If you read my last blog post, you know my January in the Lao jungle was filled with bricks, wheelbarrows, and sweat.
I don’t know if there’s many other poetic ways to describe last month, and I don’t know how many other ways to describe my month other than “I hauled bricks. For 6 hours. And I loved it.”
Another month of manual labor taught me even more about how loudly my actions speak- and I was humbled and amazinged at the opportunities God provided my team to speak life and Jesus to the non-believing staff we worked with, as well as visitors to the lodge/resort area.
The staff we worked with didn’t speak much English, but I learned that Love doesn’t need a language; I saw it communicated in so many other ways this month. I saw Love communicated as I walked out a commitment to inviting God into the process of leaving people and places better than when I found them.
One of my favorite parts about spending a solid 4 weeks at one ministry site with the same people was showing them that I cared about them. I tried to show them this in one simple, probably-annoying action: pointing at something and saying, “In Lao…?”
While the extent of my vocabulary is the ability to fill in the blanks to say [small/large] [green] [snake/spider/frog], I had a lot of fun with those few words. I asked how to say “fun” and “good job” and “sorry” (all of which I used frequently playing soccer and a Lao game called “ka-taw,” a mixture of volleyball and soccer). I think my random pointing at creatures and objects and asking “In Lao…?” at the least, showed them I was interested in their language, and hopefully that I was interested in communicating with them. When we left the bricks for a few days to do other manual labor jobs at a drug rehab center, the men being rehabilitated really got a kick out of my random vocabulary, and my exclamations of “good job!” playing soccer was always returned with a cheer.
And even when the lost people I interacted with did speak English, I found it better to let Love speak for itself in my actions.
Because the ecolodge we were partnered with houses guests from all over the world, I also had the opportunity to hang out with visitors who were very different than I. One off-day, I hung out with two young Canadian men, Sam* and Max*, who work on Canadian reality TV shows (for reals). They taught me card games for hours, and I got to share with them about what the Race was all about. Max was hilarious, with a big laugh and fantastic facial expressions, and Sam’s competetiveness was on par with mine. Hours pased as we swapped travel stories and tore into some friendly competition: two of my favorite things.
Mid-afternoon, Sam, Hannah, Dylan, and I decided to float some tubes down the river we were living on. The reality of living a missional life was brought into clearer focus for me during that hour.
“You’re all Christians?” Sam asked. I answered that we were.
“That’s so interesting- it’s cool to meet travellers like you.”
“In what way?” I asked.
He puzzle over the question and his beer and replied, “I’ve never met Christians like you before.
I so badly wanted to word-vomit about missionaries, but I waited for him to elaborate. I wasn’t disappointed.
“I’ve never met Christians that travel before, who travel so much. I’ve travelled a lot,” he said, rattling off an impressive list of countries, “and I used to fit in with the typical travelling crowd. Going out and partying all the time in all these different places-but you guys aren’t like that, I can tell. I mean, obviously you’re different, and it was fun to party and all, but I like what you’re doing.”
I knew exactly what he’d meant; I’ve been to 11 other countries pre-Race and known those same crowds.
“I’m glad you can meet us, then. Christians who travel, that you can hang out with. ” I said with a laugh. Honestly, it just sounded funny to think of Christians not travelling, since I am currently eating, sleeping, and breathing the foreign missions life.
“Christians who travel,” “Christians who fail at learning foreign languages,” missionaries; when I read between the lines, I think it just came down to “Christians who care.” And while I can’t fathom how Sam has travelled so much and not met Christians, I was honored that God let me be a part of his day and shape part of his experience with the Body of Christ: listening to how he met his boyfriend, what it’s like working in Canadian reality television, what his opinions on Trump are, and plotting a great strategy for beating his friend and Hannah at a card game called KEMPS.
The key word there is “listening’, which I’ve learned is one of Love’s nonverbal languages, and from my experience, listening to another is one of the best ways to leave someone better than when you found them.
In the evening, Sam and Max were astounded when we wrapped up a game of Spoons because it was past our usual 8:30PM bedtime.
“We have to work at 8!” we protested, promising that we would stay if we could.
At 7:30 the next morning, Sam came down to the dock and was met with a sight that I wouldn’t blink twice at, but I saw his curious gaze over his coffee: all of us Racers spread amongst the dock tables, all silent, all reading our Bibles. I waved and said good morning as he took in the sight of so many Christians Who Travel doing Christian Things While Travelling.
By 8:30, I was back to hauling bricks as usual. Our two new friends were checking out of their cabin and stood on the path. When Max saw us, he literally bent over with laughter.
“You weren’t kidding about the manual labor! You…have…a…wheelbarrow…” he said, still laughing. I threatened to run him over with my wheelbarrow and said my goodbyes.
While learning about leaving things better than I found them (like the potholes and the lodge staff), God showed me that even when I’m not the one leaving (yet), He cares that they leave better than when they asked the two random girls to play cards. He showed me that on my “off-day,” He wanted to make me a place of invitation and new perspective for someone else.
The work I did physically wasn’t for any immediate benefit to me, but for the love God has for the many travellers who will bump down that brick-filled road in the future. My day spent with the Canadians wasn’t about me enjoying an “off-day,” but about the love God has for them, and I prayed that they continue to see God’s invitation.
Between my brick hauling, not-completely-useless Lao vocabulary words (I mean, I could at least tell someone that a big/small snake/spider/frog was about to kill them) and my new Canadian friends, I hoped that I communicated Love through my actions- the ministry I can choose every day.Whether I was speaking Lao or speaking English, my true ministry was ensuring that my actions spoke even louder: “I care. I invite you. God cares. He invites you.”
Leaving people and places better than when I found them is a commitment to allowing God’s transforming power into my walk. While I may enact the physical transformations, He is the one who waters the seeds I that I may not even have realized I planted. Death is made into Life, separation becomes peace, and lives can change.
This month, I saw a road transformed, a field of bricks transformed, and a Canadian’s ideas about Christians transformed. These changes may be small and they may be just the beginning, but I take heart knowing that my actions were a magnifier of Love.
*I only changed their names because I think it’s weird to talk about people who don’t know you’re writing about them*
