Today was still hard. Today I was still confronted with where I was, in the midst of a completely different mindset, and had to reconcile it with my own culture and values.
The people here are so kind and on the outside so happy. I don’t know them well enough to speak of their emotional condition any more than that. Even as they are wheeling patients out of a hospital, peeling off their soiled clothes, and washing their bodies, they are happy. They are upbeat. They are glad to help. That has been such a beautiful thing to see. Any time people give love to those who need it, while showing them honor and giving them dignity, it makes my heart so full.
Even so, at the nightly volunteer coordinating meeting, they always ask who is leaving and those people can say some words if they want. A man from Poland was leaving and got choked up expressing his gratitude for all he had learned about human touch and the connections he had made with people. It was inspiring. But then he said he obviously needed to work on his detachment, since he couldn’t stop crying. It was heartbreaking. He had spent two weeks loving people so well, but was now saying he had grown too attached to them.
My whole team was just screaming on the inside: brother, loving is what we’re called to do!
It is very hard on us to live in this. We’ve only been here two nights but it feels like much longer. Both nights we’ve all talked about how we are feeling and what we’re thinking. We are leaning on each other and the Lord. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s not hard.
I think the Lord has placed us here not to necessarily “win” people for Christ. What I love about Team Edge is our spiritual awareness. We love people and we’re not afraid to have our hearts break for them. We’re not afraid to get angry at the enemy on their behalf. And we pray hard. We have done a prayer walk both nights and I think it’s our new tradition while we’re at the monastery. And I know we are in prayer throughout the day. We are here to change the spiritual atmosphere. We are here to lay a foundation for other believers who will come. Just our presence in this place is permeating it with Holy Spirit.
But not only that, we are speaking boldly. Every day, more volunteers are hearing about the Race and what God has done in our lives because we have decided that there is no reason to not be completely transparent. What are we waiting for, otherwise? Why not just say we’re here to love people and share Jesus? And it has really been that simple. Still nerve-wracking, but so simple.
I’ll share one story of the day with you guys. So, I did patient washing which is what I described earlier. We wheeled patients out of the hospital to the bathing area and bathed them. Easy. These are patients who can’t otherwise bathe themselves. There was one man who was completely soaked in his own urine. I knew he had to be so uncomfortable – but he couldn’t change that without someone helping him. As soon as other volunteers began peeling off his shirt, he started grinning. I’m talking the ear-to-ear, filled with relief, amazingly grateful kind of grinning. He was so glad to get out of that! And who would react any differently?? It made my heart full to see him so happy and to know that he would soon be completely clean and refreshed. Such a simple act creates so much change in us as humans.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but isn’t that just like the Lord?? We are helpless without him and stuck in our own filth and sin. But then, because of His great love and grace, He peels away the layers of grime and washes us clean. I can’t help but smile! And, even more than what I got to do today, the Lord makes it so we are never filthy again. We’re not made clean then left lame and bound to a wheelchair. He makes us free to leap and jump. He gives us total victory- complete purity! I’m so grateful for His grace. I hope that, whatever the Lord has for us here, we can stamp His grace all over this place.
I know we will.
