Coming on the race I had some big ideas. I got a tent and a sleeping bag and prepared myself to sleep on the ground for at least part of the next 11 months. I was hyped to live in rural villages with no WiFi or running water. I thought I’d be doing my laundry on a washboard. Whatever to reach the unreached!!what an adventure. When people asked what I would be doing I told them “I don’t know, I might end up on a farm helping families and sharing the gospel. But I’m up for anything!” That’s a direct quote.
The truth is, I have been in mostly capital cities. I have not taken my tent out. I’ve used my sleeping bag in one country when we didn’t have heat in our apartment. Most of our homes have been AirBNBs with wifi and usually a washing machine. Another truth I’m realizing is that maybe I wasn’t “up for anything”.
I wanted to be off the grid sharing the gospel and leading people to Jesus. Sharing the gospel is much more “effective”, for lack of a better word, when you’re simultaneously meeting a physical need. If someone is sick and Jesus heals them they understand his power. If someones children are starving and Jesus feeds them they immediately feel his love.
What about the people with full bellies but empty hearts? What about the physically healthy but spiritually broken? What about the ones who are so comfortable in their lives that they don’t realize their need for a savior? Those people are a little harder to reach. Those people are reached through relationship, which requires more, even a different kind of effort, than meeting a physical need. And seems a lot less “effective” for a short term person like me. Relationships are built over months and years of gaining trust, sharing meals, just doing life together. I don’t have months. I have A month, one, if I’m lucky, and only if I meet the person on my first day in a new country.
Am I up for that? For putting in the work and pursuing relationships I might not get to see the fruit from? Doing my laundry is easier but leading people to Jesus might require some effort on my part. I might have to be vulnerable and open. I get to dig into the parts of someone’s life they aren’t excited to share. To hold tender parts of their story and do my best to show them how the Father loves them.
It’s hard. It’s exhausting. But it’s also life giving. It’s beautiful. It’s an honor and a privilege. It’s more than an 11 month trip, it’s real life. I’m realizing that I’m up for it as long as I’m doing it with my Father. Because the alternative isn’t an option.
“So Jesus said to his twelve, “And you—do you also want to leave?” Peter spoke up and said, “But Lord, where would we go? No one but you gives us the revelation of eternal life.”
John 6: 67-68 TPT
