Waves of Reality

As our family walks this path toward the mission field with eMi, I am finding that there are a lot of things that will have to change.  You may think that this is intuitively obvious.  I agree.  What I find interesting is that it seems that for each of these changes there are different stages of the experience, different waves of reality.

Matthew and I went to the High School open house last night where he will go to school next year, or will he?  We really don't know where we will be next fall when school starts.  We are generally OK with that, however, walking around the school last night was an experience for me of another wave of reality.  

My boss was in town from Portland this last week.  We talked about the transitions that are coming.  We met with one of my clients and let them know that changes were coming.  I have found the process of talking about and planning for the loss of my job to be a little disturbing.  I feel less in control than I did last week.  Again, it is another wave of reality.

I know that God has a plan for our lives, that He will see it through to fruition, that there is no shortage of money in his economy, that He is the giver of wisdom and knowledge, that He sustains and provides for us, however, waves of reality are continually breaking over me.

I have been drawn to Matthew 6:19-34 lately.  If you have been in the church for very long, I am sure you have read through this section.  For me, it speaks to how we can respond to those waves of reality.  When I boil down my struggles with the waves of reality they can pretty well be summarized by - 

‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

Jesus responds - Your heavenly father knows that you need these things, Jon.  But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

I will continue to face the waves of reality that are still coming my way and I am sure that I will continue to be knocked back a couple steps each time one lands on my head, however, in between waves (an maybe someday through the waves) I will seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.  I invite you to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness - "for tomorrow will be anxious for itself."

Lent - Resting, Giving up, Learning and Discipline

The beginning of Lent is upon us.  I didn't grow up with a very good understanding of Lent, and I would venture to say that I still don't have a very good understanding.  But over the course of the last 10 years or so I have tried to develop a deeper understanding, and more important, I have grown closer to my Savior through Lent.  For me, that is the purpose.  My God loves me.  He loves me so much he died for me.  In the time leading up to the anniversary of his sacrifice for my sin, I want to lean into His arms and rest as they wrap around me.

Here is a nice cup of coffee in what I used
to call my  $30,000 coffee cup!

Lent has taken on many forms for me, it has usually meant giving up something.  The default for me is coffee.  Not sure why, other than it is the one addiction that I freely admit having.  There have been years that this is a great time of learning that I can survive without the stuff and serves as a daily (shall we say hourly) reminder for what Easter means to me.  There have also been years that I learned nothing other than just how bad a caffeine headache can be.

And this would be the radio
in my 2001 Grand Cherokee.
It will be remaining OFF

So, as I have thought about just what Lent should mean for me this year, I have come upon an idea. I spend about 20 minutes each way driving to work every day.  Sometime I will listen to the news in the morning and bounce between Christian radio and talk shows driving home.  This year for Lent, I am going to give up listening to the radio, and I am going to practice the Spiritual Discipline of intercessory prayer during my drive.  That should give me about 15 minutes each way, or 30 minutes a day.  Just like I fully realize that my understanding of Lent is minimal at best, my understanding of intercessory prayer is probably a little weak.  However, neither of those limitations needs to keep me from spending my time in the car praying for people that God has placed in my life.

This whole transition to eMi is forcing Wanda and I to spend a lot of time in prayer, but most of that prayer is honestly focused on what is happening in our lives.  And I see nothing wrong with that, our lives need a lot of prayer.  But this time in the car I want to focus on others.  On what God is doing in their lives.  If you would like me to be praying for you, I would love to do that.  Share with me what is going on in your life, where God is pushing and pulling you, what has He revealed to you recently, or what you are struggling with.  Feel free to leave a comment below, or send me an e-mail, or call me.

And I would encourage you to think about Lent.  I doubt that you need something else in your life, but for me, it is good to give something up that has become a habit, and it is good to start something that is not a habit.

Deep Wells and Welling Springs

Lately my daily devotions have had me reading in John 4.  This is one of my favorite stories in the Bible.  When I read about the Samaritan woman at the well I often have to chuckle.

I love the way the dialog flows.  Jesus is thirsty.  He asks for a drink (remember, he is the living water).  She asks why he is even talking to her much less asking for something.  Jesus then delivers one of those statements that just seem like a real conversation killer - "If you knew the gift of God and who is is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."  I can imagine her just standing there looking at him with a blank look while her mind is wiping away all the parts of that statement that make no sense.  Then she responds with something that makes complete sense.  You have no bucket and the well is deep. 

Seems like there have been a few times in my life when the things that God is doing make no sense, like when I was working on my Masters degree in Civil Engineering and He called me to full time ministry; or the time that He called me to step away from a comfortable life, a good job and a successful ministry to something that He would reveal later; or the time that I wanted more than anything to step away from my job and my ministry and He wouldn't let me.....  These are the deep wells that I have come across in my life, and I am sure there are many I have missed.

Jesus comes to me and asks something I don't understand.  My initial response is to focus on the realities.  The well is deep, and you my friend have no bucket.  At least I have a bucket and a rope!  Leave me alone and let me get on with my life.

Why do we think that God can't do what He says He will do?  We like to sit in Sunday School and talk about how great God is, etc, etc.  But in our lives, we stick to our bucket and our deep well.  We don't seem to care that our bucket leaks and the well water is stale.  We prefer those options to Jesus who offers a living spring, with water welling up to eternal life!





Right now, God has called us to join staff with eMi.  That is a deep well in my life.  There is a lot of support to be raised, and details to figure out.  Part of me wants to just get out my leaky bucket, grab the longest rope I can find and get to work.    Meanwhile, the creator of the universe stands before me - He offers a spring of living water.





He offers that water to you as well.  I don't know what it is, but I am pretty sure you are looking into a deep well in your life right now.  I encourage you to put that leaky bucket and long rope down, fall at the feet of your Savior and have a nice cool drink of living water.

El Limonal - Chinandega - Nicaragua - 2013

This last February, I made another venture with eMi to Chinandega, Nicagragua.  We had the opportunity to work with some of the same people at Food for the Hungry that we had worked with two years earlier.

On this trip, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel with my Dad.  He had always been interested in what we did on these projects, and it fit into his busy travel schedule, so he joined myself and Darryl, an engineer/surveyor from Lakeview, Or.

We got to stay in the same hotel that housed us back in 2011.  Here is a picture off the balcony at the hotel.  Yes, I could have reached out and touched the wires, no, I didn't try it.  In the town of Chinandega, there are A LOT of these three wheeled bikes.  The use them as taxis, or pickups.








Here is my Dad walking along the streets of El Limonal along with some of the community leaders (women) and a Nicaraguan doctor who works for Food for the Hungry.  His role is to try to help the communities understand personal hygiene affects them.  As we seek to bring new infrastructure into a community, if there isn't an appropriate level of education, then there is no benefit.






Here is Darryl making magic happen with the Total Station.  Darryl reminds me just how small our world is.  On both of my trips to Nicaragua I got to travel with him.  For those of you who have been following our family's wanderings across the States, you may recognize that Darryl was my boss when I worked for Anderson Engineering in Lakeview, Or.  He and I just happened to end up on the same eMi team in 2011.  We still work good together, so we teamed up again in 2013.  I look forward to more opportunities to work with Darryl in the future.

In El Limonal, it is hard to know where to start with the physical need.  The central purpose of our trip was to come up with a solution for this.  Gray water (see my post from Bayardo Arce) is allowed to flow on the dirt streets.  The problem here, is that the water is a breeding ground for quite the list of diseases.  In addition to that, on the day we were there it was about 90 degrees, with very high humidity.  Where do you think the kids hang out to cool off?

You guessed it!















Here is a picture of what an average home looks like in El Limonal.  Upper right corner of the picture is the house, center of the picture is the pit toilet, between the two is the out door kitchen area.  Bottom center is a hole in the ground where the gray water sits until it either infiltrates into the ground, or runs down the street.






It is hard to understand what life is like in El Limonal.  The community is situated next to the dump, cemetery and waste water lagoons for the City of Chinandega.  Each of these amenities are old, overused and under-maintained.  Many of the young men and boys in the community make a living for their families by digging in the dump for plastics and metals that they can sell to be recycled.

The photo below shows them standing in the out flow from the waste water lagoons to mine and clean off the debris in the dump.  In the center of the picture, you can just make out the concrete outfall structure where the edge of the dump used to be.  Beyond that is the river.

Recyclables are then hauled back to the town where they are sold.  A days work gets about $1.  At the end of the day, the workers rest on their hammocks and wait for the next day.


In the evenings, we would work on downloading data from the Total Station, and begin the process of designing a system to collect the waste water.

Here is one of the boys from the community that was very curious about why I had dug a hole in the ground, filled it with water, and just watched the water leave.  He thought the game was better when you caught lizards and threw them in the water.

So the infiltration test included slight displacement due to the addition and subtraction of lizards.

Darryl had a good helper as well.  I think we took a couple shots that might not be as accurate as we might want, but it was a lot of fun to see the joy that these kids experienced by being included in what we were doing.

Wow.  You made it to the bottom of the post.  Since you made it to the end, I suspect that you have the patience to hear some of my thoughts.  

As I think back on my time in El Limonal, I am struck once again at just how different our lives are from theirs.  As I write this, sitting in my temperature controlled office earning more money in an hour than some families in El Limonal are earning in a month so that I can maintain my house, my car, my security, my hobbies, my lifestyle; I am appalled.  I am appalled at how much of what I do, and what I am is centered on me.  And I ask the question "To what end? What do I hope to gain?".

As I seek to learn more of what it means to humble myself, to look not to my own interest and to have died with Christ, I pray that Galatians 2:20 would be evident in my life - "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God." 

Bayardo Arce - Chinandega Nicaragua - October 2011

I am going to put up a few posts of some the of the past projects that I have been on.  

My first experience with Engineering Ministries International (eMi) was to the community of Bayardo Arce, on the out skirts of Chinandega, Nicaragua.

The project in Bayardo Arce was to design a sewer collection system for a community of approximately 600 residents.  Food for the Hungry has a relationship with this community where they are working on transforming communities by educating the young, providing basic health care and supporting local Pastors as they reach out to the communities.  

We were tasked with completing a topographic survey of the community and to layout a sewer collection system.

Here are a few pictures of our trip.

The collection system that we designed would drain to this manhole, where it will connect with the municipal system.  We were kind of surprised to find pretty normal looking manholes.  However, the lids of these manholes had not been lifted in years, and I will refrain from publishing pictures of the inside of the manholes.....

Here is a typical street in Bayardo Arce.  The water that is running in the street is "gray water".  Generally, gray water is water that has been used for body washing, clothes washing, dish washing, etc.  In this community, that water runs in the street and becomes a incubator for various insects and diseases.

Each home had a pipe similar to this one where all the water that is used in the home just dumps out on the street.  This was about the nicest setup that we saw in Bayardo Arce.  They even had a sidewalk and some shrubs!

Here is a picture of a trench that was dug to try to control the waste water.  The white PVC pipe is the drinking water that is circulating through the community.  As you can see, the pipe is running through the waste water.  In many places, the drinking water pipe is joined with duct tape.  Which indicates two things.  There is VERY low pressure in the drinking water pipe, AND there is contamination.

Much of our survey was completed using this total station.  Which brings up the funny memories of trying to get equipment like this through customs.  On each trip I have been on, going through customs in countries like Nicaragua is always an adventure.  Here you have a few gringos (and engineers at that) trying to explain in very broken Spanish just what a total station is to a customs officer who speaks very broken English!  Makes for laughs at the end of the day.



Here are two of the friends I made in Bayardo Arce.  As I am sure you can tell from the picture, they had quite the personalities....

 Here I am with three of the Nicaraguan staff for Food for the Hungry.  They stuck with us each day making sure that we didn't get ourselves into too much trouble.  I really appreciated how committed Food for the Hungry was to using local staff to build relationships with the communities where they worked.

Sharing our story

Last Sunday was a big day for the Burgi family, and it didn't have anything to do with the Super Bowl!  We had our first opportunity to share with our church family about the changes that have been happening in our lives, and a glimpse of what is to come.

We were tasked with answering three questions:

1. Share the story of how to got here...
2. How can the church support us now?
3. How can the church support us once we head out?

The first item took a lot of thought and a lot of time to work through.  I have tried to capture parts of the story here in this blog, but I am sure there are many many things that I have left out.  Don't worry, I am not going to recount it all here.

Sharing with the church was encouraging, scary, and sad.  It is sad to think about not seeing this family for a while.  We have built so many memories through joy and pain.  It will be hard to let those things go.  Each step that we take seems like another step into the unknown.  It is a little scary to step into the unknown.  At the end of our time of sharing, the church prayed for us.  It was wonderful to know that there is a family that supports us and this ministry as we move forward.

Decisions

Last Sunday night we had a "family meeting" at the Burgi house.  We had asked the kids to spend a few days thinking and praying about the possibility of dad joining full time staff with eMi, which would create MANY changes in our lives. We ended those days sitting on the couch in the living room processing through our thoughts, fears, questions and ponderings.

In the end we all agreed that God is active in our lives, that He has been leading us in this direction for a few years now, and that out of obedience to Him, we will act.  We will go where He leads.

Hebrews 11:8 "...And he went out, not knowing where he was going."

So it feels like we have made one decision that puts to rest one question.  However, in answering that one question, I think we opened up about a million other questions.  Since that meeting, Matthew has been a wonderful source of new questions.  There are so many things that we just don't know.  In our devotions, we recently came across:

Isaiah 52:12 "...for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."

That is a wonderful reminder that God is actively going before us.  Even though we don't know where we are going or how we will get there, we know that God is already there preparing that place for us.  The other comfort for us in this verse is that God is our rear guard.  As we consider the realities of leaving our home, friends, church, school, work, etc, it is comforting to know that God is guarding what we have left.  None of these things is left un-cared for or un-protected.  We can confidently keep our eyes forward to what God is preparing.

Matthew 6:33  "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."