It’s almost that time. It’s almost time to get back to the states and get back to “real life”. Coming back to the states, I am not sure I can even begin to tell you what that means. I don’t think I can even try. But as we get ready for what the World Race calls “Re-Entry”, they leave us with a packet to best help us prepare for life back in the States. Its something I haven’t experienced yet, and harder than many people can imagine. Coming off the Race, where you can see so many different things in such a short time, Re-Entry is tough! It can be hard on racers to come back from a life of community and surrender to a place where people crave their independence and strive to get as much stuff as possible. All these situations where we find the Spirit, we now go back to life before the race with only the people who were with us to know what we are looking for and what we need. Its scary, but it can be done. And its what I plan on doing! Coming back to the states, I look to integrate what I have learned here in to my life back home.
(My flight out the day I left for the World Race)
And as I look at the packet given to us by the World Race, one of the questions they ask you is, “What have you seen this year that breaks your heart and you are not okay with?” Well, lets see. There have been the kids in Bolivia who are addicted to huffing glue because it keeps their stomachs full, and since there is no food for them, its their only option. There has been the families who live their lives in a trash dump because that is where they find the best sources of food. So they scrounge all day in the dump, just to look for enough food to get them through the day. And they don’t have any drinking water unless the local church brings it to them.
There are the people in Cambodia who we prayed over for healing, many cases could have been prevented if they only had clean water to drink instead of the nasty swamp water they use to drink, wash clothes and dishes with.
(The woman whose legs were healed)
There are the refugees in Thailand who have been displaced from their homes and lives and even their families. We did a refugee drill at training camp with our teams where they closed off all the exits, turned on war sounds so loud, we had to shout to hear each other. And on top of that, we were all blindfolded. The task: to find your teammates among the 200 people screaming, looking for their own teammates while you are looking for yours, all the while there are sounds of explosions going on everywhere around you. To be honest, at the time, I thought that exercise was completely pointless. I had no idea what they were trying to prove to us. That’s until the men of W squad set foot in the refugee villages of Thailand. These people had that very exercise become their reality. Being chased from their home country of Burma because their “race” wasn’t “equal” to the strong “race”. Bombs and mortars going off around them, they make their way to the border to try to get them and their family across, alive and safe. And they had to have enough clothes or goods to get their whole family across, because they didn’t dare allow only their kids to cross or their wife, because if they did, they would most likely be sold into sex slavery. A life not any more pleasant than their limbs being blown off their bodies or dying. That stupid, pointless drill at training camp became a reality while I sat in the jungles of Thailand. And it broke my heart. And I’m not okay with that.
(The kids from a refugee village in Thailand)
There are the woman in Thailand as well that are kidnapped, drugged and forced in to sex slavery. Told to go out every night and not let a man pass without offering their bodies as a pleasurable service to everyone. To make money for them and their families, it’s the only option they have.
So yes, there are many things that I have seen this year that have broken my heart. Many things that will keep my life from being the same when I go back to the States. Many things in the world that aren’t right and need to be changed. Many places where I have seen the church in hell, trying desperately to bring heaven to earth now. But want to know what I have seen this year that breaks my heart more than most of those things I have this year? …
The church…
(To be continued…)
Video by my friends,
Water Within
"Remove Us"
