I was in a dilemma. Each option had pro's and con's – all of which were valid points. If you've noticed, each time you comment on my blog, it shows up on your Facebook wall. Which I love because then your friends can see the link and come follow my blabber as well. The con, however, is that when someone comments, I do not get notified. So if I want to see every comment, I have to jump around from blog to blog to see if I have any new comments – leaving me oblivious to comments on old blogs.
OR, I could change my settings to the standard way to comment, in which I will get email notifications when you comment. The con of that is that when I switch to standard, it erases all my previous comments. Sheesh! What's a girl to do?
After much deliberation and taking a team vote, I decided to change to standard. I would rather KNOW when someone new comments. Because, let's get real, your comments to my blog make me smile almost as big as watching a new Kardashian episode.
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On the race we do this thing called C&C's (challenges and celebrations). Its purpose is irrelevant to you, but we are asked the questions: "What are you learning?" and "Where are you struggling?" Last night, trying to answer those two questions was difficult. It was almost like someone from home asking, "So, what has God taught you on the race?" or "Where have you seen God's power?"
Really? Where am I even supposed to start? So like I do when blogging, I chose one topic of discussion between God and me lately and wrote a few sentences about it. This time it was about dreams. Call me Old Testament, but God speaks to me through dreams. It's pretty cool like it is, but it would be even cooler if I had an interpreter. Then I may not annoy God with a million questions like, "Why was the popsicle purple? Is it because purple is my favorite color … or the color for royalty? Wait… God, was the popsicle royal? So what did the popsicle represent? It began to melt in the sun. Does that mean anything?" You get my drift… I need an interpreter.
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When times get tough, it's our natural reaction to wish we were somewhere else. Therefore, I naturally wish I was on vacation with my parents. In the country of MY choice, with the people of MY choice, doing activities of MY choice. Let's get real, I live with six other people TWENTY-FOUR hours a day, SEVEN days a week. If you've ever been a part of the World Race community, you know what I mean. My old teammate Liz used to say all the time, "I HATE COMMUNITY!" – sometimes joking, sometimes not. The point is – is this real life. And it's not always butterflies and rainbows. I've said it many times, but I wonder how I can be content here yet long to be somewhere else.
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A few days ago, we did door-to-door evangelism where we knocked on doors and tried to share the gospel. Yes, just like a Jehovah's Witness, only we wore the clothes we wanted and preached from the Holy Bible and an e-cube. I felt like a vacuum cleaner salesman. Theses were the three responses we got: 1. No answer at the door. 2. Open the door, hear us introduce ourselves, slam the door. 3. Open the door, see us, close the door. Until we got to the last door on the bottom floor of the 6-floor building.
We knocked and waited. A few seconds later, a white-haired lady who looked to be in her 60s opened the door. She couldn't have been taller than 5' and she was in her house robe. Lucio, my translator introduced us and said we were from the church across the street. She stepped out and shut her door and started going off in Romanian. I leaned over to Alexia, another translator, and asked what she was saying. "I'm Orthodox, and there is only one God, it doesn’t matter this church or that church. I have a relationship with Jesus Christ, etc."
Although I didn’t understand her language, I could tell she was sassy and fierce. She reminded me of myself and I liked her. I let her keep going and when she finally stopped, she looked at me to respond. I looked her in the eyes and said, through my translator, “I agree with you. You are my sister in Christ. You’re spunky and I like you. What’s your name?” I think it caught her off guard because she changed her tune and talked our heads off for the following minutes. I told her I wanted to see her again and asked her to come to our service a few nights later. She said since the service started at 7 pm, she would come at 6:30 to see me but then she was leaving. I stuck out my hand and told her we had a deal.
On the night of the service, I stood outside the church looking for her to come walking up but I never saw any sign of her so I went inside. Shortly after the service started, someone asked me to go outside. “What in the world?” I thought, “It’s freezing out there!” I walked out the door and there she stood, in her house robe – it was Annie! She brought me a nightlight that is a cross. My translator said she wanted to give me a gift so badly. I was so excited that she came to the church to see me. We chatted for a brief second and then she left.
After church, another translator came to me and told me that he had known Annie for a while and he had never seen her heart open like that. He had been trying to get her to come to the church for a while now and she wouldn’t budge. He said that although she didn’t come into the service, just her coming to the door was a HUGE step in progress. He thanked me for letting God use me in Annie’s life and all the ripples that would follow.
I suppose I never thought of it that way. I just saw a spunky old lady whose personality went well with mine and I wanted to have fun with her. However, when God sees her, He sees precious, pure, golden Annie – a woman so worthy of being pursued. A woman so worthy of His love, even if it’s through a loud, silly world racer named Ashli.
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