The heart. Being someone who really doesn’t enjoy science or medicine, I can’t really tell you too much about it. I know that it is a vital organ that pumps blood through our bodily systems – without it, we couldn’t live. It sustains us. That’s about all I can tell you about how it functions. Where is it? Seems like a pretty simple question. I mean technically our heart is situated between our two lungs, anterior to the vertebral column and posterior to the sternum, at least according to Wikipedia (which I’m pretty sure is correct, at least this time). Well, that is where your heart is supposed to be. Mine, though? It beats from a very different place. It lives outside of little ole me. It pumps my blood, my spirit, my life through the passions I’ve found in loving others abroad. How’d it get there? Good question. Let me try and answer, and maybe you’ll be able to see just why it is that I’m choosing to do World Race.
I grew up in a youth group that nurtured my faith and was very mission focused. Each year, opportunities were given for us to go out into the world and serve. I first took advantage of this in high school. I could go into huge detail on each of these trips, but I know many of you don’t have a lot of time to sit around and read Tales of Jill, so I’ll do my best to summarize each trip in a little timeline.
Shiprock, New Mexico. This was my first trip without my parents and my first trip with the purpose of serving others. We did some construction and put on a vacation bible school. I fell in love with a little girl named Koda. She was quiet, somewhat overshadowed by her bigger sister, but something about her just drew me in. We shared a connection, and it was the first time I had experienced truly caring for and loving someone that I barely knew – a precious child of God.
Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.
John 13:34-35 The Message
We returned to Shiprock again the following year. Unfortunately, I spent the majority of the week with a horrible stomach virus that hit almost the entire team. But even though satan tried to bring us down with sickness, God prevailed as He always does, and we completed our construction project despite lower numbers and still touched lives at our vacation bible school. As for Koda? We were at a different location, but her mom brought her and her sister to VBS one day – a day that I was sick and not present. When I found out, I cried out to God, so heart broken and weak. The next day I was still sick but well enough to walk down to a close-by gas station with some others who were feeling better, and guess who was there? God hears our cries. He showed me that in that moment, as little as it was.
Venezuela. Here marks the turning point when my heart truly jumped out of my chest and planted itself abroad. It was my first time out of the United States. We were stationed up in the mountains where there was just a school, a dirt road, scattered little houses, crops on the mountainside, and people eager for love. We built latrines for some families in need, which was a very humbling experience and hard work. But more than that, I found myself connecting with people when I couldn’t even speak their language. That was the moment when I learned the truth of love. It wasn’t about saying the right things, because we could barely speak to one another. It wasn’t about coming from the same place, because I was from a well off American culture where I always had what I needed, and they were barefoot, dirty, and barely had enough to get by at times. It was about seeing each other as humans, as capable of caring for one another, as capable of sharing whatever we did have, as completely capable of receiving the love of a Savior and giving it back out. The true language of love. Despite all things that can tear us apart, one thing that can bind us together is love. We can all give it, we can all receive it, and more than anything, we all need it in our lives. And nothing comes close to the love of our God.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:7-12 NIV
So at this point, my family is probably laughing because they know I can’t tell a story without going on and on and on and on and on. It’s just so hard to pick and choose what part of my heart to show you all, because I want to show it all! But since this is already so long, I really will be brief in the next couple. Seriously.
Costa Rica. Twice. Lots of mixing concrete, lots of meeting sweet kids at vacation bible school. Kids that were so open and willing to hug and love and smile, even though they had very little. Kids that opened my heart up to the true purpose of life – just living to love others. So many things I could say about these two wonderful trips, but I said I’d keep it short. God moved in amazing ways, but when God is as amazing as He is, that’s really no surprise.
Then this summer I jumped the pond to Africa to teach HIV/AIDS education, awareness, and prevention for six weeks in Malawi, the warm heart of Africa. I’d seen kids with very little on my previous missions, but never like this. I would teach at each school for a week, and each kid wore the same dirty outfit covered with tears and holes. At least half of my students did not own shoes. A lot of them missed days because they had to stay home and take care of siblings or sick parents or work the fields. We fed them lunch each day, a treasured treat they otherwise would not get. And many of them shared heartbreaking stories with us of rape, sexual abuse, and disrespect. They were living seemingly outside the grasp of an opportunity for a better life. These were the poor and the broken. But if only you could hear these children sing and dance, with life and with joy. To have nothing, but to still choose to get up each day and fight. I’ve never been so inspired or so touched. Again, I couldn’t speak their language, and a lot of times when I tried to connect they’d just giggle at me, but they motivated me. These are those we are called to set free from the chains of their circumstances, from the chains of this world. For we know the truth. We know of the Kingdom. We know of a mighty, powerful, loving God. We know of Jesus, who came to save us from ourselves, from each other, and from the pain of this world. And He calls us to tell others about that, and to serve others who need it most. For they are the ones that need so desperately to know what He brings. He brings us hope. He brings us joy. He brings us comfort. He brings us new life. He brings us love.
Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.”
Luke 6:20-21
After all of the things I have seen, my heart can be no where else. Where my heart once rested inside my chest, now resides an uncontrollable fire – a passion that I refuse to let be contained. I’m crazy about God and I’m crazy about bringing His love to others, specifically those from other walks of life than me. We all have our callings, and this is mine. To spread His gospel to the nations. The people I’m in love with – even though I’ve yet to meet them. But let me tell you, I can’t wait to meet them and love them with the passion of a Christ who sacrificed it all for us. After all the mercy and grace I have received from our Savior, how can I not want more than anything to hand my heart over to these nations in His name? How can I not want to give Him my whole life? How can I not respond to His call? That is why I’ve chosen World Race. To reach out to the broken, the poor, the sick, the orphaned, the abandoned, the abused, the lowliest of all nations, and to share with them the love of their Savior. Could there possibly be a better way for me to spend eleven months of my life? I think not. So that is where my heart is. Now the question is, where is yours?
