December 11, 2016.
The first day of my 27th year.
It was literally one of the best days of my entire life.
Not because it was my birthday but because God showed up. In a way that I wasn’t expecting.
I don’t usually like celebrating my birthday. And by usually I mean that I don’t ever like celebrating my birthday.
It started with a balloon avalanche when I opened the door half asleep to go take a freezing cold shower. Then the teams held me hostage in my room and when I came out there were birthday pancakes, confetti, balloons and all the people in the house singing to me. There was also my favorite chocolate from the market and an alpaca sweater that I’ve been talking about for weeks.
The night before I wrote a list of dreams for my life. Number 25 on that list is “learn to be celebrated by the people around me.” And celebrated I was. My co-leaders asked what I wanted to do for my birthday and I didn’t really have a plan. All I knew was I wanted pizza at some point. So, we headed to the mall.
All throughout the day the Lord put people in our paths and all throughout the day we said yes to seeing them. We talked with them, we shared coffee with an older couple who is from Chile. We prayed for people and we shared the gospel. We gave away our leftovers and we went bowling in the midst of all of it.
At one point, Hannah looked at me and said “remember week two when you said that you have a thing for roofs?” I was shocked that she would remember something that I said in the midst of a conversation about something else a few months ago. She told me that since it was my birthday we should make that happen. So, we walked into a few buildings and got shot down. Long story short, we ended up at an office building next to an Indian Restaurant. We found a guy who said that we could go to the roof but not until the following day so that dream did come true, just a day late.
My friends talked to the Muslims next door to this office building while we were having the conversation of going inside. When my friends were finished talking to them we began looking for a taxi to head home. Then we changed course and decided to go to the park and from there we ended up on the main street in front of the mall where we started.
On the sidewalk there is a photo exhibit. One that we have never seen out of all of the times we have been to this mall. The pictures were huge, like the size of walls on a building. They are pictures of tough things. The point of this exhibit is to bring awareness to social injustices around the world. While we were walking and looking at these pictures two little girls walked up to us. One of the girls had on jeans that were ripped to shreds and it didn’t even look like she was wearing anything. I was wearing a sweater and still freezing so I can only imagine how she felt.
I couldn’t look at these pictures and not do something about these girls.
So, off to get food we went.
Long story short, my discernment wasn’t okay with the man working in one of the food trucks. I have felt this feeling a lot while being a social worker. That feeling of knowing when I was in the presence of an adult who has hurt a child.
Yea, that feeling.
And I couldn’t shake it.
I couldn’t stand to sit there. I couldn’t stand to be in the same space as this man who I had locked eyes with when I walked up to the food truck with these girls and my friends. In America, I could do something. I could write a report, I could go to court, I could call the police. Here, I could do nothing. A social work degree doesn’t matter in a foreign country.
I felt utterly helpless and hopeless.
The tears began and I walked away. I walked over and sat on a curb and I just cried. I wasn’t sure what the tears were for. I didn’t know what the Lord was saying. I couldn’t hear Him in that moment. All I could hear was my heart and soul begging for an answer to the question of “why can’t I take these girls home?”
My co-leader, Eryn, walked over to me and said that one of my friends needed me. So, I went back over there and Hannah said “the Lord is telling me that we need to talk to that man, what is He telling you to say?” I couldn’t come up with the thing. I couldn’t hear what the Lord was speaking. I couldn’t say what it was that this man needed to hear.
And then, I heard it. The Lord told me “look him in the eye, share the Gospel and tell him that I love him.”
I told my friend what I felt like needed to be said but then, through tears, I was able to also say “but I can’t say it to him. I literally cannot look this man in the eye and tell him that he is loved by the God that I love.”
And I walked away.
There is a quote by Ann Voskamp that says “and the Holy Ground, isn’t it always where we least expect it?”
And that’s what happened, the parking lot, the food trucks it all became Holy Ground.
And I was broken. Weeping in a parking lot by myself. My flesh and my spirit were in a wrestle that I have never felt before. My spirit, knowing that this man is a child of God and he is loved just like I am. But my flesh, knowing what this man is doing and that he deserves jail. He deserves justice.
In that moment, the Lord broke me over a man that normally I would hope for jail for and not think twice about. He broke me over the fact that yes, I can take these girls home but if the man hurting them isn’t saved and set free then it will just happen again to other girls. So, I prayed for him. From afar.
And then I watched my friends, Kaiden and Chloe, look this man in the eye, tell him how this God has saved their lives and how He loves him just the same. I watched the conversation. I watched Lauren, Alyssa and Eryn running and dancing with the girls and I heard Hannah who was sitting next to me say “this is what heaven looks like.”
And I was still in a wrestle. I felt so heavy that I didn’t think I would ever move again. I cried. I sat with the Lord and I prayed as my friends were the hands and feet. And I was humbled by the fact that when I can’t tell someone about this Jesus, there is always someone else who can. The Lord isn’t intimidated by my weakness. The Lord knew that I would be too broken to speak on the night of my 27th birthday. He knew that my friends and I would be moved by the injustice of the world.
Afterwards, Kaiden and Chloe, who talked to the man, said “we didn’t get any of those red flags that you got. We saw that man the whole time as loving the Lord and having a relationship with Him.”
And that, my friends, is why those friends were the ones who told him the gospel. They saw him for who he was in the Lord while a few of us got a glimpse into the sin he was currently living in.
What does it look like to live out the verse on my arm? The one that says “fight for the rights of orphans”? Fighting for the oppressed looks like fighting for the oppressor. It looks like sharing the gospel. Praying for them. Being so broken over them that it leads me to the action of speaking into their lives.
This is what the year 27 is for. It’s for saying yes to everything the Lord puts in front of me, even if it hurts like hell. It’s for wrestling with the Lord on things that I don’t understand. It’s for going deeper into the calling that He has put on my life.
27 is going to be good.
It’s going to be full.
It’s going to be more than I could ever imagine it to be.
All because the Lord will show up.
I am still about $600 short of being fully funded and have seen the Lord provide a lot of things over the last few weeks. I hope and pray that you would consider being an answer to my prayers of continuing to lead this squad around the world. I am thankful for all of you that keep up with this journey. I felt more love on this birthday than I ever have before in my life.
