This month we’re featuring stories of what it means to live life on mission. What can God accomplish through us when we stop treating missions as a special event and start living purposefully every day?
Expedition Racer, Nicole Wolf, recounts an experience she had in Nepal when God manifested his might powerfully through her and humbled her in the process.
A little over a hundred days ago, about thirty of us young people set out from North America to change the world. We were selected from hundreds of applicants, chosen for our “high level of physical endurance, adaptability, leadership, and spiritual maturity,” according to the casting call on the description of our route.
I’ll admit, when I qualified into the final 10 percent, I felt like a million bucks. Getting picked from those odds felt like a very tangible measure of spiritual maturity.
Our job description is, in the words of our leaders, to “heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead and make disciples of every nation.” I’m an eyewitness to the fact that we are succeeding.
We feel very qualified.
We have a lot to give.
We. Us. I.
Where’s the “God” in those statements?
I didn’t recognize then how much value we had placed in our own abilities on the basis of being described “the best.” It was pride, and I was completely blind to it. But I get it now:
God has hand-picked a bunch of North American young people who were told they are the best and is in the process of humbling them. Repeatedly.
It’s still early in our Expedition Race, and I’m on a seven-day trek up Himalayan foothills with my team to bring much requested Bibles to the most remote hills of Nepalese villages. We also have instructions to share the good news to those who have never heard it, pray for the witch doctors, and heal the sick people that are brought to us.
I had a moment to sketch this home as we rested in its shade.
It’s entirely God’s grace that I’m sick for almost all of it.
I have nothing to give, and that means that the credit goes where it should.
We stop outside a mud and bamboo hut carved into the near vertical face of a mountain of rock and dust. The barefoot family that scratches out a living here stands before us, holding sick babies. They’ve never seen foreigners before. They’re all dehydrated, underfed, and covered in dirt.
I’m empty handed, covered in dust like them. I’m unable to speak their language, so I can’t even give a word of comfort. I have absolutely nothing to give them.
If God does not heal, the people will stay sick.
All the pressure is on Him, exactly where it should be.
I didn’t think this is what I’d be doing on this trip. My fundraising platform said something about empowering communities to help themselves, through their own people. But I can see in this moment that introducing the people to Jesus who does all the healing is a very good strategy.
“Bring us anyone who is sick, and Jesus will heal them.”
They bring us all the babies who are not growing. We pray for all the babies. We pray for all the little children with chest colds and headaches.
“You need to pray for our grandmother,” the family says, “she’s up making sacrifices on the mountain.” The people here are mostly animists, worshiping all things in nature and sacrificing often to keep spirits happy. The witch doctors promise healing, but the people are still sick.
Finally she comes. “What is hurting?” we ask.
“My headache, my heart problems, my knees, elbows, my back hurts …” she tells us through the translator. We pray. She is immediately healed.
Unblinkingly, she asks for more prayer. “My cough, my eyes,” she says.
We pray. Her cough goes away.
“Can you see?” She doesn’t indicate an answer. The translator tells me, “She can only see black, like a black cloud.”
I have nothing more to give, but I’m completely convinced that Jesus is going to completely heal her and make His name famous in these hills. I don’t know how He’s going to do it, I just know He is.
“Jesus is going to heal your eyes,” I tell her.
It’s a very simple faith. Foolish even, to believe something so bold. A wise person might call it quits and save face. But I’ve been sick and weak so long, and I’m so aware of my humanness in this moment that I don’t care about dignity.
I pray again, sitting on the dust with her, the crowd gathered around. I feel like putting my forehead on hers, so I do. I don’t know why, I just do.
There doesn’t seem to be a change, but I don’t feel like it’s over.
“May I draw you?” I ask. “I want to remember you.”
She nods and squats in front of me, hands holding her head. She doesn’t move the whole time I’m drawing.
It feels a little silly to just draw someone who you didn’t see healed. Why would you want to remember that? But in the moment, it makes sense. I feel like my work is done. I’ve asked my Father for a gift of healing for her. Now I just need to wait and see what He does.
This image of her beautiful face was the first thing she saw.
When I finish, I turn my sketchbook around and hand it to her.
She holds it for a moment, and then pokes it with her forefinger.
“Eyes, nose, mouth,” she grunts.
Her family gets really excited. “She can see! She can see!”
“Can you see?” I ask her. I really want to make sure. I ask her several more times.
The translator relays the excitement back, “now she can see white, and lines. She can see her own face, her eyes, nose, and mouth.”
And for the first time since we met her, she smiles. A big, gummy smile.
This is how the Kingdom works. Up is down. Down is up.
I have nothing. I did nothing. Jesus did all of that.
God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise: God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
Miracles and manifestations of God’s power don’t happen through me or my teammates because of anything we do. It’s entirely because of who God is. I’m not the best of the best, I’m a fool bound by love to Jesus.
God is not bound by our social constructs; He defies all of our logic in how He chooses to do things and whom He decides to use for His glory. Nicole was weak and had nothing to give, but God used her to heal an entire family in a remote Nepalese village. Do you long to be used by God to make much of Him even in your weakness? Check out our routes and apply!
