Much like all of life, the Race is often whatever you make it. You have to make decisions based on your limitations, likes and dislikes, and based on what you’re given. Last month contrasts this month extraordinarily. Last month was all very organic: we prayed about, thought about, and planned every action. We dug deep for Bible stories we thought would resonate with the hearts of the children in the community. We shared some of the harder parts of our testimonies because we knew the people of Struizendam would relate. We prayed together before we planned or left for an activity. There was lots of planning involved, but there was also ample down time. I had enough time to read two and a half books, journal daily, and have three cups of tea (five roses) before we left for ministry. Most days we didn’t have to actually do ministry until 2pm, which gave us the morning to have quiet time or play games together or whatever. Most mornings it was too cold for anyone to be out and about anyway, so we just walked/lay around with our sleeping bags draped over us, shivering.
We arrived at our South Africa location in the afternoon last Monday. On Tuesday, we started ministry at 7:30 am. The time was not disconcerting or anything, but it was kind of crazy transitioning from waking up at sun-up and lounging around, lazily musing on the word of God to teaching a VBS music class at 8 in the morning. On the Race, you encounter each of these types of ministry. Sometimes you have to fill out your ministry time with creating your own ministry. Sometimes your day is structured from breakfast until sundown.
For me, for whatever reason, it is easy to feel connected to God and like I’m doing what I was created to do when we have months that are organic like Botswana. We get to know the community; we get a feel for the hurts of the people and what we believe the underlying spiritual hurts are. I get easily invested because we are feeling these things for ourselves, firsthand. Other times, our ministry contact will fill us in on the community needs, struggles, etc.
We have completed one week of ministry here in Grassy Park. Our first week granted us some stability: we did pretty much the same thing every day. I taught the music class for VBS. The curriculum wasn’t very strict so I taught the kids a few of my favorite worship songs in addition to the songs that I was supposed to teach. It was incredible. Earlier in the Race, I struggled with feeling that my voice is the only way I’m “effective” in ministry, as if any of us are “effective” without the leading of the Holy Spirit. Anyway, Jesus has ministered to me incredibly throughout my time on the Race, and I’ve become more confident in who He has created me to be, and I’ve been able to pass it on with joy to children all over the world. God is pretty awesome that way.
This week, however, is a totally different story. The women are working in a daycare/preschool type thing, and the men are doing manual labor around the preschool area. It’s not dissimilar to things we’ve done in the past (Guatemala, Malaysia, and Swaziland). The difference is the point at which it’s coming in the Race.
It’s month 11. We’ve made it. If I wake up thinking about it, I start getting teary-eyed, so I push it from my mind. It’s not that I miss my family, though I do, and it’s not that I’ll miss the Race, though I’m sure I will, and it’s not that I’m exhausted from 11 months of constant travel, thought I certainly am. In earlier months, I would sit at a daycare, holding a child, and I would pray for that child. I would pray for his or her future, and I would pray that they would come to know Jesus as soon as possible. Lately, when I sit around holding a child, I zone out, or I think about what I’m wearing on the flight home or about hugging my Mama and Daddy at the airport.
South Africa is the closest taste of home for my team so far. It’s excellent for transition. The house we’re staying in has bunk beds, and after three consecutive months of sleeping on our sleeping pads on the floor, it’s quite the blessing. We have hot showers and flushing toilets, and electricity. Our devices stay charged. We don’t walk to ministry; the pastor picks us up in a van every morning. We are two blocks away from a legitimate grocery store, not a convenience store, and within a 10 minute drive, we can be at a Super-Walmart type deal. On Saturday, one of the squad leaders, Jessie, and I took the train to an actual, honest-to-God mall. We sat and had lattes, then walked around the mall, searching for particular items, just like I’d do on a Saturday at home with my best friend.
But it is still not home. There are still days when tears well up in my eyes because my hair needs some desperate professional attention or because I don’t want to wear my only pair of jeans for the 10th day in a row.
There are days that bring tears of a different sort, too. Something they don’t tell when you sign up for the Race is that you’ll spend a decent amount of time trying to figure out exactly who you’ll be when you get home. You get excited about bringing passion for the gospel into every day, suburban life. You get anxious that you’ll be the nutcase friend that everyone avoids at parties. You get a little terrified you’ll lose sight of who God is and what he’s done over the past 11 months. Mostly, you look at a picture of your pre-race life of complacency, and you see yourself so easily slipping back into it without the support system of your team. And that makes you cry a little bit.
Here’s the thing about being a Christian: it overtakes your life. It has to. When the Holy Spirit takes hold of you, you start filtering your thoughts, actions, deeds, and prayers through the gospel of Christ. It’s good and it’s right, but it’s also hard as hell sometimes. My heart is self-absorbed beyond my own understanding, and when I go to try to give preference to one of my teammates, sometimes pride wells up within me, and I eat the last of the oatmeal, anyway. That’s a silly example, yeah, but it happened this morning. I thought being a missionary meant I never cursed anymore, too (and so did my Mama, I think), but that’s not true, either. I learned those words in seventh grade on the softball team, and while I’d like to say that whispering Jesus’s name when I’m angry, sad, or terrified is my first and only inclination, that’s just not true.
Here’s the truth: It’s month 11, and it’s easy to get busy with ministry, and not in the thinking about Jesus way. Holding babies, loving them, has eternal implications, but definitely even more so when you pray for the child in your arms. Ministry is a choice and not only in the physical act of getting out of bed to love on people. You choose it in your mind and your heart, too. It’s intellectual. It’s emotional. I know you know this, and I do, too, but I just forget sometimes. I forget that this is a spiritual battle and that distraction is quite possibly one of the most dangerous weapons that I can come up against. It’s a continual fight to hand my heart, my mind, my everything, over to the Lord, whether there’s structure or not, whether I like ministry or not, or whether I’m going home in three weeks or not.
This will be the choice I have every single day for the rest of my life. I pray I continue to choose Jesus. I pray you will, too.
Grace and peace,
Sarah
