the right place.

As the day wound down, I couldn’t help but begin to think of the other team, who had spent their whole day with the children. Though our project was important, it was obvious that the others had been given the better part; they were the one actually nourishing those children. Still, there was something beautiful, something “hidden” about our work. It would never make those kids smile, solicit their laughter or wipe away their tears, but we still shoveled and lifted and placed for love of them. It was a stirring reminder of Jesus’ demand to serve in a hidden way, that we may never forget that God’s hand, not ours, is the ultimate provider, the ultimate consoler. Sometimes, we get to visibly extend God’s hand to feed a child, to visit the homebound, to care for the infirm. Other times, we extend that same hand invisibly by an act as simple as digging a trench. 

Make sure to follow the rest of our trip using the hashtag #SemsOnMission