I’m sitting in a carpeted attic, on a mattress on the floor, staring out the window at the topmost branches of the trees outside this 3 story place, called the White House.
And I am wondering, again, why I am here.
Why did I agree to do this?
And why I didn’t promptly find a way to go home; get on a plane and fly back to Korea where “I belong”.
So here I am. Trying so hard to be here and wanting nothing more than to get out of here.
Not because of the 12 (more like 8 on a consistent basis right now) people that I am with.
Not because we (homeless though I am) lived in a shelter with homeless for a week (although that would not have been my desired start to a year with people I had literally one hour alone with up to the moment I was processed as if I was in a juvenile detention center).
Not even because of the pressure and expectations from AIM (that I would desire to be done another way).
Because of me.
It is all me.
Here’s the people I will be doing life together with for a year (below).
There is a great deal of me that automatically focuses on how I am feeling and what I am thinking and what I do or do not want.
I know. That doesn’t make me special. We are all like that right?
.
Echos of past insecurities well up.
I try to swim a different way, but I can’t.
To be authentic, I can’t.
So I will follow the rhythm of this lap,
and hope that over time I will become smoother, and quicker, and more agile.
I will face the next lake, or river, or ocean with courage.
I will do it again and again and again,
until that final breath
and when I sink,
I shall swim.
.
I came out of obedience to God, and I desire to follow Christ into whatever journey He invites me into.
I’m not here because of Adventures in Missions, I’m not here for America, and I’m not here for my team.
In saying that, in accepting this invitation from the Lord, I am TOTALLY here for AIM, America, and my Team.
How do I find a rhythm of honoring everyone and living the genuine me?
How do I make service a rhythm that neither ignores my needs, nor binge moments them? How do I live “missionally”?
I feel like it is so much easier and less structured than I have and am currently experiencing. So how?
Pray that I find it, and that in this time my individual team members also find it so that we can live the best team harmony possible in this crazy doing life together year!
.
my current meditation: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/darkness-does-and-will-descend
.
This week we are living with and serving a group of people who have come together to live in close community.
One of my teammates Mel, put it this way:
They are moving church buildings in the midst of constructing new community housing locations and for the last few days we have been helping them sort through, clean, box up and pack items and then move them to a storage unit.
We eat lunch, worship, play games, and eat dinner together.
We are sleeping in the attic of one of their community places.
People scatter during the day. They leave for their jobs, or their school, or head over to the church to voluntarily work on projects on their time off.
There is a mix of World Race Alumni and non world race alumni and it’s hard to tell where that starts and ends. Their food and their space is shared.
That’s this week.
Just spending time with, getting to know and serve alongside these believers in Black Mountain North Carolina.
