I’m trying to soak it all in. Five more weeks until heading home to California.
Five more weeks until I can take showers with American plumbing and hot water. Five more weeks until I can wear more than the 6 shirts I’ve had the entire Race. Five more weeks until I can close the door to a room that is only occupied by me.
Five more weeks until my life completely changes. I thought coming on the Race would change my life. In a way, yes it has. But now what was once foreign has now become the norm and I’m left wondering how will I adjust to life after the Race.
Preaching the Gospel to strangers in their homes and in the streets. Running church services from worship to dancing to preaching to praying. Sitting and sharing life with the elderly, the orphans, the prostitutes, the sick. Holding every tiny Central American, Eastern European, Asian, African baby that gets within a 20 foot radius of me. It all seems so normal now. Is it weird that poverty doesn’t really faze me anymore?
Has life moved beyond the shock factor of entering into mud-sided houses with corrugated metal roofs? Is it more important to love the one in front of me than to have an ‘experience’ I can brag about via Facebook status?
I haven’t been writing much these past few months—I don’t really know what to say. My heart gets broken often, whether it’s by the people I’m serving or the people I’m serving with. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a daily, weekly, monthly thing for God to completely wreck my paradigm of Him and of life. I wanted so badly to inherit the “kingdom which cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28), so He’s been doing a whole lot of shaking. Shaking of my circumstances, shaking of my abilities, shaking of my health, shaking of the authorities above and around me. I’m left often with the question of what’s left after it all, what’s actually worth giving away?
Hope. Hope in Christ. Hope that He has died for us not to condemn us but to save us. Hope that He is for us even when it feels like no one else is. Hope that no situation leaves His hand. Hope that we have a Savior that grieves in compassion and rejoices in solidarity with us.
My team and I were brought into a home last week where a group of women trapped in the cycle of prostitution were meeting. The sunlight could barely stream through the grimy windows, and most people sat on rickety benches or seats with ripped cushions. One of my teammates shared a word from the Bible, another shared a testimony. A few women stood and shared how they came to Kigali, Rwanda and how they ended up prostituting themselves for lack of other work. A few were HIV positive. Many held small babies on their laps as we spoke to them. We scattered around the room laying hands on each woman and praying for her; for her to rest her hope in Jesus, to not lose heart at her oppressive circumstances, to have courage to stand against the lies of the enemy that tells her this is the only lifestyle she can choose.
We were there maybe an hour, two hours maximum. And then we were gone. Probably to never meet these women and their children again, not in this lifetime anyway. Did we leave them with something valuable? Did we move them closer to the Kingdom? Or did we simply mouth the words and formulas we’re so used to saying, that we don’t even know if we believe anymore?
Is Jesus really the answer? I wonder that more times than is probably appropriate for a missionary. I just want to make sure I really, truly believe that what I’m sharing is true. I want to make sure I’m giving away the expensive parts of my heart, and not religious fluff.
There’s a certain path to the Father’s heart, and I know the way because it’s the personal road I’ve walked. I’m here to show it to others, not expecting that they take it but hoping that they move closer in their own walks with the Lord.
Hope, there it is again.
Maybe that’s all I have.
