I find myself being one of the few awake on yet another overnight bus.
You would think after all these months I could sleep on our journeys to new places but instead it turns into sweet time with the Father. The Lord and I both benefit from me being too tall for the seats in all of these foreign countries.
Instead of sleeping I let my mind run wild for a little bit. To see where it goes. To see what’s my focus. At the moment my focus is on leaving yet another country that I came to love over the month. It only takes one kid, I’ve learned, to completely break down some walls in my heart and to let a country get in my bones. My mind runs to the times at the care point when I would hear “teacher!” at least 5,000 times because the kids just wanted someone to acknowledge that they matter.
My thoughts race to the times on public transportation where the journey to hop on an old 15 passenger van included proposals
and a whole lot of stares by people just wanting us to say hello to them.
My thoughts race to coming to know a city like a local. To being able to tell my other squad mates how to get to my house. To knowing all the shortcuts. To walking in my house after ministry and telling my friends all about what Dominic and the other kids learned at the care point that morning.
My thoughts don’t run to the tough things that happened this month. The miscommunication or the frustrations or the other things that come with community and working with people from a different culture. I don’t let it run there. While I think that learning from all those things is important I think that processing through all the goodness of the Lord in a month is a better place to be at the moment.
The goodness of making friends with Indian shop owners. The goodness of asking kids if they know Jesus and them bowing their heads and closing their eyes because they know that he hears them even on the middle of the playground. The goodness of friendships being built day by day, lightning storm by lightning storm, in a house of women. The goodness of being known by our public transportation driver because he saw us every weekday for a month. The goodness of spending a Saturday all alone at the house because those moments are worth more than an adventure when living in a close community. The goodness of having kids come running to give you a hug every single morning when you arrive at ministry even when the language barrier is more evident than I wanted it to be.
The goodness.
That’s what this travel day’s focus is. So much goodness makes it hurt like hell to leave. Does that mean I regret letting the goodness in? Nope. I had a decision starting day one of Swazi… I could have either had a miserable month and been hurting everyday wishing I was somewhere else or I could love with everything I had and let it hurt at the end.
Either way hurt was going to be there and I decided to let the pain be worth it this month.
What I’ve learned this month… Trusting the Lord to continue the work He was doing before I entered into Swaziland on a bus full of friends. He allowed me to be part of it for just a little while. He gave me the opportunity to go in and love some kids who so desperately wanted it and in the midst of it He changed me. Like He does every month. I crossed the border out of Swaziland different than the person I was when I crossed into it.
This race is a beautiful thing and my prayer is that after I’m back on American soil in three months that the change the Lord wants to do doesn’t stop. That I end every single day different than when I began. That I press in and opt in and take every opportunity to talk to strangers. To say hello. To tell them about the goodness of the Lord.
Because I believe with all my heart that the Lord is going to use the goodness of Swaziland to change some people’s lives back in America and I can’t wait for that day.
I have 1 hour left of a 14 hour flight. We will be in the Dominican Republic Soon!
