When will the monkeys get old?

The monkeys are back!

The other day I was on Skype with my sister, catching up on life, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving in the trees outside the window.  I looked over and sure enough there were about 4 or 5 monkeys hanging out again!  I was immediately distracted from my conversation.  I explained in an excited voice, "There are monkeys outside!  The monkeys are back!  They are in the trees!"  I even tried to bring my computer to the window to try to show my sister the monkeys playing outside.  After a few minutes of watching the monkeys on the trees and trying to take a decent picture with my phone, they moved on, and I returned to my Skype call.  She asked me, "When do you think seeing the monkeys will get old?"  I don't know.  It's still pretty exciting to me every time I see them.  Even Ivan gets excited about them and he's seen monkeys hundreds of times.  Will there come a day when I am no longer thrilled to see monkeys in the trees?  When it no longer causes me to be distracted, when it no longer catches my attention?  Maybe it will just become normal and comfortable to me, the sight of monkeys.   Isn't that what happens in our relationship with God sometimes?  His amazing gift of salvation becomes normal and comfortable to us, it no longer thrills or excites us.  We read on Sunday from Revelation 2:3-4  "You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.  Yet I hold this against you:  You have forsaken your first love."

The love of God for us and our complete gratitude towards Him can never get old.  We cannot allow it to get old.  In Revelation, this was written to the church in Ephesus, which was doing good things, working hard, and not giving up; yet they had allowed the reason behind it all to get lost.  It is a message for me as we work tirelessly to plan and prepare for our upcoming Young Life Camp to not lose sight of the reason behind the long hours.  I'm not painting posters and organizing materials so that we can have the best camp ever.  I'm working hard because Christ died for my sins and has given me eternal life and nothing can separate me from His love; and I want every teenager at camp to understand and to know the truth of Christ's sacrifice and love for us.  So, instead of allowing stress to enter in when our projection of 80 campers has turned into 120 campers, I choose to remember my first love and praise God for the overflow of kids planning to come, who will hear this amazing love story between God and us.

Please pray for YL Camp Oct. 31-Nov. 3

Another reason for praise:  I finally got my cedula (my official Ecuadorian identification card)!  Woo-hoo!  Happy to be done with paperwork for awhile. 

Fun day at Parque de la Familia with a different kind of monkey ;)