lost

i am lost.  i am unashamedly, un-apologetically, unbelievably lost.  i have never been here before.  i have grappled with this question time and time again but i have never been in this place before.  i am lost somewhere between border fences, families living in poverty, teams from the US coming on mission trips to help, and my own life and world in which i live. i am building a home for a family in Juarez this week that lives RIGHT on the fence between the US and Mexico.  i drove to the fence today to see if i could find the house from the US side.  i followed the fence as far as i could and then i drove past trailers and train tracks until the road opened up into a clearing that ran directly into Mexico and the border fence.  and then i sat there.  and i stared.  i stared at where i would be tomorrow morning on the other side of that fence.  i stared at the existing cardboard and pallet bathroom that the family was in the process of tearing down so that we can build them a home in the morning.  and then i walked up to the fence and i talked to Brenda, and Juan, and Jonathan and Edgar and Karen.  i stood there on one side of a chain link fence and they stood on the other.

they are my age, Brenda and her husband Alejandro.  yet there we stood, separated by less than an inch think barrier that changes everything.  this all felt very odd and so strange. my friend Steve met me near the site and we both stood there; staring.  we have both lived on the border for years.  we have both served in different countries and led mission trips building homes for families in different parts of Mexico. we have both struggled with having our lives stretched across borders and cultures and the lines that separate us all.  and there we found ourselves again today. 

he is a pastor.  i am a missionary.  yet still, there is this complete loss.  i feel like there's something i'm supposed to figure out.  like there's some answer that we're supposed to get to.  some way to reconcile that this fence is the difference between the car that i sit in and the dirt they stand on.  it is the difference between my education and future and their lack of opportunities.  it is the difference between choosing to live on this border and having no other choice.  it is the difference between walking in my own home and having one built for me.  it is the difference between everything.

so here i sit on this border.  feeling like i'm supposed to do something, or say something, or reconcile something.  but the reality is, all i am is torn and lost.  maybe that's all i'm supposed to be.  maybe i'm just supposed to care. maybe i'm just supposed to not be able to go on with the rest of my day oblivious to the great needs in this world and those that are hurting.  maybe i'm just supposed to be broken, and know that we are to love one another, and serve one another as Jesus would. maybe i am just supposed to be. to be here. to be willing. to sit on this fence and wrestle through different languages, and poverty and affluence and borders that separate our worlds.  maybe i'm just supposed to share this struggle with you.  Steve said to me, "i expect a blog from this."  so here i am, at a loss for answers and not even sure that i know the questions.  sitting here, staring, and asking you to care with me. maybe that's all that i'll be able to reconcile today.

in a minute i will leave these words behind, rinse the dirt off of my flip flops and walk into a church and talk with this mission team that is here to serve. and in the morning we will stand on the other side of that fence.  we will cross this border and join Brenda and her family.  we will spend the week with them and build their home together.  and inevitably, when i go back to this place on the US side of the fence it will look different.  there will be a home where there was a shack today.  and the next time i talk to Brenda and her family, we will be friends chatting with one another, rather than strangers, standing on opposite sides of a fence, as the silence says everything that we're not about our very different lives.