Lately the Lord has been taking me deeper into knowing His voice, and discerning clarity and revelations from Him. I’ve been pursuing hearing from Him clearer by making some of my own day-to-day sacrifices. One of those has been a hiatus from social media. In taking time to really reflect on life without apps, it’s given me an eagerness to share some of the things that you would never see on an Instagram story, a Facebook post, and most likely not in many of our blogs. I wanted to share some of the behind the scene moments that are rarely captured, but always felt. Moments that don’t make the highlight reels, but are possibly the most weighted and poignant ones taking place. Moments that cry out the meaning of “life is ministry, and ministry is life.” Moments that remind me why I came on this journey in the first place.
The Race is made up of three components: community, intimacy, and mission. Part of what we’re doing is living in community, day in and day out. Community is most simply centered around relationships; fostering love among your team and squad mates, learning from leadership, loving on your host families, and meeting people and getting to know them all around the community you’re a part of each month. Another part is intimacy: your intimate relationship and connection with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. This looks like growing your relationship in studying the Word, worship, prayer, fasting, new disciplines, and obedience. Being on the Race, this is like a honeymoon season with God so long as you’re personally investing into it. And the last part of what we’re doing is sharing the gospel with those across the world that have maybe never heard it before. Sometimes mission is pouring into those that have heard it with edification, encouragement, and fresh life where their faith may have become stagnant. This part of the pie chart often looks like our designated “work” for the month in each place we visit. But much of this “work” comes in the unscheduled parts of the day. The moments that were never listed on a schedule or a be-there-at-this-time sheet.
These three components make up each day on The Race. Every single day looks different. “What exactly ARE you doing each day along this journey?” We’re living out each of these aspects in all we do. Whether we’re at a special needs school, serving the homeless at a soup kitchen, buying an ice cream cone from the same gentleman at the local warung, preaching, leading worship, talking to the same family that we pass by every day walking to the gym, or praying for someone who’s sick, we’re immersed in a lifestyle of living on mission. The moments that happen organically because of the beauty of these components gracefully flowing together are the best moments. They’re the moments that exude the character of Jesus; being made into his likeness and inspiring others to do the same.
These are the moments I want to share with you; the moments you won’t see on social media.
You won’t see Caroline sitting in the back of the church alone with the most elderly woman in the room; holding her hand and conversing with her in the little English and Bahasa they both understand.
You won’t see Annie stepping out during the middle of worship to sit with and love on a non-verbal young man that’s disabled while he’s laying on a palette by himself in the back of the room.
You won’t see Aaron stopping while we’re walking around the city site-seeing to give his leftover food to a homeless man on the side of the road. You won’t hear or see that man’s name, or the prayers that were prayed over the future of his life that day.
You won’t see Morgan and Isabelle get the first aid kit, and step away from their lunch to doctor the wounds of two foreigners who had had a moped accident. You won’t see the gentleness, care, and smiles they exuded while doing this either.
You won’t see one of our teammates battling sickness for a couple days, keeping the most positive attitude with a nearly 102 degree fever. You also won’t see 12 teammates laying hands on her, praying for healing in Jesus name, and watching her wake up feeling great the next morning; a totally broken fever and no medicine taken for that purpose.
You won’t hear the ringtone sound of “Surrounded” go off in the middle of McDonalds, that leads to meeting two local Indonesian pastors who are in reckless pursuit of sharing Jesus with people who have never heard his name. You won’t hear the prayers prayed in English over them and their churches, nor the translations spoken aloud, line by line in Bahasa.
You won’t see the family of a completely different faith calling our host pastor who follows Jesus to come pray over their loved one who’s just passed. You won’t see the tears in the family’s eyes as we shared that God had revealed things to us in their home that we wanted to share later. And you won’t see or hear the powerful prayers and worship that happened in the van on the way to pray that night, and after leaving.
You won’t see John with headphones in his ears, guitar in hand, and YouTube opened on his laptop, determined to learn a new worship song the day we find out we’re leading for part of the service the same evening. You won’t see the dedication that goes into being a musician for the Lord so that others are able to come into His presence through that medium.
You won’t see Hannah seeking out relationships in every single place we visit– be it the mall, at a cafe, at a local market, on the beach, in church, or at a community meeting. You won’t see the eye contact and direct intention she exudes from the Lord so that they feel seen and known by Jesus, just from her conversation.
You won’t see the woman selling bracelets on the beach in 90 degree heat, carrying loads of them along her arms and piled on her head. You won’t see Rachel stopping her Sabbath to talk to her, hear her story and how she “wishes she could have a different faith,” and you won’t hear the prayers of salvation prayed over her life as she left beaming with smiles.
You won’t see the little girl with down syndrome who refused to move during dance time, until Austin came in the room, took her hands, and began to spin around with her. You may see the moment they danced, but you wouldn’t see the melancholy that was present in her eyes before.
You won’t see Kylie waking up at 5:30am to have her quiet time with the Lord, only to be interrupted by three of the little girls that usually don’t come to play until the afternoons. You won’t see her sharing what she’s reading, what God’s revealing to her, talking about the songs they’d learned the day before from us, and then putting her morning plans aside to play with them until they left for school at 8am.
These are just a few blips of goodness I can think of off of the top of my head right now. But there are thousands more moments where these came from that the rest of the world will never see.
I’ve always heard in the past that “character is who you are when no one but God is watching.” Ministry isn’t always about doing something, but it’s about living out something with the character of Christ. It’s every breath you take, every word you say, every action you perform mirroring that of Jesus. That’s what this journey is made up of. Sure there’s free time, but it’s more than not consistently filled with pressing into deeper depths of intimacy, community, and mission. Lifestyles don’t come from schedules. They come from engaging, accepting, and living. And I couldn’t be more thankful to be living life chasing Jesus with some of the most beautiful and loving human beings on earth.
This is only the beginning.
#wakeupthewonder #leavehope
