Quick update on month 10: We started our month out with our final team changes. I’m loving everyone on Team Eat Pray Love, which includes Tyler Lee as our fearless leader, as well as Josh Femiano, Carmen Alyse, Ali Kendrick, Katie Lossner and Julia Waterman. You can check out all of their blogs by clicking their names on the left.
We are spending month 10 in George Town, Malaysia, which is actually an island off the northwestern coast of Malaysia. We are working with YWAM, serving in various ministries around town including a Christian hospital, an art studio, a homeless shelter and a coffee shop. I am working at the coffee shop, Just Caffe, which is run by the Penang House of Prayer. It’s been so much fun working at the coffee shop, getting to know all the employees and even some customers. PenHOP also has worship burns every Friday night, and it has been amazing getting to spend time in worship like that every week! Our accommodations are wonderful; we are blessed to have air conditioned bedrooms and hot showers! God is good!
Aside from the details of what my month looks like, I wanted to share with you what God has been teaching me this month.
Apathy: absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement.
Apathy is something that has plagued me for much of my life. The key word in that definition, at least for me, is suppression. I don’t lack passion or excitement, I just suppress it, refuse to act on it. It’s become habitual, affecting many areas of my life. As a result, I’ve missed out on so many opportunities to be great, settling instead for just okay.
I coasted through my dental assisting program, doing the minimum. I passed everything, learned what I needed to. But as some of my classmates worked hard and made the deans list, I just got by.
I spent the nine months leading up to launching on the World Race just walking through my life. I had moments of being really driven, like the week that my parents were on vacation and I decided to completely clean out my bedroom in preparation to leave. But halfway through, my excitement fizzled and things got in the way. I left the job halfway done, and didn’t even really finish before I left America.
Then there’s fundraising. God was gracious and provided for me to be fully funded as the deadline came in, but that is due more to the generosity and help of others than my own efforts. In hindsight, I see so many ways I could have been much more passionate with fundraising. I had ideas, but in general, I failed to see them through to completion, or allowed my parents do more work than I did. So to my parents, and to every other person who helped me fundraise: first of all, I am sorry that I didn’t put forth my full effort. I’m sorry that I allowed my apathy to get in the way of me doing the best I could. And secondly, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for believing in me and supporting me anyway. I would not be where I’m at without all that you did to help me.
But apathy doesn’t just affect the everyday things. It affects the eternal as well. I truly believe one of the biggest lies that the enemy speaks to us is that our time with God can wait, that He’s always there waiting, so whatever is in front of you in the moment is more important.
I had this unrealistic expectation coming on the Race that I would automatically just become a super Christian, spending hours with God and hearing from Him constantly. In the back of my mind, I knew that wouldn’t happen automatically, but I expected it nonetheless. I can tell you right now, that obviously didn’t happen. There were some months where it was easy for me to choose time with God. In Moldova, I spent a lot of time reading my Bible, praying, worshipping, and journaling. It was wonderful! But then there are months like this month. We have wifi, coffee shops, TV shows, movies, malls, even a car. The distractions are almost that of America. I have plenty of free time, but I haven’t spent nearly enough of it with God. And I have to ask myself the question: what are you going to do when you get back to America in six weeks?
I spent some time last night talking to God about this, and He told me that I have to choose Him daily. Every morning, as I wake up, I must choose God.
I know apathy doesn’t just affect me; it is wrecking the lives of my generation. In a culture of convenience, apathy and laziness rule. Why read a book when you can spend five minutes on Google and find out how it ends? Why build a friendship with someone when you can figure out all you need to know about someone on Facebook? Why spend actual time with God when you can just spend a couple of hours a week at church and call it good?
We are selling ourselves so short! We are allowing an advanced culture to stifle our growth. How different our lives would look if we chose depth over convenience!
On Wednesday nights, we take part in a street evangelism here, where several groups go out to different parts of George Town to build relationships with the prostitutes, lady boys, the homeless, travellers, etc. This last week, I stayed back to be in prayer and intercession for the teams. During that time, God led me to Ezekiel 37:1-10, the vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.
Every time I read this passage, I get something different out of it. This time, the thing that stuck out to me was the action of prophesy. That was the action taken to cause life to come back to the bones: simply speaking to them the Word of the Lord, that life would come back to them. As the words were spoken out, the life returned, and suddenly there was an exceedingly great army. In that moment, God spoke to me that that passage was for the people of Penang that our group was ministering to that very night. But now, as I read through it again, I sense Him speaking it over my generation as well. We are a vast army of dry bones, waiting for life to come back to us, to become a mighty army for the Lord.
I know we have the power to be more than we are. We have passion, it is just misplaced. So let’s take some time to focus in on God and His plans and purposes. Our growth starts not from what others can feed into us, but from spending intimate time with God.
“Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3
