Has it really been a week?

Hey friends--

I'm still alive and well here in Amman... time is absolutely flying by though. I hardly know what to say. It is Sunday afternoon here and I've got a bit of free time, so I'm trying to distill an entire week down into a blog post and I don't feel like I'll do very well, but here goes:

I feel like I'm more or less accomplishing my two main objectives here in Jordan, which are basically to see how work is done among the majority population here (as I consider working long-term) and to help out current workers in any way that I possibly can. However, I've been concerned in the past by the extreme inefficiency of short-term work, and am dealing with the weight of this struggle right now. Primarily because of the formidable language barrier and the short duration of my stay, it seems that the focus of this last week has thus been on the first objective far more than the second. Part of me is getting discouraged that I'm "just" doing dishes or helping the Hillman boys with their batting practice (anyone who knows anything about my athletic abilities should get a good laugh from that one...), and not talking with anyone about Jesus or building relationships that would at least point them in this direction. I'm uncomfortable with special attention and training from Pat because it places the focus entirely on me. I'm very much an observer here: watching, learning, willing to help, but able to roll up my sleeves and do much less then I hoped, at least to do that which is sensational. However, I'm finding that in being willing to do "anything", which is what I have wanted of this trip from the start, it doesn't just mean doing the exciting or the dangerous things, but doing the mundane, the language study, the training. God is more glorified by the servant's heart that quietly cleans toilets at his church in American suburbia than the worker in a closed country who is really there to seek adventure.

So I press on. My remaining two and a half weeks will be work. Work to force my rebellious heart to submit to the Lord's will, work to do anything, even the mundane, to the glory of His name and not my own, work to humble myself to the point of being ministered to through the training I am receiving.

I'm not capable. I'm not good enough. I don't love God enough. I don't love these people enough. But God makes up for all of my inadequacies and more. I have to keep preaching to myself that it is because of Christ that I can do these things, only by his power. Lord, make me a servant.

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us."
-2 Corinthians 4:7

"Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come immediately and sit down to eat'?
But will he not say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink'?
He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?
So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'"
-Luke 17:7-10