We have 1 week left. Just 7 days.
I will admit that I am sad, excited, scared, but most importantly changed and prepared for the next season of life. This has been the best season of my life so far but I understand that I can’t pitch my tent and stay here forever. Still, it is not over yet and there is joy to be found right her, right now.
As our days on the Race come to an end, I am finding myself quite saddened by the increasing frequency of the countdowns to comfort, “7 days until I can use a real shower again!”, “7 days until I can drive my car and sleep in my own bed.”, “7 days until I can eat at my favorite restaurant.”, “7 days until I can catch up on my favorite TV show.”, “7 days until I can wear cute clothes again.”
The increased focus on our return to being comfortable has led to a steady decrease in team worship, prayer and time with God.
I am just as guilty as anyone for looking forward to the comforts of “home”. (I particularly miss watching sports live and hearing the commentary in English and going to the movies.) Yet I am not quite ready to leave behind this beautiful community environment that has been my home for these past 11 months. I began the Race with the attitude that the poorer Christian communities of the world were closer to God and therefore I could learn more from them than I could from my teammates and my Squad. The Lord completely blasted that misconception out of my head and has opned my eyes to the incredible love and wisdom growing inside of my family of Westerners that have been my only constant companions, aside from God, during this journey.
I must confess that I began the Race incredibly jaded and judgmental toward Christians, especially we privileged Christians of the West that I thought (and still think overall) spend too much time focused on ourselves and too little time living what the Bible calls true religion, which is uplifting “the least of theses”. For the first 4 months, I walked around self-righteously judging or losing patience with anyone I thought stayed on Wifi too long, read their Bible too little and prioritized our team and ministry too far below their own comforts.
Then the Lord began to slowly convict me and release me from that anger and judgement. He showed me that I too had my priorities mixed up. I thought that the needs of the men, women, and children in the countries where we were doing ministry were more valid and worthy of prayer than that of my own team or even myself.
I told the Lord that the poverty that exists in our world and the fact that Americans are known more for McDonald’s, KFC, Apple, beer and marijuana than we are for Jesus despite the millions of missionaries that have gone out, are because we have neglected fasting and intercessory prayer for the poor. The reason why children and young girls are trafficked freely around the world, including in the United States is because we Christians are too busy debating dogma in our churches and on Facebook and are not paying attention. I got even angrier and pointed out to the Lord that there are millions of Christians around the world who are being beaten, persecuted, and killed for their faith, largely because many of us Christians of the West prefer to be comfortable at home, in our beds, with Netflix and a pizza. I felt like I was called to a “Jesus turning over the tables of the moneychangers in the temple” moment. Then, the Lord responded lovingly with a devotional on May 29th called “Jesus’ Righteous Anger” by Elizabeth Duffy in Living Faith: Daily Catholic Devotionals. Here is an excerpt,
“When people lose their temper in argument, they often note that Jesus affirmed righteous anger when he threw the moneychangers out of the temple, and that, therefore the rest of us sinners are entitled to anger when we judge a disrespect for holy things.
The thing is, Jesus’ anger was without sin. He could judge the intentions of the moneychangers with the wisdom of the ages, and with the foresight of the Lord, he knew that no innocents would be harmed by his rebuke.
The rest of us have no such wisdom. And it’s usually only in hindsight that we see how in our anger we’ve inadvertently smashed one of the little guys.”
There were sadly many times when one of my teammates spent extra time on Wifi one day because someone in their family died and they were trying to get all the information possible using the internet because they could not be there in person. Or a teammate was Skyping into her best friend’s wedding, or checking on her sister who had just given birth to her second child. We have all made sacrifices to be here, and though they were all worth it, sometimes it is hard to know if our attention and prayer should be more focused on what is going on at home or here or on our own internal struggles. During those times my teammates needed my prayers and help, not my judgment. Jesus never taught his disciples to judge one another but rather to have continuous compassion and to serve one another.
Everyone on my team has struggled with hurts from the past, including abusive parents or husbands, being abandoned by one or both of their parents, being mistreated by people of another ethnicity, drug and alcohol addiction, sexual abuse, low self-esteem that led to suicidal thoughts or simply growing up with incorrect ideas about those different from them. These past experiences, often catalyzed and perpetuated by “Christians”, have left us all defensive and distrustful of most people including the people of God. On our journey we constantly encounter situations and live with people that remind us of past hurts many times in the absence of the comforts we have depended on all of our lives. Being constantly reminded of obstacles from the past while facing new challenges and trying to tear down the walls we’ve built is hard work, and is often tiring especially when we do not have the things we usually turn to for relief like TV or a car. Building trust within our team community in such an environment has been an uphill battle.
The Lord showed me that we as Christians will never be truly effective in bringing peace, love and righteousness into the world until we can bring such things into the lives of each other. Looking at it this way, our Team C.H.A.R.G.E. community is nothing short of a miracle, a glimpse of heaven on earth. We are a team with different races and nationalities, catholic and protestants of different denominations or no denomination, very conservative Republicans, very liberal Democrats, moderates, those who believe in evolution and those who believe that evolutionists are enemies of the Bible, people with and without college degrees, male and female, ages 21-29. With all of these seemingly hard line dividers stacked against us, we love each other and we love to be around each other. We pray, worship, and discuss the Bible together, but we also talk about our opposing views pretty frequently, and there has never been a blow-up argument. We, by the power of God’s gracious and sweet Holy Spirit, have been able to have discussions about topics that we are highly passionate about, where our views are strongly opposed, and do so with listening and attentive ears, open to understanding. We are able to come together and preach and teach the Bible peacefully, even when we interpret the meanings of certain passages differently. We can do this because despite all the past hurts and betrayals, we have found trust and healing with each other. This trust was cultivated by a willingness to “lean not on our own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5) but to look to Jesus, and see each other through His eyes of compassion. We know that in everything, within our team and with Jesus, we can find grace for every fault and every weakness.
Though I have been moved to extreme compassion for people living in poverty, children being trafficked for manual labor and sex, and Christians being persecuted for their faith, I have been moved also by how hard we as Christians have to fight against the world, the forces of darkness, and even ourselves to achieve Jesus’ last wish before going to the cross, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:21)
None of us are going home unchanged with less love in our hearts than before. We all have a deeper connection not only to God, but to one another. We all have fasted and done prayer walks together (most people had never fasted or prayer walked before the Race), and read our Bibles with a greater attentiveness to the teachings of the Holy Spirit, and advocated for “the least of these” more than ever before. When I find myself getting frustrated with the “countdowns to comfort”, I remember what my teammate Katia taught me last night; that these countdowns are signs of sadness, that we will never have this moment with each other again before we are reunited in heaven, and that we are searching for authentic joy that can compare to what our spirits feel now, in the next season of our lives.
I will return home with amazing stories of people living all over the world practicing their faith diligently with less than half of what we have at home, but I will also return with stories of how what divides many people in our home towns and churches was overcome in our travels and can be overcome at home too.
