I found myself just laughing. It really wasn’t that serious if you think about it. Yeah, it wasn’t the cheapest investment I have ever made, but still, not irreplaceable. It felt quite cozy, and I had figured out where I wanted to put each item I held within it. Some days it was my get away; others it was my way of community.
In 2009 I spent the summer living primarily out of my car, as we were never certain as to when we would come home, and no longer have a house. Our home had been foreclosed on, and we were awaiting the final eviction. I packed up my car for college that year, and said a final goodbye to the home I grew up in. Many things changed after that year, and I have not sense lived with my immediate family. Losing a home is taxing on every member of the family in different ways, and for those who do not transition to a new home in a reasonable amount of time a lot of pride and dignity is lost.
I think of all the people we have met in these past months that have lost their homes due to war, natural disasters, finances, or their parents hoping to send them to a better future. In our ministry we are surrounded by these realities everywhere. It may not be as obvious as the pictures you find when searching it on Google, but the people we encounter live the reality of it not the daytime special.
The children we encounter have a piece of their heart that is nomadic. They are seeking for solidarity, but are surrounded by uncertainty. For them, God can be their only true home, and they seek him out. Some have a harder time understanding the idea that God never leaves. These children have grown up in the dumps; have grown up being told that their only chance at a better life is one without their parents. Then they are told that this God, they cannot see, is their father, and he has put as much passion and purpose into creating each one of them as he put in the creation of this world. They want that love, but they have not seen it.
We have the opportunity to be their tent; their place of refuge; their place to understand for a while what it means to be surrounded by God’s love, but what happens when we leave. The danger of being another temporary in the lives of those who are defined by the temporary was one of my biggest fears going into the Race.
God has taught me that we are just coming in on the work he is already doing. We come with the tent, the moment of putting guarded focus on him. In a sense we have an opportunity to be a visual of God’s sanctuary for them. A friend to love on them, to read with them, to listen to their stories, to teach them, to bandage their wounds, and hold them when they are sad or confused, but when we leave God is still their sanctuary. We have helped bring them into the midst of that, and have the opportunity to create such a passion that they want to seek him more. They have tasted God’s love, agape love. We have an opportunity to put a name to that love, and encourage them to seek his embrace.
This is why we are here. We cannot fix the injustices and problems of this world. God can. We are not the answer to their prayers. God is. We do not know how to love. God does. If you come on the race thinking you will change the world, I am sorry to disappoint you. The only one changing this world is God; we simply get to be a part of it. We are the tents, but God is the Sanctuary.
So, there I was, laughing at the fact that the closest thing I had to a home in many years had just blown off a rooftop in Cambodia, and I wasn’t even concerned, because I live under God’s sanctuary.
Prayer requests:
For the children at The Good Shepherd orphanage. That they might seek the agape love of Christ, and find joy in who he has created them to be. That they would seek their biggest dreams, and learn to lean on the provision of God. That they would not be afraid to love and be loved.
