"What is essential is invisible."- The Velveteen Rabbit (I think).
When I started this Race, I was fully expecting to be a part of an assault on my mainstream thinking of what "Church" was, performing miracles around every corner, and having every day being packed of emotional, spiritual, and physical growth and warfare. I felt like I was going to be a metaphorical (or perhaps literal) Braveheart for Jesus.
But then I found that fighting for the kingdom was sometimes more subtile than looking for demonically oppressed people. (Although, that has been known to happen..)
I used to get really sick of dealing with kids for longer than three hours. Being in Thailand, I have been working with an organization that takes care of kids that are at risk to be human trafficked. While I thought that "saving kids from human trafficking" looked like busting in shady places, untying crying children, reading them Jeremiah 29:11 before slapping their abductors with handcuffs, God has shifted my perspective.
I have heard stories of kids being sold for miscellaneous essentials (food, clothing, sanity) and while I want to demonize anyone who will rob a child of their innocence, I can't.
God is kind of sneaky in that, when I signed up for the World Race, I expected to be saving the world and showing people that God was very much a tangible being. However, I thought that tangible being was going to be external from me, external from my spirit, and I would usher in a "new thing" in Jesus name.
This "new thing" was something far more broken and far less tangible than I was prepared for. The last few days in South Sudan, we went to pray for people in hospitals. I already have a problem with hospitals. Now, add in poverty, subtract some health care technology, and multiply your heart being tugged on, and that almost describes how I felt when I stepped into a small ward in South Sudan. Three women laid on bed, in pain. The nurse informed us that this was the abortion ward.
My eyebrows raised a little in shock, "Abortion as in…"
The tone in her voice seemed purposefully unemotional, "Failed abortions performed by the women themselves."
A barrage of anger and saddness hit my mind all at once. Words of wisdom and encouragement failed me as the woman looked up from the bed at me with disinterest. I could not imagine the pain she had experienced and was still experiencing. She looked up at me and gave me a pained smile.
I didn't quite know what to say, "Um… hey. Can I ask your name?"
She said it slowly, like there was shame.
I introduced myself and asked if I could pray. We prayed for hope. We prayed for redemption. We prayed for the end of shame and spoke out God's goodness here, in places we didn't feel like He was.
When I said "Amen", she thanked me, mostly with her eyes.
Later that night, I prayed and asked God what He was doing, what I could've done to change their lives.
One of my brothers on the race came over and we talked about the day. I was honest, "I felt like I was expecting God to heal her physically. To heal her body, or something, to show that He was there."
"But you did heal her Chase," he said, looking at me seriously,"You told her the truth. You prayed for her. You gave her all that you had. That's what Jesus did. You were Jesus for her."
En route to Thailand, I talked with three atheist evolutionary scientists and two world travelers who were fascinated with my journey. Sometimes I forget what kind of trip I'm on because I'm trying to survive it. At the end of talking with the travelers, he asked me, "How can you prove God is real?"
I stared at him, "I can't…. but I can offer you what He as offered me: My life".
And the funny thing is, when you have nothing left to give but all of yourself, He makes it enough.
