I think some of you may be believing a lie about me. I think maybe some of you might think I’m on a grand vacation, traveling and seeing cool things believing that I’ve taken the year off from real life.
Do you want to know the truth? The World Race has ruined me. My best friend back home tells me almost every time we talk that basically while I’m running around the world doing cool, incredible, larger than life things in all of these exciting foreign places, she’s just at her desk, working her 9 to 5, finishing her chicken nuggets for lunch and trying to get the ketchup stain out of her shirt before anyone notices. I try and tell her the world is no different here. Real life happens in Asia, Africa and Europe too so far. I love her to death, but she’s wrong. You’re wrong too, and so was I.
I saw Angkor Wat, one of the 7 wonders of the world, in Cambodia while I was there. Its a bunch of old, crusty, misshapen rocks stuck together. It hasn’t been preserved very well, and its sort of falling apart. To be honest its just kind of ugly. People travel across the world just to see it. I can’t remember anything spectacular about the temple itself. Ya know what I do remember though? The desperation in the eyes of the children outside of the temple selling postcards and souvenirs, knowing that if they don’t sell they’ll be beaten again or not allowed food for the third day in a row. I remember buying 15 postcards from that little boy. Some of you reading this probably received one.
I bungee jumped off of Victoria Falls in Zambia. I’m not gonna lie, that one was every bit as cool as I assumed it would be. Even so, ya know what I remember most about that day? Patrick. Patrick found me before I jumped, promised to cheer for me while I jumped, then actually did cheer for me and then he led me back to his makeshift store in hopes that I would return the favor and buy something so he could eat dinner that night. He’s the reason I now collect wooden hippos.
I’ve walked famous streets, eaten exciting cultural foods, seen and done things most people dream about. But ya know what I remember about those things? I remember the reality. I remember the things that make those places real. The brokenness, the loneliness, the feeling of absolute hopelessness of the world around me. The hungry kids, the desperate mothers, the drunken men on the street. I remember the people. And then I remember the prayer I prayed at launch before the race. I prayed to see the world with His eyes and love the world with His heart. God doesn’t see Angkor Wat as the 7th wonder, He sees those children outside as the wonders. God didn’t go to Victoria Falls to bungee, He went to see Patrick. God didn’t pick me because I’m some incredible person. I’m not. I’m a dirty, unworthy sinner. He picked me because He loves me. Its why He picked you too.
You know the difference between my life as a foreign missionary and your life at your 9-5? You make a necklace out of paper clips to try and cover up the ketchup stain on your shirt until you have a chance to ask Amy if you can borrow her tide togo pen before your meeting with your boss Harold at 3. I wear that stain proudly on my tie dye shirt that I haven’t washed in a week because I am as good at hand washing clothes as Helen Keller was at vision tests and also, I don’t have any paper clips on hand to make a cool necklace with. Thats it. Thats the difference.
Real life happens everywhere. I still run out of toilet paper in the bathroom (if there even is any in the country I’m in to start with), the guy at the chicken inn still gets my order wrong, I still accidentally buy fat free milk and regret it for days and I still walk around H&M looking at clothes and feeling like a busted can of biscuits.
Stop using excuses for your lives. You’re life is only boring if you decide it is. If God has blessed you with a husband, 2 kids, a 9-5 job and a dog named Spike as your mission field and ministry then you take that mission field and ministry just as seriously as I take mine. If my life is exciting to you because I sat on a sweaty bus in Cambodia for 4 hours watching some weird Asian sit com on repeat, so that I could get to Angkor Wat then you will never be satisfied with your own life, because when you get to Angkor Wat and see that its a pile of old ugly rocks you paid $30 to see you’re gonna look for the next big thing to make your life cool and valuable and you will never find it. Things don’t add value to your life. They can’t.
So stop believing the lie that me or anyone else has a “cooler” life than you because they do things or have things that you don’t. They’ve got it better. That you’re boring because you live at home and work have a dog named Spike. Its not different here. People here still live at home (if they even have one), work (or pray every day that they could find a job), and have dogs named Spike (if they can afford to feed him as well as their 6 kids). Reality doesn’t just exist for you. Reality exists everywhere.
