For those of you that have been following my journey on the race, I’m sure you’ve noticed I haven’t posted for about a month. It’s been difficult for me to try and find a good balance when it comes to blogging. I don’t want this blog to be a diary where I vent all my struggles, but I want to be authentic. At the same time, I don’t want every blog to be wrapped up in a pretty bow with an excitedly optimistic cliché at the end because that’s not me either. So in the time since my last blog, I have found it difficult to decide what to share and what not to share hence the slightly-longer-than-a-month-blog-fast. However, I feel like I am finally at a place where I can share my heart truthfully and what the Lord has been doing in my life without bleeding my heart or putting a mask on it.
END OF THAILAND & CAMBODIA:
If I could sum up my experience in the past month and a half, I’d probably choose the phrase “not my favorite.” Hear me out.
Once ministry finally began in Thailand, our team began to hit the end of our “honeymoon stage” (as I like to call it) and we were struggling to love each other properly. There was quiet tension and I was struggling with my own judgmental nature. With some guidance from our squad leader and a lot of grace from God, we were able to begin taking the conflict to the Lord and discuss the conflicts with each other. I mean, it wasn’t perfect—trust me, it was not perfect—but I think we really all started to realize how important it truly is to seek first the Father so you can love others from that place of overflow. It sounds so simple, and I suppose it is in theory, but complacency can really sneak up on you.
When we came into Cambodia, we got to experience some R&R in Siem Reap during our debrief time. It was nice to experience beef hamburgers and some quality Western food, A/C, and actual beds. While these six days were awesome, as soon as we left the bubble of Pub Street (that’s the tourist area in Siem Reap—don’t get too excited) it quickly became apparent how different the rest of Cambodia lives.
Our ministry this month was to live alongside the children who live at “The Children’s Home” in Kampong Thom, teaching English and loving on them all the while. We also went out to different villages to play games with village children and lead a small Bible Study and English classes with high school aged youth.
While our ministry may sound like exactly what any good missionary should be doing (and you’re probably right for thinking that), I struggled. Living with kids that aren’t yours, who don’t speak your language, and even if they did, probably wouldn’t obey you anyway can be extremely exhausting; it’s almost like you never really leave ministry. At the same time, teaching isn’t exactly where my passion is either…I often feel more drained than refreshed. Our living conditions were infested with ants that loved my bed, our fruit, and sneaking into the refrigerator to eat whatever was left in there, too. And to top it all off, I truly started to “bat zero” with my luck at the end of the month. Needless to say, I was truly ready to get the hell out of Cambodia.
But then I remembered a prayer that I prayed in Thailand. It was one of those that kind of just sneaks between your teeth or slips off your tongue…one that, after you hear yourself pray it, you’re like, “crap…do I really want to ask God for that???” It went like this: Father, break me of my confidence in self and help me to rely on you alone. Help me to truly know what it means to seek you and find you when I seek you with my whole heart (Jeremiah 29:13).
When I first embarked on this race, I really felt like the Lord was using it as an exercise in trust with Him and I think He’s kicking it up to the next level. Especially after this past month in Cambodia, I am really feel like I am starting to see glimpses of what this is really about. It’s not about going out and feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Don’t get me wrong, those are good things, but without being founded in the love of the Lord, they are just more things that you should do. I am realizing that this race—this life even—is about the adventure that you take with the Father. I am learning that my heart needs to be focused on Him alone and that when I am truly, truly seeking the Lord with my whole heart, the love of the Lord and the acts will follow.
But to seek the Lord with your whole heart involves trusting Him with your whole heart. I am learning that it is the most vulnerable I will ever be; when you are following the Father, you are consecrating your heart to Him, saying, “I will go wherever you want me to go, do whatever you want me to do, and I will trust that whatever I face in this adventure, you will carry me though it.”
I’m not saying that I have this all together, that since I have begun to understand this truth that I live it out perfectly, mediocre even, but it’s not about the finished product, it’s about the journey.
So as this journey in Asia is coming to an end and we are heading to Africa, I am truly amazed at the relentless love of the Father that makes you grow even when you don’t really want to and am excited to see what He has in store for the next chapter in our story.
