Written: 7/7/14
There’s a song we learned at Training Camp that my squad has taken to singing and humming during worship services, while we work, while we lounge. The chorus says this:
I will wait on You as long as You need me to, and strength will rise up in me.
This week I have truly come to realize the hardship and the beauty and the sacrifice and the longing contained in that simple line.
At the end of last month we debriefed in Livingstone, Zambia. As a squad leader, debriefs are packed to the brim with team debriefs, one on ones, leadership development, leading sessions and so on. I enjoyed a few days beforehand alone with my team, taking an incredible and once in a lifetime safari to Botswana and bungee jumping at Victoria Falls, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. Debrief was not at all restful but I loved every minute of it, and collapsed in my tent every night feeling worn out and accomplished. I was itching to get to Malawi and back into ministry.
After debrief, we boarded a 20 hour bus ride to Lilongwe, Malawi where we would camp for a week while our WR Exposure participants arrived before heading out for ministry. I started getting headaches shortly after arriving in country and then the nausea and body aches started. I got tested for malaria and thankfully the tests came back negative. The doctor assumed it was a bacterial infection of some kind and put me on an antibiotic and pain meds but I got worse and worse over the next few days. I started having raging diarrhea (sorry if this is an over share; the WR has made me completely insensitive to poo talks) and my energy was completely zapped. I couldn’t keep anything in and couldn’t eat for two days. Living in a tent at a crowded campground is not the ideal place to be sick. When the African winter weather has you bundled up and you have to wriggle out of a sleeping bag liner, out of a mummy bag, unzip the tent, unzip the vestibule, crawl out, dodge tent stakes and the sleeping domes all around you (both of which are made even more difficult by the headlamp and glasses you left in your tent) and shoot off to the bathroom which had a 50/50 chance of being out of toilet paper, only to crawl back to your tent and do it all over again in half an hour…. Yeah you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom. All I wanted was my couch at home with a warm blanket and Man vs. Wild on Netflix cuddled up with my loved ones to take care of me and nurse me back to health. But I didn’t have that. I was in a tent, by myself, fighting a mental, physical and spiritual battle.
My breaking point came when we got settled in to our ministry site and the team went out to do door to door evangelism but ended up preaching in two house churches (two of my favorite ministries) and I headed to round 2 at the clinic to get different meds. When I got back to our site, there was nothing to do but lay there and think, which can be either dangerous or beautiful, or in this case both. I laid there and sulked thinking “Why am I here? My team is out furthering the gospel and I’m useless here. I want to go home. I’m done.” I knew even as I thought this that it wasn’t true. And I know from how The Lord chooses to teach me things that there was a lesson in here somewhere. So I shifted my mindset. What is He trying to engrain in me? How is He trying to grow me and stretch me? This is what I felt Him leading me to.
The World Race is tough. Seems obvious, right? It’s mentally tough with changed schedules, unmet expectations and demanding impromptu sermons and Sunday School outlines. It’s emotionally tough with seeing severe poverty, living in community, sacrificing the comforts of home and ministering to a world broken by sin. It’s physically tough facing diseases and illnesses in third world countries, being crammed into tiny buses for hours (especially when you have the longest legs on the squad) and carrying everything you own on your back. And it’s spiritually tough when facing opposition, enemy advances, and often wrestling out what you believe amongst false doctrine around you.
The World Race takes strength. Being a missionary takes bravery and courage, focus and determination. And it takes great purpose; it takes an anchor. When your body is failing and your mind is exhausted and when your heart is frustrated, you need something to keep you grounded. For me, that’s the billions of people in the world that have never heard the gospel. It’s the smiles of the children I meet in the village and the dirty little hands I hold. It’s knowing that I’ve been gifted and equipped, called and set out. It’s the realization that I’m never alone. It’s my beloved Jesus Christ.
Every day that I wake up and choose into this mission, The Lord is working in and through me. Through trials and tests and victories and failures, He is shaping me into a warrior – one who sacrifices, who fights for others and for herself, and one who lays her life down. And that lesson is worth the breaking points and the bathroom runs.
To simulate the comforts of home during one of my sick days, I read C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, a story that beautifully paints a picture of Christ and the cross with the sacrificial lion King Aslan laying down his life for young Edward and defeating death and evil in his resurrection. There is a line in there that I think sums up the character of God and this wild journey beautifully.
“Don’t you know who is King of the beasts? Aslan is a lion – the Lion. The great Lion.”…
“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King, I tell you!”
This journey of mine isn’t safe because the One who calls me isn’t safe. But it is beautiful for that same reason and strength is rising up in me, day by day. I lay here in a 10 ft by 10 ft room, with my bed a few inches from a toilet with no door (Apologies to my lovely roommate, Joy) but I am quickly on the mend. God is good and faithful and I am excited to see what He has in store for me and for Malawi. Thank you for your prayers for healing and recovery. I love you all!
PS the day after I wrote this blog, I had new energy and was able to do a full day of door to door evangelism ministry, leading people to The Lord and praying for and encouraging others. Jesus is so good! Blog to follow soon!
