Something I’ve always feared is staying stagnant and not growing. So, when I signed up for GapYear, I was excited to see things I’d never seen before and experience change in my character. Printed on the WorldRace t-shirts, it says,
FEED THE HUNGRY
CLOTHE THE NAKED
HEAL THE SICK
So of course, I thought I would do these things in powerful ways. I thought I would witness life-changing events. I thought I couldn’t help but be changed. But that’s not what my race has been. I’ve seen some amazing things, but not anything too spectacular or extraordinary. For me, this year has been a lot of: teaching english, going to conventional church, laying cement, making friends in marketplaces, cutting weeds, picking peppers, moving roof tiles, praying and visiting tourist places. None of these are bad, I have enjoyed each of them. But they aren’t the crazy adventure I was expecting. I was expecting to be thrown out of my comfort zone, shaken by what I saw, forever changed by the people and places I went. I thought change in my life and character would come naturally and easily once I experienced things I never could in America.
Now, here I am, month 7, still waiting to experience a miracle.
I’m not saying I’m the same person I was when I left. It’s difficult to go on a long term mission trip without changing. I’ve definitely become more mature, better able to live in community, better able to love others, and these things came easily over time. However, I had several other ways I wanted to grow during this year. And those things haven’t come naturally. At all. It’s been a slow, painful process. I realized, sometime during Thailand, that I would have to work. Hard. I have to get up every morning and decide to change. If I want to be more joyful I have to wake up in the morning and ask God to give me joy for that day, and do it the next day, and the next. Then I have to choose joy in every circumstance, even when it doesn’t come naturally. And it’s frustrating. But nothing is just going to happen to me that would cause me to automatically be joyful 24/7. I wanted to desire to read the Bible but nothing would cause me to love it all of a sudden. A consistent appreciation of the bible only came through consistent, daily reading. I wanted to be more confident with kids but being here didn’t force me to go out of my comfort zone. I had to do it on my own.
So change is a long slow process, even on the race. I went on a journey away from home, hoping to change in irreversible ways so that I would come home a different person. And I will come home a different person. But the funny thing is, I didn’t have to wait until I left the country to transform. I could have done it all at home.
