Dirt roads and floors. Buildings made from bamboo. Palm frond brooms.
Plentiful gluten-free food. Fresh bananas, pineapple, and mangoes.
Mountains covered in rain forests. Wild orchids. Palm trees.
Screened windows and open doors. A semi-constant fresh breeze. Rain…and more rain.
Tribal melodies with homemade instruments. Paintings made from mud. Dirt bikes.
Why in the world would I not like the Philippines? For anyone who knows me, they can probably imagine how perfect this scene is for me.
However, I’ve also had the most uncomfortable moments here. I’ve surprised myself with how bad I can be at dealing without comforts.
I thought it would be easy for me to give up clothes, make-up, and even my flat iron and hair brush (pretty difficult for a hair stylist), but this month God has shown me something about myself. I’m conditional with my commitments…
“Ok God, I’ll go IF You provide food for me.”
“I can travel the world as long as I have some of my own clothes.”
“I can stand to get dirty during ministry as long as I have a clean towel.”
“I will love others, as long as they love me back.”
I didn’t realize that these were even thoughts that had actually entered my mind let alone become my entitlements for this “race”. Yeah, the World Race is difficult. Even if you think you can handle hard times like crazy long travel days, extreme moments of testing your patience, weird food and bugs.
I came into this adventure thinking I’d be one of the “better off” people because I have traveled a lot. I figured I could handle all this hard stuff. And I have done a pretty good job, but only by God’s protection. Because I have had to deal with other difficulties, I really feel like God has shielded me from really feeling the ‘usual’ World Race insanity. Until this month…
Let’s start with the last time I did laundry was in China, probably the 20th of December, and only half my clothes. Spending a night on a 20 hour train ride to Beijing… Then in Beijing I get sick… By the time I get to the Philippines on January 3rd, I’m more than ready to wash all of my clothes. However, a couple days go by before we figure out the laundry situation in our new living environment.
So my clothes (plus the precious towel) get combined with other clothes and put in the back of a truck to go to a laundry place (yay electric dryer!). But a few days later they come back… not washed… and soaked in rain water. It turns out the laundry prices were too expensive so instead we have to do our own. Don’t get me wrong, I am completely fine with doing my own laundry, but we barely have enough water pressure to flush the toilets without using buckets.
I know I’m being really detailed with this story, but I’m trying to show how the patience I thought I had can still run out. So then after sitting for a couple days…wet… my laundry finally gets done and hung up on lines outside. Since it’s the Philippines and we are in a rain forest, things already are going to have a hard time staying dry. I am aware of this after living in Florida for 4 years. However, it is extremely frustrating when you wash clothes three times and they come back smelling worse than they started.
Now I have moldy-smelling sweatshirts, underwear, shirts and shorts, and worst of all, my towel. I think this was the first time I officially almost had a freak-out moment on the Race. I thought I was doing so well with mix-matching two outfits and showering with a Bahamian-wrap for four days while being patient for my laundry to get done. You know, this is the World Race, we deal with things as they come.
I was not ready for some of the few comforts I had left to be ruined. Not ready for a moldy towel. Not ready for clothes that do not feel clean. Not ready to give up the last few things I was holding on to…
Okay, so of course there are worse things than moldy clothes and towels. But that’s what I’m getting at. I was serving God with certain conditions in place. All while feeling proud of how I was dealing with the “standard” hard World Race stuff.
This is how it works though, right? We clean up what we can in our lives and feel proud about it, while holding on to the few super important things that we can’t live without. Then we get moldy… And dirty… And smelly. And we can’t clean ourselves up no matter how hard we try.
That’s when we finally see the real importance in life. Seeking Jesus Christ. As our sole Savior and comfort. Even in the midst of our mess. Even when others can’t stand our mess. Even when we smell so bad we don’t even want to be around ourselves. He will come in and clean us up.
But it’s not a quick rinse. He has to take us through refining processes. Several of them. Just like I’m going to keep washing my clothes, as many times as possible this month while also using bleach and anything else I can get my hands on, God uses several different methods and routes to clean us from our dirt.
So while He’s currently doing this is several different areas of my life, I’m still realizing how much I constantly need Him to save me. He’s opened my eyes lately to how much I’ve been finding comfort in things other than Him. Things that will never meet that need so I need to learn how to redirect it. Or else I will continue to almost have a break down every time one of my “comforts” gets moldy.
