You’re like a real missionary. You are doing God’s work and that is awesome. Wow that’s awesome, so you’re like super religious?
What does that even mean?
Since we have been here in the Philippines a topic that has come up multiple times is not putting your identity in other things besides God. We’ve talked about how sometimes it even seems like good things, such as being a missionary, is what you put your identity into. And as worthy as it may seem it is still no good to do that. And I feel like a lot of people are putting my identity there, which is weird, because it’s supposed to be me messing up my whole identity thing for myself. But since they are doing that I eventually caught up to that.
Going into this trip everyone, myself included, expected me to be someone or something I’m not, or maybe become someone or something that I am not yet. I had this perception of what I was supposed to look like as a missionary and what a missionary does and how they act. I was going to go on this crazy adventure to countries across the world and hang out in orphanages and meet crazy wise old people and change lives and change the world. Its gonna be great, its gonna be like this crazy blessed life I live. And I’m going to have an amazing God filled blessed day where I am in the best mood all the time every day, because I am with people that love God and I love God and were all gonna get along all the time and worship and do missionary things.
But guess what, that’s not happening.
I am still me, just like 12 hours ahead of my usual schedule here in the Philippines. I’m still a 19 year old girl who uses curse words more than she should, who makes the mistake of drinking coffee at 9 at night and only gets an hour of sleep. I’m still the same Maggie who sucks at just walking up to people and busting out the gospel and who wrote about how people falling and farting are the funniest things in the world.
Going on the World Race made me believe that I was going to have this beautiful mountain top experience for 9 months straight with only God and the gospel on my mind, but that’s not true. Once you get into life over here, that’s exactly what it becomes, life. I’m not going to lie it’s a pretty awesome one and I don’t believe a single piece of me would trade it to be back in Knoxville.
However, I am no different than when I left, my life is what is different. At home the sun woke me up as it came up through my window, here I’m woken up by about 15 Filipino girls getting ready for school. At home if I didn’t want to hang out with someone I can make an excuse or ignore the text, here I see my community no matter what. At home I talk to my close little circle that on a consistent basis is about 7 people, with some extras sprinkled in every now and then, here I have a rotation of about 20 kids that yell “Tita Maggie!” walking down the street or outside our gate while I’m trying to eat a meal, along with 37 other squad mates that I have to see every day. At home I stay in my bubble of comfort and when I need a little dosage of being a good person, I’ll give a little of my time. Here I go to places poorer than I could imagine cry when I run out of food for the 15-20 kids still left in line, then get my tears wiped away and told its gonna be okay by one of the kids who didn’t get food.
Here I still get frustrated and passive aggressive with the people I do life with. When a bat in a cave flies to close to my face I still yell a bad word and squat in a corner to calm down. I still make some rash decisions and end up looking stupid. I still fall, I still trip, I still rant about things that annoy me. I still struggle being completely focused on God and his plan for me, I still struggle staying focused on God even when I am worshiping or listening to a sermon.
The only difference between here and Knoxville, TN is that here I am looking for opportunity to follow through with Colossians 3:14, and I’m challenging myself to do that every single day all day with every ounce I have.
This isn’t a me thing, it’s a life thing.
Honestly I probably could have saved you guys some money and done this back home right where I was. Something I have come to learn though is that I’m too stubborn for the still quiet voice, and God has to punch me in the face to make me do these things. So this is my punch in the face.
Thanks for helping me get punched in the face.
