When I signed up to lead Gap Year, I knew it would involve logistical obligations and some not so fun tasks. My social media accounts may have fooled you into believing that my life consists mainly of playing with children in developing countries, the occasional epic sunset, or doing everyday life with my hooligans but there are some not-so-insta-worthy parts of my everyday life… One of these things is taking people to the hospital. I would say on an average week, I take at least one person to the doctor (Cambodia raised the average to about once a day). From past leading experiences, I knew that this would be the case, but this trip is much longer and there are many more bodies to get sick.
A huge part of my Race has been spent in a hospital room translating broken English to regular English, explaining symptoms, behavior changes, and other very intimate details of my peoples lives to doctors. Details that people dont always want eachother to know about including but not limited to the color and texture of their feces, past medical history, every food and drink to enter their body in the past 7 months, and frequency of bathroom usage… And I am so thankful for each one of these doctors visits.
I’ve learned that when we are weak, sick, and far away from comfort, vulnerability seems to creep in and it becomes an extremely intimate and intentional time with people. Some of my favorite moments from this thing have been in the lobby of a sketch hospital in Cambodia or Ecuador. Or over a post-doctors visit Starbucks date at the fancy hospital in Thailand. Or nightly sleepovers at the hospital in Turkey.
This part of squad leading has taught me so much about being vulnerable in weakness. I think there is a lie surrounding vulnerability. For a lot of my life I believed the lie that we can only be vulnerable about things and struggles that we have “conquered.” That’s not vulnerability, in fact it might even be pride.
I think it is so important that we are vulnerable in our weakness to let people in; to open the door for them to also be vulnerable with Us. For example, when one of my people gets sick, they come to me and tell me what is wrong with them so I can help them get healthy (aka take them to the hospital because though I pretend, I am not a doctor). But, when they don’t come to me (you know who you are) until after they are better, I can’t do anything to help them. Usually, the ones who don’t tell me when they are sick are the ones who don’t want to go to the hospital (can‘t say that I blame them).
In this Jesus has spoken a lot to me about coming to Him when I’m sick, hurt, alone, abandoned, broken, angry. I don’t have to fix myself or find healing on my own. In this season of my life, I’ve done a lot of trying to find healing on my own because being vulnerable with God has felt really exhausting and hard. I haven’t wanted to go to the “hospital.” Looking back on it there are a lot of reasons… Sometimes going to the hospital has a cost. It’s often times unknown. Sometimes its hard to understand. Sometimes I get answers that I don’t want to hear.
But I’ve found that it is way easier and less complicated to let God be God. To let him mend my brokenness in exchange for health. To admit when I am helpless.
So, I’m saying yes to hospital visits (hopefully the theoretical kind). I’m saying yest to letting people know even the most intimate details about me. And most importantly, I’m saying yes to allowing God to know me, in all of my sickness.
Also, a favorite past time of mine is capturing the beauty of my sickos on camera. Here are the some photos of my people in their prime (RIP to the 10,000 Cambodia hospital pictures lost on my old phone):
