I’m an emotional cryer. For those of you who have had the pleasure of experiencing this firsthand, you’ll know it doesn’t always mean I’m sad or depressed. Sometimes I cry when I’m angry and can’t seem to find the words to express the blood boiling within me. Sometimes I cry when I’m happy – like really, really happy. Empathy can bring rivers cascading down my cheeks.
Last month I cried when I found out there was a Taco Bell just a bus ride away from me in the middle-of-nowhere-Philippines.
Reminders of home, my favorite movie, and even the thought of my teammates killing the mice that have made a home downstairs can get me choked up. Thinking back, though, I haven’t let out a good cry in months. And not for a lack of trying. I’ve sat in prayer rooms, churches, and my hammock practically shouting out to God “JUST LET ME FEEL SOMETHING!”
He’s reminded me time and time again that a lack of feeling does not always mean a presence of numbness. I am not numb to emotions. I am not numb to the sad stories I encounter. I’m not numb to my teammate’s testimonies, and I’m not crazy for crying over menial things like Taco Tuesday.
God has had me in a season of waiting for a while now. What He has me waiting for, I have no idea. And this isn’t the first time He’s done this to me on the Race. I can think back to Serbia and remember wondering what I was doing there. “I came on this Race for You to rock my world, live radically, and change people’s lives. Why isn’t anything happening within me?” But something was happening inside me, I just didn’t know it yet.
When God puts me in a season of waiting, He works in my life in the most subtle ways possible. Ways I won’t recognize until months, even years, later. He finds cracks throughout my days to fill with His encouragement, truth, and guidance. He does this through songs, Bible verses, conversations with teammates and friends, sermons, even a really excellent cup of coffee.
Last night, I cried. And not a cute single tear rolling down my face. No. It was full on head against the wall, shoulders shaking, breaths heavy and sporadic, knees buckling, fingers gripped tight.
This month, we have the privilege of partnering with the Penang House of Prayer and spend up to 13 hours in the prayer room each week. You can imagine how frustrating this can be when you think you aren’t hearing God’s voice.
On the far wall of the prayer room, there is a large map of the world about 15 feet wide. I was immersed in scripture when I saw everyone around me stand and walk towards the map, laying hands on specific countries and closing their eyes. I looked around to see I was the only one who had no clue what was going on.
I heard one of the worship leaders pray for the nations, and it clicked. We had been asked to lay hands over a nation we had a heart for and pray for revival in those countries.
Our team flooded to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. I didn’t have enough hands to cover the countries affected by the Syrian refugee crisis. My left hand over Morocco, and my right on my teammate’s shoulder, tears started welling up in my eyes.
Last night, I cried for the refugees. Every person who feels lost, who doesn’t have a home. Every mother, father, grandma, and child. Every man traveling alone, and every man leading his family through the treacherous journey. For the refugees who had reached asylum and were settling in to new homes with those memories forever branded into the front of their brains.
The crowd surrounding the map started to settle, and I began climbing over chairs to stretch my fingers from Pakistan to Iraq, with the pinky of my left hand barely crossing the border in to Syria. You couldn’t tear me away from that map in that moment. It took me back to my time on Lesvos and at the camp in Eidomeni. To the refugees I did life with for almost two months. To my friend, MD, who I speak with monthly. To the men who walked me through those camps protecting me from people they didn’t know, and introducing me to their friends who they’d traveled with for months. To the women I now consider sisters, our hearts forever connected.
God has given me a heart for these refugees and I have been incredibly blessed to work with them for a second time on this eleven month journey. Here in Malaysia, my team is working at a refugee school for children who have escaped with their families from Burmese persecution.
I had a man from Iran tell me that “if this was you instead of us, you’d do the same. I promise.” I had no doubt about that then, and after meeting these families and teaching these children, the realness of his promise runs deeper within me than ever before.
A few of us talked about the likelihood of staying in Greece had serving the refugees been our month 11 on the Race. It was pretty much unanimous that it would benearly impossible to rip us from those camps.
By the end of this thing, my heart won’t just be with the 11 countries to which I traveled. It will belong to Syria. It will belong to Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast. My heart will be ripped and divided between every nation that has brought me new relationships through this crisis.
I don’t know what you’re being exposed to in the media, but all I can do is beg that you would take a moment to hear the stories of these nations. Learn their backgrounds, and what they are going through. One man, inches from the Macedonian border, explained it to me by comparing it to World War 2. Not everyone knew about the tragedies happening in Europe until they were exposed. The catastrophes occurring were hidden, like embers under the ashes, and there was nothing to be done in the very beginning. He said he can see this thing being exposed – eventually, and fully, like the events in the Second World War. That one day, the world will come together and fight against this. But until that moment, all they can do is fight for themselves.
