There is an intense feeling which comes along with every little thing
happening at home when you are 8307 miles away from the important stuff and
9234 miles from your bed.
I want to sleep in a bed without bugs.
I want to take a hot shower with filtered water out of a shower head above
my head.
I want to eat meat without broken bones in it and cooked in something not
Asian.
I want to drink cold water from a faucet.
I want to flush my toilet paper down the toilet rather than putting it in a
basket to be burned the next morning.
I want to speak proper English at a normal pace with complete sentences and
have people know what I am saying.
I want to not perspire for 23 hours a day.
I want to go somewhere when I want to go, in a mode of transportation which
is enclosed, four wheeled, preferably air conditioned and preferably driven
by me or someone I at least know.
I want to be free to drink a beer whenever I want.
I want to not have to blog to tell my friends and family about
anything/everything.
I want to be able to talk to anyone anytime I feel like.
I want to be around people who have figured out how to not be fake because
of their environment.
I want to have more than the 11 movies I have loaded on my tablet at my
disposal.
I want to be able to kill as many hours a day as I want by watching as many
movies as I want and napping as long as I want.
I want to see a house not a hut.
I want to take a vacation and see my family.
I want to feel a temperature below 80 degrees during the day or at night.
I want to see snow for Christmas.
I want to study the bible because I want to not because I have to.
I want to have a conversation with someone who actually knows who I am, not
how I am.
I want to be cold and have a reason to drink something warm.
I want to be around people who see things from both sides of a conversation
and actually want to and actively seek to be a better version of who they
are. (I don't pray to be a better Christian, I pray to be the only kind of
Christian God calls us all to be; Christ-like Christians.)
I want to cook with cookware other than a wok or miniature pan, ingredients
actually called for and spices people have heard of.
I want to have my mission field "family" (term loosely used here, my self
included in this) to serve each other love in whatever form each person
needs love. (Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to
love. St Francis of Assissi)
I want to be around women not obsessed with – marriage, trying to change
me, themselves, staying exactly who they are and filling their time seeking
unhealthy relationships and information.
I want to be better at this lifestyle.
I want to not have to go somewhere to be in air-conditioning.
I want to be around people who seek logic before acting/speaking.
I want to be around people who don't act in their emotions before seeking a
Christlike way to act.
I want to have people actually be sorry when they say it.
I want to do something without people questioning why or how I am doing it.
I want to be around people who actually protect one another's hearts
instead of talking about it and doing the opposite. (Don't stumble over
something which is behind you.)
I want to see people make a covenant with God and keep it to the best of
their ability.
I want to see people replace themselves in a situation with the person God
made them to be.
I want to be in Minnesota with my family for Christmas.
I want to have the option of actually being alone or in a quiet place.
I want to not be sad.
From 9000 miles away, I try to remember the things God has blessed me with
because though I may not always be focused on those things, I am still
blessed. This blog might piss off a few people and it might make a few
people sad. For anyone who takes this blog personally, please get over
yourself and just assume I wouldn't spend my time communicating with my
friends and family talking about you. I sat at the coffee shop for 8 hours
hours today waiting for inspiration to write a meaningful blog to counter
the most previous blog, but when I started writing the first sentence, God
told me to just get it out. My grandfather died 1 week ago and was buried 2
days ago. There is no way to keep in how it makes me feel especially when I
am 8300 miles away. But the realization from Gods words spoken to me today
are I don't have to keep it or anything else inside me, so I am not going
to.
I guess if you want to be creative enough you could say this is my 40 wants
of Christmas but it really isn't. I don't have any notion of receiving any
of those things from anyone or because of anyone. However, if I do, then
God has blessed me that much more. Future racers/missionaries, just know
you won't love every month or every minute of ministry. You will get home
sick and you will miss things. Everyone thinks they will be the super
strong person who will be fine for however long you are gone, but it is a
virtual impossibility to not miss something. Seek God in those situations.
I am working on a more upbeat blog, but it might not show its face until I
am in Vietnam because it has been a slow grieving process thus far and
doesn't seem to be speeding up. Don't give up yet, I will get back to those
blogs I know you all love so much. Just wait a good minute and they will be
here. 😛 Thank you for following me down this crazy little detour.
As He leads me,
Jason
