I thought I would be the one changing.
I thought I would come home after a year on the field and find things pretty much the same.
Let me tell you: I’ve been on the field for three months so far, and one thing is becoming blatantly clear to me:
I was wrong.
People at home are moving on. They’re getting engaged, getting married, and having babies.
I thought home would stay the same. But so much of home is changing.
And through it all, I find myself asking one simple question: Why am I here?
I make a two-mile walk to the township of Capricorn every day. It’s a small community living in third world conditions; an impoverished land trapped amidst a country on its’ way to becoming a first-world nation. We’re warned constantly of the danger of doing ministry there – white people are often mugged or beaten on the streets.
And so we go in broad daylight, walk in groups, and carry nothing with us. As we walk towards the township, we ask for protection from the God who desperately loves the people of Capricorn. And then we head for the library, where we listen to the children read, have dance parties, and attempt to give all the love we possibly can to children whose only existence has ever been in a slum.
Because if we don’t go, who will?
My friends at home are getting dressed up and going to weddings. They’re eating out at fun restaurants and getting free-refills on soda. They’re getting engaged and having babies.
And I’m here, in one of the poorest beach-towns in South Africa, living with 30 other people in a small hostel and eating on $2.38 a day.
My intention is in no way to trivialize the lives of my friends at home or say that their lives back in the States are wrong – not at all. My intention, instead, is to say this: “I want to be living that life.”
But I’m not. Instead, I was called here, on the World Race.
Sometimes I struggle with the “why’s” behind my journey. I struggle with why my life, my story, took me on this path, instead of on a path of relative comfort and painlessness.
Perhaps I’m struggling with this question a little more this month because the dichotomy between the poverty of Capricorn and the wealth of downtown Cape Town makes an appearance in my weekly life.
Perhaps it’s because the clash between my own two worlds, one of a middle-class privileged white girl and the other of a so-called radical missionary living out of a backpack for a year, are so blatantly obvious to me here, in this moment.
Who Jesus calls me to be instead of who I am.
The places God wants me to go, instead of where I want to go.
The people God wants me to love instead of the people I want to love.
I’ve been removed from my own reality and dropped right in the middle of, well… reality.
Sometimes I want to go home. Most times I want reliable internet, air conditioning, and ice in my soda. But always, always, am I confident of God’s calling on my life. And that calling has placed me here, in a poor South African town.
In about a week, my squad and I will pack into buses and begin the long trek up to Mozambique. I have no idea what I’ll be doing there, where I’ll be sleeping, or what I’ll be eating. The only thing I’m sure of is that I won’t know. And I won’t know what will happen when we enter Swaziland. Or Bulgaria. Or Serbia. Or any of the other eight countries we have left on our journey.
There are days when I literally cannot stand living in a small room with 12 other women. When I don’t want to share the few precious articles of clothing that I have. When I’m tired of not knowing and not being in control.
When I don’t know, I believe completely that Jesus knows.
When I’m not in control, it means that Jesus is.
And when I feel as though I can’t go on, or that eight more months is just far too long, I know that Jesus can go on.
And I know He will carry me.
The Great Commission was never meant to be a suggestion. I know I’m called to more than my comfortable, middle-class life in the States, and I know that picking up my own cross wasn’t ever supposed to be some lofty ideal reserved only for the most religious.
I question things on the Race. I struggle with why I'm here. But the thing is, for whatever reason, I know I'm meant to be here. I know that Jesus called me to this, I know that He sees the sacrifice, and I know that He is pleased.
And if that's all I know for the entirety of my Race, I'm pretty sure I'll be okay.
excerpts from Decisions that Define Us by Graham Cooke
We’ve decided that teaching the Gospel without demonstrating the Gospel isn’t enough. Good preaching, good doctrine, and being good people is not enough.
We’ve decided that reading the book of Acts without living the book of Acts is unthinkable.
We’ve decided that hearing about the Holy Spirit without experiencing Him is silly. That believing in His presence without seeing it manifested in signs and wonders is hypocrisy. That believing in healing without seeing people healed is absurd. And that believing in deliverance without seeing people being delivered is absolutely ridiculous.
We’ve decided to be Holy Spirit filled, Holy Spirit led, and Holy Spirit empowered – anything else doesn’t work for us.
We’ve decided to be the ones telling the stories of God’s power –
not the ones hearing about them.
We’ve decided that living saved, but not supernaturally, is living below our privilege and short of what Christ died for.
We’ve decided that we’re a battleship, not a cruise ship. An army, not an audience. Special Forces, not spectators. Missionaries, not club members.
We’ve decided to be radical lovers and outrageous givers. We’ve decided that we are a mission station, not a museum.
THEREFORE:
We are not limited to the four walls of a building – our influence is not restricted by location. Not even nations are out of bounds.
We raise up world-changers, not tour guides. We train commandos, not committees.
We’ve decided that nothing short of “His Kingdom come and His will be done – on earth as it is in Heaven,” will satisfy.
We are people of our destiny, not our history. We’ve decided that
it is better to fail while reaching for the impossible
than succeed in settling for less.
