One of the many things that got started in Carabuela was the building of the outside foundation and walls of a structure. I’ve never built a building before let alone by hand. One thing that has been running through my mind is how similar building walls are to how the Body of Christ interacts with each other.

The first phase of the building was to actually start below ground. A trench was cut in order to set footings for the walls. Our footing as Christians starts when we proclaim Jesus as the Lord over our lives.  Psalm 40:2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He is the groundwork in our walk. He is the anchor that holds the whole thing together.

Then we put rocks in the trench. They were inlaid individually in cement. Hundreds of rocks, at the time it almost seemed like thousands.  In our spiritual walk, even though we are individuals working to build a relationship with our Savior, we are still called to act in the kind of unity that binds together with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him we are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Eph 2:21-22)

Then there were the 1200 bricks we used to actually form the walls. Each brick alone was just a brick. But when we laid the bricks side by side, it became a fortress, a structure of unified strength. But there was something else.  The bricks couldn’t stand alone. There was mortar in between. The mortar didn’t have to be perfect, but there had to be enough so that no light showed through and that when it dried, and shrunk, it still performed its duty as glue that held the bricks in place. For us, the Word of God and prayer is our mortar.  If a chunk falls out of us or we need guidance, we open the Word of God and fix the section of our life that is falling away from the strength of the whole. Prayers solidify us to each other and to God. These things help to prepare us for works of service, so that we may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of  Christ. (Ephesians 4:12-13)

Of all the things that made the most impact on me the whole trip was when one of our young people came to share what the Lord showed her in His Word. She wanted to share, but she also had a ton of questions. There was a hunger in her that she didn’t know how to satisfy by herself. She was just a brick alone.  hen she came into or room, she was placed next to two other bricks and then there was the mortar of God’s Word and prayer that was shared that cemented those three bricks together. It was the start of something bigger: more than the beginning of a structural building that was started in Ecuador, it was the start of the building on the foundation of Christ and His Kingdom right here within this church family melding two different generations together for His Glory.