Back in Bangkok… yet again.
Our stay in the Philippines was amazing. Looking back on the month, I’d say that my team challenged me (in a good way), the new ministry of set up was refreshing, and the contacts we met along the way made me think about what I’ve really learned in the last 9 months.
We’ve experienced God’s provision to it’s fullest extent throughout the months. In Mexico, we lived in our tents and had the pastor’s wife cooking the best food we’ve eaten all year. In Nicaragua, God provided an oasis in the dumps (a little piece of heaven on earth). In Peru, we lived at the base of one of the highest mountains in the world, and even got a chace to climb to it’s base camp (who can say they’ve done that?). When we arrived in Buenos Aires we bunked in the world’s most awful hostels, but it just happened to be right around the corner from a daily feeding ministry that ran out of a church basement.
Mozambique offered some of the most challenging yet affirming conversations for me… a confirmation from the Lord that my heart really is for women. In Swaziland, I had my worst case of diarrhea, but we were celebrating Scott’s birthday and had gotten a hotel room that night… with a PRIVATE bathroom! God provided for another man during our stay in South Africa. While God had given us a beautiful guesthouse and “parents” for the month, He’d also used us to save another man’s life (He provided life for that man). In Thailand, Scott and I were given the opportunity to have a new team dynamic, which seemed to come at a sort of breaking point. That provision came with perfect timing.
And during our time in the Philippines, we found a community of American missionaries… a high school with American youth (I’m kind of attached to teens, and to high school athletics in general), and contacts who wish to be fully involved in getting World Race teams to Manila (and Mindanao). But God provided something even more interesting; a venue for people to be asking me questions about my experiences this year. People who genuinely want to know what the World Race has done to change me. Their favorite question seemed to be “What have you learned this year?”
That’s a loaded question. With many different answers. For sure I’ve learned a lot about different cultures, different people groups, different religions, different communities and families. But the key word is different. And this applies to the people on the Race with me. I’ve learned a lot about grace. And using it in order to understand and respect our differences.
God created us in different bodies, with different personalities, driven by different hormones, born into different backgrounds, with different intelligences, with different talents and giftings. And He did it all with an amazing purpose… to show us how much grace He’s given to us, and to have us use that same grace to give to one another. Somehow, this translates into love. The connection is there, I’ll leave it to you to find it.
So while we’ve been gallovanting the globe (some of you wishing to live vicariously through us… but only during the good times), we’ve been doing much more than just sight-seeing. We’ve been experiencing God at some pretty basic levels. Grace seems so basic. But why can’t we exercise it that basically? What I’ve found in my own life is that anytime I practice it my ego takes a backseat… my right to be right gets offended so quickly.
Just because I’ve learned how to respect and be challenged by others who are different from me doesn’t mean that I don’t try to unlearn this grace. But that’s when I’m operating out of my own strength. which would lead me to want the Holy spirit in my life that much more… because when the Holy Spirit takes the wheel I tend to exhibit more of His fruits. And living with fruit is what energizes (even on a basic level, fruits offer the carbs you need, not the carbs you want).
Will I ever arrive in the grace department? Probably not. But I’ve come a long way since leaving the States. Sometimes I even think first before I speak.
