"You Think That's Natsy?"

Before arriving at our hotel, Pastor Erick began to explain that he chose the best hotel available to us in the area of the city, where we were going to spend the next five nights. The fact, that he was explaining he did the best he could, was not a good sign, so, we said what nice missionaries say, “Oh, I'm sure it'll be fine.” We missionaries say this with convincing assurance, while our stomachs knot up.

Where we stay is always a toss up when we travel to new places that we are not familiar with. I have had some interesting and uncomfortable situations take place over my years of missions travel around the globe. This would prove to one of those uncomfortable teaching moments.

We saw the first red flag when we went inside the reception area where we had to speak through a small opening at the bottom of very thick glass partition, where we would pass our money and passports and they would pass the room key. Signs were posted all over the walls announcing, “No Smoking” and the smell of smoke filled the thick air. Behind the thick glass were not only carbonated drinks and chips and sandwiches to buy, but also liquor bottles lined the walls right behind the thick protective glass. When something was purchased it was passed through a metal door that spun around to receive the money first and then you could receive the things that were paid for.

When I arrived in my room, the cleaners had just finished making the bed and putting some TP in the bathroom and spraying some nice smelling stuff...the nice smell was almost too much...but I thought, “I guess this smell beats what it could smell like .” I was to find out soon enough, that it would smell... like it could smell...and that smell never left.

Most hotel businesses in the area of the city are not just hotels but motels. A hotel is where you would stay with your family, but a motel is where people take someone where they only need the room for a short time. Pastor Erik did the best he could to find us a legitimate hotel, in a huge city where the motel business thrives.

My friend, David Andersen and I, would find out very quickly that it was a very busy motel. There was never a time when we could not hear couples arriving and leaving and slamming doors and all the sounds that could be heard from the rooms beside us and across from us and down the 60 yard hallway. It was difficult to drown out the sounds even with my music as loud as possible being played on my computer. There was no way to turn on the TV to try and drown out the noise because the TV was in the rental rooms for the purpose of entertaining the clients that rented the rooms for a specific amount of time.

The other thing, absolutely unavoidable, was the motel managers knocking on doors to let the occupants know that their time was up...and the discussion that would go on between the manager at the doors and the occupants. The manager would warn, “If you don't open the door and give me 200 more pesos then I will have to come in there and get you out of the room.”

What drove me crazy was when we would return to our rooms after being out all day. As soon as I opened the door an incredibly bad odor would hit me like a shovel in the face. I would call the desk and ask them to please come help with the odor. A few minutes later, there would be a knock on the door and a helpful attendant, loaded with a spray bottle full of magic, would begin to spray the carpet, like he had done it a thousand times before...and I was sure he had. Then he would look at me with a big smile and say in perfect English...”OK?” I gave the thumbs up and he ran out the door.

This type of cleansing had to take place every time I left the room for a few minutes and returned.

It was not until the night before we were leaving that I discovered what the horrible odor was.

After brushing my teeth at the sink, I stepped near a trash can to throw the wrapper away from the soap. My foot landed in a wet area, made a squishy sound, and I lifted it off the floor very quickly, my nice clean sock on my right foot was soaked.

Because I am a person that has to make sure that the floor was indeed wet, I had to step in that same spot... again. That familiar odor slammed it's aroma into my sinuses. But because I was still confused about this incredible pool of ooze that I had finally discovered, I had to prove it to myself by taking the fingers on the right hand and touching the spongy spot and then for some strange reason I held those same fingers up to my nostrils. I took, what I thought was a careful inspective whiff of those fingers and I almost lost my breakfast. The detective in me had finally found the thing and the place that was making this room a nauseous nightmare.

I immediately opened my door because I heard a vacuum cleaner running outside my door. The nice lady was actually cleaning the room across from me that some clients had just left and I asked if she could please bring the magic smelly sauce. She knew exactly what I wanted when I made the international sign for a spray bottle with the accompanying sound...”Flipht...flipht!” She smiled, dropped the vacuum handle without turning it off and grabbed the magic spray bottle and followed me into my room.

I went direct over to the wet oozy spot on my carpet and said, “Huelle muy mal, puedes hacer algo?” “It smells very bad.” I said, “Can you do something about it?” Then, the next statement said, said it all, quickly reminding me, that I was not in Kansas Toto.

The cleaning attendant said in beautiful Spanish, “Well this room always smells bad because there is a pipe busted under this carpet that comes from the bathroom. But it's not nasty. The water is clean.” To which I said, in the best Spanish I could, “Well if the water coming through the carpet is clean then why does it smell so bad?” Then she admitted with sort of a questioning, “Because it comes from the bathroom?” “Eso es!” “That's it!” I said.

We had finally come to an agreement that the odor was bad, the carpet was wet and the magic spray bottle was only going to help so much. So she soaked the spot down with the magic liquid in the bottle and shut the door behind herself when she left the room.

Here is what I learned from my smelly experience.

My walk with the Lord can be allot like my smelly room. I can look, “Ok,” to most folks and even seem to have all the things I need, to be complete, but just under my surface, I have issues. I am often invited to speak to folks who don't know the issues I deal with deep down, where the Lord knows my mess. Unless they spend enough time with me, they will never know that I have nasty ooze under my layers like the carpet had just under it's surface. If I let the smelliness of sin go un-dealt with, eventually all the magic spray in a bottle will not be able to cover up what I try and keep hidden. I can be as nasty and hard to be around as my room was to be in, if I continue to ignore my own issues...my own sins. Thank God that he chooses to use us in spite of all our smelliness. When the Holy Spirit does his convicting and Christ does the cleaning, we are able to be used by Him.

Thank God that he does not smell my nastiness or see my dirtiness when he looks at me. He sees his son, Jesus Christ, who died, once for all, for all my nastiness and smelliness. Can there be any better news? The Gospel of what Christ did on the cross allows God to use me with all of my issues, smelly or not. And for that I am overwhelmingly grateful.