we have one week left. today we arrived at final debrief. i remember our first week together as a squad in steamy georgia. how during that ten days brokenness was brought to the surface and the vision of the annointed church flashed before our eyes. and then we had the first week on the field. in swaziland. i had arrived in the group that rolled up to the base way after dark. our first glimpse of swaziland has been the glistening sun setting on the mountainside. that next morning still feels like a dream. we woke up to the common room door slamming on the other side of the wall. we lived in an unfinished concrete building with no chairs, curtains, tables, clean mattresses and let alone wifi or electricity. yet it was still the sweetest place. i have never met such a community. one full of such care for everyone surrounding them. four year olds carrying two year old on their backs, 19 year olds pulling enough sugar cane off the truck that zoomed by to feed all the children younger than them, doors flung open so you could recline on their couch and have lionel richies eyes pierce the back of your head from his poster on the wall. i came to serve them and instead they gave me family. in swaziland one of our alumni team leaders led us in an event titled “stand up for your sister” a sheet of shame relates questions were listed off as you checked a check next to each number you related with. a paper full of checks has pierced me in the eye that day. yet seeing how simply speaking out all of those secrets we are conditioned to keep in our darkest closets changed my entire life. it changed how i saw the lord in my life. later that day he had given me a vision of physically where he was in the room working his ways all the times i had been sexually assaulted. where i thought he hadnt shown up he was fighting the biggest battle. testimonies and stories from our youth were shouted from the tops of tree stumps that day on. the words alcohol, porn, sex, masturbation, drugs, eating disorders rape and self harm didn’t loom over us like labels when they were spoken out they were transformed to stories of our abbas glory and success.
i was taught about discipleship when my leaders saught me out and beradged me with too many questions that later left me feeling known and seen, a funny little thing that we still toss around lightly called the “victim circle” was placed in our hands- it shifted my perspective of how we live our lives as if we are the ones losing even when all battles have already been one in our favor, it gave me the tool of excitement in the mundane and art classes in the dirt. it gave me brothers and sisters and fear of failure fled me as i stepped out trying new hobbies and skills. i was called higher and the high influence i carried was brought to my attention. i learned how to love others with the gifts i was given not for my own glory but for our abbas.
nepal. ah the place were my heart wore the pain of those who had never heard of your glories like a backpack. a place where the word that is living literally did come to life in front of me with the believers i encountered. a place where my brother was a demon possessed man yelling out glory to god as he yearned for freedom. the time i saw my future as not as close as i had been thinking for years. i started asking for god sized dreams and not for him to come and be apart of them but to literally give them to me. i learned about fighting behind walls for the church, on my knees and with cries rising to our creator. i learned about passion and urgency. i experienced such a sweet community. i felt what it was like to live missionally but in a busy bustling town not just the empty african fields. i looked satan in the eye when men who had only known sin grabbed what they thought was rightfully theirs. i broke under the weight of trying to carry my teams burdens by myself. i learned to walk them to the cross as a leader not to carry it myself. a routine had no part of our lives that month. each day brought such newness it should have sucked all energy but the lord wasnt done with us yet. stair upon stair was walked up to get to temples where people places their prayers into the wind to try to catch something. where the glistening gold was seen before the glistening sun over the colorful city and nepali mountainsides. where blood was shed and footprints were created. more chains piled on these people but visions of these things crumbling to dust flew through my head as i sat and interceding for this country i felt at home in. music never ceased to play that month. our home was one of worship lovers who lead us in such an incredible way. we were shown secret churches you read about in books about the 10/40 window and a passion for advocacy lit a fire in my heart. that goodbye broke me. the race gives you family over and over again. you ask them to get close and then you leave. yet we cant put up these walls of safety for that isn’t the marvelous life we were created to live.
india. visions of sariis, dusty streets, scalding sun and the taj mahaal had been planted in our brains so as we drove through a jungle and found ourselves living in a christian seminary my life was flipped. the indians in the north eastern states are protected by the government because of being tribals. they look nothing like the people in bollywood movies and certainly do not speak hindi yet the whole village i lived in was christian. the government couldnt dictate what they believed. their beliefs were protected by their tribes. the lords hand was all over these people. his protection rang high and true. india was hard. at 11:30 one night we found the first louse of the squad on my head and then at 11:38 we found 36 more. that was humbling being the only person on my squad to get them. yet thankfulness flourished in me. cookies and chai were at our beck and call. the fifteen minute walk up the hill to breakfast lunch and dinner was shaved to six by the end of two months.i was gifted the grandest birthday surprise i had ever seen. my dear friends put together videos and skits, dances and songs. puppies climbed all over me that day.one of my best friends ended up leaving and going home. that created a whirlpool of frustrations. an undesire to submit to the authority the lord had appointed above me. a bitterness for the unknowns. comparison crept into my life like a deep deep flood at the end. iwas frustrated at people. my squad wasnt living up to the christ community expectations i had placed on it. i saw it as cliques forming and relationships stepping too boldly for my liking instead of being filled with grace and calling it what the lord says it is. pure and redeemed.
going into guatemala i was battling the darkest fight. every comment regarding anything brought me to tears. i saw myself as unwanted and mediocre. i thought i had lost everything i had learned. i wrestled with god and i wrestled with darkness. i was exhausted. i was over being looked through and what i thought was unheard. i didnt have the grace or understanding. and then i was equipped. the lord gave our entire squd tangible tools every single week. people to disciple us in those. a church commjnity that spoke ENGLISH- a cafe that lead us into worship. it wasnt us “pulling the weight” or “performing” we just could be and could even feel like we could sink into the wallpaper. incredible. guatemala would be completely different without those communities.
yet papa showed the heck up here. my team and i had the sweetest bond yet. i chose into some dang cool friendships that are leaving a trail of sisters and bridesmaids. god showed off in how he talked to me. visions, dreams, revelations, revival like never before. passions and desires fell into place as abba gave them to me not just as i asked him to come into my worldy ones. constant acts of surrender.
there’s so many tools stuffed into my belt for the rest o my life from just these past three months. using my photographic memory to capture guatemalas beauty ya know. people love dang well here. they make you their sister not just their friend. that “i got chores for you at my house” kinda love. that good good. it’s going to be hard to leave this place that started with a sour taste but ended in such dang glory.
and now we are heading home to make that same glory in the gas stations and in the grocery stores. the mundane has turned extravagant. more every time i grow closer to papa. the sweetest things get even sweeter.
i’m human. i get frustrated as heck. i was ghetto ratchet white girl here with my anger for a hot second last night and im at final debrief- nine months ago me would say she thought i would have had it all together by now. i get scared walking up to white people still-intimidated by what they think. people who speak another language i am fearless around- hmm still figuring that out. i dont always speak the kindest words over myself but i know my true identity. excited to see the lord grow me even stinking more.
