For this blog I will copy an email I sent to one of my Race mentors and friends of how I felt about this month and about leaving Vietnam.
“Jeremy, so you asked me to tell you how I was doing…buckle up.
God has totally shocked and surprised me this month. Not once did we step inside the coffee shop to work but I got so much more than that. I got really close to one of my roommates (I’ll call her M) this month and just love her with a Jesus passion, and I fell in love with this city and place and what people are doing to plant the harvest.
But I literally feel like I’m breaking up with Vietnam, without any desire on my part to do so, and feel my heart breaking into the smallest of pieces as I leave M and this place. I cried all day yesterday and even today feel the heaviness again as I said goodbye. I cry because I so desperately desire for M to know Him, for her to be chosen, I cry because I don’t know if God will call me back, I cry because I feel like I’m leaving in the middle of something great.
I know Jesus isn’t surprised by that either; that depth of sadness dwells in the middle of my chest. I thank Him for letting me give my heart away, for letting M have her heart open to me and for the chance for us to become actual friends, for not letting me work in the coffee shop because I wouldn’t have known that well, I thank Him for the laborers here and doing what is needed and desperately required of us as believers. The tears shed are ones of desperation, for the people I have come to love to reach out to Him and take hold of the best thing they’ll ever know, and I know He hears me. I know He hears me and I trust what He will do with my life and my future.
I am humbled by this month. Though we lived in the middle of perfect comfort being stretched and tugged in ways I didn’t think possible. I have loved. Loved deeply to know how much it hurts to have to let it go. I am not in control but I come before Him with shaking knees and trembling hands saying ‘let the words I trust you match what my heart should be saying.’
For once I stopped caring about how “hard” the race “should be” with bucket showers and tent living. It was abundant with His life and presence in the midst of Asian folks who I had the chance to see, meet and grow to know.
I leave Vietnam grieving heavily, feeling like a little girl who has just had her heart broken. Unsure of what He wants from me, unsure if the calling to go back will come, and simply just unsure. But I’m thankful. I’m grateful. I’m humbled.
Pray a small pray if you would that His will would wash over me like a tidal wave, drowning out my selfish desires and rising to the surface the things I need to have removed. Pray that my heart would find joy in the midst of standing before a question mark and that I would move forward fully present.
Sometimes breakups are hard, but what’s that famous saying?? “If you love something enough, let it go..” Give me the medal for cheesy Christian sayings but I’ll take it, because I have to let go for now. Prayer is my only friend, my companion for my heart, and my cry to the Father.
This is all a long way to say: I’m blown away by this month and mourning currently. God is always good but He particular blessed me this month. Beautiful and heartbreaking all at once.
Thanks for letting me ramble.
Kiersten”
