Month 2. Swaziland. We came to El Shaddai, an orphanage in the mountains near the city Mbabane. The whole squad, all 54 of us living together in bunk beds for the entire month. Being with the whole squad was awesome in the fact that I got to know everyone on a deeper level but also to share memories with. I was excited to start a new adventure and be assigned a child that I can personally invest my time in one on one; little did I know that I would adopt more than one child to pour into. The morning part of everyday was assigned ministry and the second part of the days that followed was buddy time, team time, dinner and squad worship three times a week. In order to get our ministry assignments for the week/month we did a ministry draft. Each team pulled a number out of a hat to see who would get to pick first. I was really hoping to do painting but there were only two spots on that team. My team leader pulled out our number, it was 8th. The very last team to go. I knew in that instant that I would be on kids ministry. I thought quickly: “Well, if I can just make it through the first week than I can switch my ministry.”
That’s what I did I went through one week of kids week begrudgingly, I still made the most out of my time with the kids but I had no intention on staying in kids ministry. It left me emotional and physically exhausted after each day. I spent that first week with kids’ ministry going in with minor plans such as taking a hike, reading books, playing soccer, etc. I got to know the kids that seemed interested in hanging out with me. This particular ministry hosts World Racers every month for more months out of the year than it doesn’t. These children are used to having people walking in and out of their lives so they don’t open a door to you just because you came to see them. I spent most of that first week not asking questions about how they live, what Jesus means to them, what they want to grow up to be but taking interest in how they do life. Part of how they live is speaking their own native tongue. The first week I dove into learning key phrases in their language. After that I started to understand some of the things they were saying without ever hearing it before. I am not gifted in language whatsoever. I struggled in French and I know minimum Spanish. The week ended and I chalked it up to be a great week with some language learned that I will probably forget within the next couple of months.
I went to painting crew like I wanted to and thought that I had put in my time. First day of painting went great, We got a lot done and the kids asked why I was painting and I said that I had switched jobs for a little bit. Again I had no intention of going back to kids’ ministry. The second day of painting, the kids came up and picked up the extra paint brushes, rollers and containers of paint and helped me paint the wall. They told me that they just wanted to hang out with me and help. I know that children love to feel useful so I let them continue painting even if they did use more paint than we would have. I was taken aback by the want to spend time with me. The next day, we went back to painting and the kids were not allowed to help because of how much paint we had used. Of course they were disappointed. One kid threw a temper tantrum at me and started to kick the latter I was using because he wanted attention from me. The next day, the kids didn’t call me by name but they started to call me Auntie. Shot to the heart. Aunties are people that take care of them. I decided that day, I was doing kids’ ministry for the rest of the month and created some lame scavenger hunt for the kids to do that Friday. They went around to different racers and did pushups, drew lipstick on me, said a bible verse, etc. but they LOVED it. So I started planning more activities like that for us to do with the kids. I had already established that they weren’t open to talking about their personal life because of the recycled racers so I just wanted to show them love by playing with them, disciplining them, and continuing to try and grasp their language.
I didn’t know that this would be the theme of my month. How do I show them the father’s love when I don’t understand it myself? I started reading The Shack about week two of this month. For those who don’t know about the book, it is about a father that loses his daughter to a murderer and therefore forgets how to love and runs through the motions in his faith. I have spent most of my adult life running through the motions of my faith as well. I would worship every Sunday, I didn’t read my bible, and I would occasionally pray. I followed the rules so I must be a good religious person. I have thought of God as this person who judges you based on how well you perform his commandments. I thought of him as a person that allows bad things to happen to you to teach you a lesson or guide you down a different path. Someone that wants you to go to church every Sunday, someone that shouldn’t do this or can’t do that and someone that was with you wherever you walked but had a passive role in your life. I also didn’t understand how the trinity worked other than God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross and the Holy Spirit lives inside you. I did and do believe that the bible is one hundred percent true. I have been told this throughout my lifetime and known the bible stories but I have had no concept of what else was out there. It was like telling a child about how they should act but having no reasoning to follow it up on. Through this book, historical lessons from my squadmate Lyndi, and bible reading, I have been shown that none of this is true. I don’t want to give the entire book away but I can’t make the importance of how this shaped my month unless I give you some snip bits of the book.
The First thing I needed to start understanding that not everything in the world God controls. He has the ability to control it but doesn’t interfere because then we wouldn’t have our independence to choose the relationship with him willingly. Every bad thing that goes wrong with our World is not the works of him but because of our own sinful nature. “What happens to you in the work of evil, and no one in your world is immune to it.”
Uncovering this lead to my own heart issues of resentment with what happened in my own life. Keeping in mind that God closes doors and allows bad things to happen, I started re-evaluating. Why did he allow my uncle to die and cause my family so much pain? Why did he take away this relationship that I worked so hard to build for years? Why is my dad constantly in pain? In the book, “When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me.” That is exactly what I did. In my younger years, it was easier to follow Jesus because the adult life and complex thinking didn’t happen. The evil in the world was not apparent. We as human are naturally selfish and only focused on a why me mentality. So of course it would make sense that when we focus on our own pain and suffering that we start to lose sight of the world around us and in turn the relationship with Jesus.
This next part is extremely personal. For the last year, I have lived in the past and future. Why did this breakup have to happen? Why did you put him into my life? What does my future look like? Will I have a successful career? I have so many loans. Will I ever get married? Will I be happy? What logistically will I have to do to make this happen? “I dwell with you, I do so in the present- I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of somekind, rarely, If ever pictures me with you?” This passage hurt to read. It even hurt to type. It was true, I would almost always look to my past to help with future decisions and NONE of them involved me “being a Christian.” They always involved a small house, family, and loving husband. Why is it so hard for us to envision Him in our life? Maybe it goes back to love? It definitely did for me.
I had spent years fostering a relationship with a man. I had put everything that I had into trying to make it work because I loved him. When it ended, I left unloved and unwanted. Replaying everything trying to search for where I went wrong and what I did to make this thing end. I wasn’t even mad at him or anyone else for that matter including God. There was no anger at all, so I thought. Before we get there, I started to have future thoughts again. I would never be married, I tried my hardest and that didn’t work out. Who would want that? I started to think that I wasn’t loved and couldn’t be loved by a significant other. “You on the other hand were created to be loved. So for you to live as I you were unloved is a limitation, not the other way around and if its left unresolved for very long, you can almost forget that you were ever created to love.” I wasn’t looking for love in the right places. When my earthly love left, I forgot how loved I was by my father and my family. I didn’t love my family, friends, Jesus, or myself well during the relationship or leading up to the race because I forgot that I was created to love. Love isn’t just about two people who fall into love but love you have for humanity. These kids this month have dragged this out of me. My heart breaks leaving them behind because everyone leaves them behind. They for most will become a distant memory of a place where they visited that one time they did the World Race. Unless I feel called to come back here, that will be me too. But the point is, I loved them. “If you have judged them worthy of love, even if it costs you everything. That is how Jesus loves.”
One more thing. The next part is about forgiveness; I said that I wasn’t angry with the ex-boyfriend, with God, with anyone. I was wrong. I was angry with myself. I realized why I wasn’t able to love well was because I didn’t forgive myself for what happened even if it wasn’t my fault. Not wanting to forgive myself because then I would have to let it go so this took almost entire month. Until I read “forgiveness is not about forgetting.” I don’t have to forget what happened to me but I have to let the anger towards myself go. Through this, I found I also needed to forgive the ex-boyfriend for causing me so much hurt. I never wished anything upon you or wanted you to have a bad life after me but I did want to be remembered well. The important thing though is even if you don’t remember me just like these kids probably won’t remember me, I hope that you saw God through me even when I wasn’t choosing him. So if by some miracle you are actually reading this, I forgive you Lance. “Choose the way of the cross, where mercy triumphs over justice because of love.” Love is Jesus and you can’t truly love one another without his love.
The biggest lesson from this book I received is that “Freedom is incremental.” I am free but not completely, freedom is a slow process that needs to be fostered in a relationship with Christ. Therefore, I will never be completely free the evil one or life circumstances but I will be pursuing this life. The one that includes Jesus because then you can have real love and freedom. In heaven, you can have complete freedom.
Deuteronomy 6:5&6
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.
Deuteronomy 7:6-9
For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of the Pharaoh King of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.
