It’s No Reflection On You

The other day I was sitting at the kitchen table studying for Sunday’s sermon and MJ was washing dishes. When, all of the sudden she said, “do you notice anything weird over here?” So I looked and there it was... a mushroom. Now you may think, “a mushroom? It’s not that strange to see a mushroom in the kitchen. We cook and eat mushrooms in the kitchen all the time.” But she wasn’t cooking mushrooms or eating them... there was an actual mushroom growing under the countertop in our kitchen!

Now, before you go judging us, let me give you some perspective of our situation. We live almost at the top of the highest mountain in our state. Literal clouds periodically roll through our front yard because we’re so high-up (in altitude). Sometimes when we’re coming home from Curitiba on the highway and we see our mountain (miles away in the distance) and where we live is sometimes above the clouds. Our house is surrounded by the Brazilian Rain Forrest. We’re in the jungle. There’s water everywhere. Streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, springs... you name it- they’re all around us. It’s wet!

As beautiful and lush as everything is on the outside, the problem is that all that “beauty” creates moisture on the inside of all the houses here as well. The houses here aren’t insulated and you have your windows and doors open all the time anyway (because there’s no central heat/air). So there’s no escaping the moisture. And, because of the excessive moisture, there’s mold growing everywhere! On our walls, on our ceiling, on MJ’s decorations, on everything. We have these little things that we bought that are suppose to 'wick' the moisture out of the house but they’re no match for all the moisture in the air. There’s no escaping all the moisture. Almost all of the furniture that we shipped from the States is ruined because of the moisture as well. Drawers won’t close right because the wood is swollen with moisture and the  shelves under all the sinks have collapsed (or are in the process of collapsing) because they stay wet all the time. 

We have to burn all of our trash here. So we usually use paper to start the fire with. But even trying to light the paper can be difficult. As soon as you bring it outside it starts absorbing moisture from the air and, depending on what time of day it is, it can almost be impossible to even light the paper on fire! Here, I’ll give you another example of how much moisture is in the air:

We don’t have a closet for our clothes. So we have these big Rubbermaid containers that we store our clothes in- stacked up in our bedroom (fancy, I know). Well one day I went to get a pair of my shoes out and there was so much mold growing on them that you could hardly see what color the shoes were! Seriously?! They’re in an airtight plastic container...”what’s up with that?!”

Here's a belt that was hanging on the back of our bedroom door.
It's a black belt- NOT a gray one! That's mold all over it! Crazy...

Here's one of MJ's jackets hanging on the back of our bedroom door.
Those white/gray splotches are mold! No wonder I have such a hard time breathing here: (

It’s common to drive down our road and see mattresses, pillows and blankets hanging out of people’s windows, on their fences or on their clotheslines drying because of all the moisture that was created on them when they slept on them the night before... it’s bizarre. Bottom line- it’s wet and moldy here.

So back to the mushroom growing in our kitchen. When I told MJ that I wanted to take a picture of it she said, “no” because she was afraid that I was gonna write a blog and show people (what would give her that crazy idea?) and that someone was going to see it and think she wasn’t a good housekeeper or something. I, of course, grabbed the camera anyway because I thought it was awesome: ) It’s like we’re living in some kind of dream or something because this stuff is crazy! Who would’ve ever thought that we would be growing our own mushrooms? lol! It’s no reflection on her as a housekeeper or on us as a family- it’s just the way it is because of where we live. Plain and simple. So why hide it?

Here's the little guy- peaking out from under our cement countertop (fancy, huh?)

You see, there’s something inside of us all (as humans) that doesn’t want other people to see any of our flaws or any of the imperfections in our lives. It’s like we all want people to see how awesome everything is in our lives but we’re afraid to let anyone see the things that aren’t. If you don’t believe me, just take a quick look at all the posts on Facebook today. People only talk about the ‘highlight’ and never the ‘lowlights.’ 

It’s crazy, because we may not all have mushrooms growing in our kitchens, but we all probably have stuff going on that we hide and that we don’t want anyone else to know about, right? And it’s all because we’re afraid that someone would think less of us if they knew. Sorry, but that sounds a lot like pride. We all have issues in our lives that are a byproduct of the broken-fallen-sinful world that we live in. 

As followers of Jesus, the problem with only letting people see the ‘perfect’ things or only the things that are ‘pretty’ in our lives- is that it limits our ability to minister deeply and effectively. When we only let people know about all of our ‘wins’ and never our ‘losses’ it gives them the impression that their life is messed-up because, next to ours, their life doesn’t measure-up in the slightest. But when we’re transparent and honest it opens up so many more avenues into people’s lives because they don’t feel like we’re speaking down to them but actually to them (from the same level). 

Now, I’m not talking about airing all your dirty laundry to the entire world. I’m talking about letting people see that you’re not as perfect as they think you are. I’m talking about being real with people so that God can use you to speak into their lives. Because as we focus more on being honest and we put less effort into keeping up the facade that everything in our life is perfect- the easier it will be to minister to other people. And as Christ Followers that should be paramount to us- not ‘keeping up appearances.’

So what mushrooms do you have in your life? Is there anything that you try to hide because you don’t want people to think less of you? If so, you may not want to take pictures and write a blog about it, but you may want to start letting people see the real you. It’s liberating so give it a try: )

Wet and Moldy in Brazil,

Jim