For me, when I think back on this year, it won’t be a year. It won’t be a series of travels, or a series of months, a number of countries, or even a number of moments. It’ll be the faces.
Faces you won’t see and will never know, simply because stories won’t do them justice. Photos lose a little bit, too- a lot actually. I’m crazy about these faces. The shy little girl whose “hola” I can barely hear. Koke, the man who does endurance horseback riding and takes us to the market in the back of his pickup truck. Nadee, she knows she works too much. Julia, the only face filled with light in an orphanage I feel oppressed at. Laura, the coffeeshop owner who told me she’s been wondering if there’s more. Victor, the optometrist who stayed up for hours with me and a friend because he couldn’t stop showing us photos of his chubby, smiling, brand new firstborn son. The pastor who brought me to tears with prophecy. Nothando, who never let her walls down enough to let me in before I left her at the orphanage. Maria, whose strength carries the Lord’s love.
The sad eyes I find myself namelessly praying for when I lay my head down at night. The youth I’ve found coming alongside of us in almost every ministry, men younger than myself, fiercely chasing the Lord’s heart. The Buddhist woman brought freedom. The drunk man mumbling about Jesus. Nguyen, who is building his church this year, and Peter, who is content with his being a stick canopy. The six year old too shy to tell me his name, but wordlessly proud to show me his puppy. Countless faces who have promised me their homes are always open to me. Who have promised me they’ll see me in heaven, that we will all rejoice.
I fall asleep trying to remember all the people I want to pray for. I stress myself out over their salvation. I go over their stories and their faces in my mind, write them down in my journal. I hope heaven comes with supernatural memory, but if it doesn’t, I don’t want to have to ask their names again.
And sometimes I wonder why I care so much to have these faces engrained in my mind. Why these people with short or long encounters affect me so strongly, take up a place in my heart when I watch other people’s ability to love in the moment and then let it go. Travel’s kind of hard on a girl who falls in love with people and their brokenness everywhere she goes.
I can’t help but love the people I’m not sure I’ll see again. I’m convinced that Heaven will be a beautiful reunion for me, sweet hugs to all the faces I’d almost forgotten. Sitting down and talking to the people I’d spent minutes or hours or days with, whose children I’d held, whose struggles I’d broken for, whose names I’d unavoidably mispronounced. Catching that first eye contact with people I wasn’t sure whether I’d see there. Hearing what they have to say without the language barrier.
Faces. There are so many I love yet I keep finding more I can’t live without another hug or smile or word from. I’m the one my team is always waiting for to finish a conversation with someone that popped out of nowhere. I’m the one who prays for supernatural Spanish because I’m tired of limited conversation topics. I’m the one who cries for a week for a woman and her daughter I spent 20 minutes with.
I’m not sure what my face means to them. White, blonde, over-eager American girl, sure. They think my hair is pretty and they think my voice is funny. They think my Spanish is bad. And I know some of them will remember that. But I hope they see some of what I see in them too- a soul whose home isn’t here, just like theirs. Made in the image of God, just like them. Carrying the Lord’s love through my countless mistakes, in the same way they tend to sweep me off my feet with.
Faces. 11 countries later and I can’t seem to find a more beautiful thing, a more impactful view. I can’t shake them, but I’ve stopped trying. I can’t love all 7 billion, but I seem to be doing okay with my portion so far.
I can’t communicate the stories, because words can only bring faces so far. Photos, only a bit further. Faces stick with me, carrying the Lord’s heart. Bringing me wake-up calls. Demanding, insisting, absolutely flooding me with the unshakable belief in a God who saves.
I’ve been changed, of course. But not by the bus rides and the 12 different currencies, not by the 200th day in a row eating rice and not by the long runs through Cambodian rice fields and Indian jungles.
Faces.
