Sleep deprivation, tenting in ninety degree weather, long transatlantic flights, mosquito-swarmed locations, bucket showers with cold water, and the question of “am I really making a difference?”. This is just a short list of reasons why someone like me would contemplate every bit of the last three years. Was it all worth it? Is God really in this?
I began this whole journey in January 2007 which seems forever ago at this point. I submitted my application to the World Race in search for something. I knew I’d be graduating that spring and I hadn’t the slightest clue of where I was headed next. I honestly didn’t think I would be accepted, let alone have some life-altering experience but God somehow managed to do both. Sure, I thought it would be an adventure, I’d go bungee-jumping or scale some breathtaking mountains and I knew that I’d be among extreme poverty. But this was only one year of my life right? Then I could get back to what I was doing before….right?
I now find myself three years later preparing to go to Haiti for the third time this year. I read books on social justice and the church’s responsibility to meet the needs of the poor and destitute. I search the scriptures for hope and I read how Jesus spent his time on earth with the sick and the hurting and something stirs in my spirit that never did before this whole crazy experience. I think differently. It’s as if someone removed the brain and heart that I once had and replaced it with something totally and completely different. Why am I doing this? There are moments when I sit and reflect on all that has transpired but the only answer that comes is one that I occasionally forget. Christ in me, the hope of glory.
When a starving orphan stares hopelessly into your eyes and finds love for the first time. I mean, real genuine love: Christ. When people have lost everything, house, family, stability, and they receive aid in rebuilding what was lost: Christ. When one single believer in an entire city shares the news and hope of a savior and redeemer and their number is multiplied: Christ. And when a dying single mother loses her youngest child but receives love from one who will never leave her or forsake her: Christ.
I don’t understand sometimes why God has me where I am. But I am now realizing that it probably has something to do with him establishing his presence in dark and hopeless places. I GET to do this. I GET to be Jesus to these people. After seeing and experiencing so much in recent years, I tend to get overwhelmed with the world’s problems. How can I possibly do anything meaningful or significant? I’ve heard it said once that if I was the only one in the world that Jesus would STILL have died and risen just for me. Is that true? I believe it is. And because I believe it, it changes everything. If there was only one orphan in the entire world, I would still go and hold them and pour love into their life. If there was only one person who lost everything in Haiti, I would still go and help rebuild what was lost. If there was only one mother who lost a child, still…
He’s about the ONE, so I’m about the ONE. He’s the restorer and the one who reconciles. That’s why I am doing this. If I allow myself to become overcome with all of the world’s problems, it would be easy to curl up and do nothing but God is doing something in me. I realize that I’ve had the opportunity to encounter more the one person in my life and I’m sure there will be more, but the focus remains the same; keeping my eyes on the One and for the one.
