This month our ministry looks a little different. April will be full of UH (Unsung Heros) and ATL (Ask the Lord.) We don’t have a set ministry, so throughout the month we will be searching for new ministries throughout the country of Bosnia to potentially partner with. We will be contacting hosts to hopefully set up places for future racers to visit for longer periods of time. And ATL, is praying, and asking the Lord where he wants us to go throughout the country, and who he wants us to come into contact with. We are completely leaning on the Lord to set up these divine appointments throughout the month and our month can look a lot of different ways.
The Lord has been speaking John 21:25 over me within the last few weeks.
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
My prayer for the month was just that. I’ll share a page of my journal with you from the beginning of this month: I want to walk away from this month and the race with so many stories. So many stories that I cant remember them all. So many stories that I run out of pages in my journal. So many stories that I can write books upon books. So many stories that all these books wouldn’t fit in my fairytale library. I want to live like Jesus did. Lord, help us to start filling these pages.
The Lord replied, “You got it.”
One morning I went upstairs with the intentions of having quite time with the Lord. I sat there for almost 2 hours and I was distracted. I was frustrated. And I was questioning Him. I was trying to pray, but there was nothing. I started to question why I was here and in a moment of weakness even started to question my faith and what I believed. I walked away from those two hours, feeling more spiritually empty than when I started. I didn’t press into Him. I just walked away.
Soon after we came together as a team to talk about the day and pray. One of my squamates, Courtney, wanted to do a treasure hunt for her team time that afternoon. Basically, you spend some time with the Lord, and see what he has for you that day. You might get a word, picture, or vision and then you go out in the city and see if the Lord reveals His treasure to you. This can look many different ways. We prayed together and I was still annoyed from this mornings quite time. Still questioning many things. Knowing the treasure hunt would be that afternoon, I began praying about it and I kept seeing old ladies, but I really thought it was just my flesh because I love old people. Mainly Golden Girls. So I threw it in the back of my mind.
We came back together after lunch and were praying specifically for the treasure hunt. Again, I could see old ladies. This time it was more specific. I saw a little old lady, hunched over with a hump in her back, and wearing pink. Again, I was like no, I only saw what I wanted to see. There were 8 of us as a team, so we drew cards to see who would go with who. Megan and I both drew kings (#kingjesus.) We went around the to each person to discuss what everyone saw. Megan said she saw old people, so naturally I started exclaiming that I kept seeing old ladies. This sent hope pumping through my veins, but after the morning I had with the Lord, I still had my doubts.
As we were took off walking both of us were describing what we had seen from the Lord. I described what I had seen in detail, but with complete skepticism. We both expressed that we didn’t really know what we were doing because we had never done this before. Meg mentioned that we should buy flowers on the street and look for old ladies to hand them to, so thats what we did. We found two little ladies selling flowers on the side of the street so we decided to buy five. We gave a flower to each of the ladies selling them. They lit up with smiles, said fala (thank you) and we walked away. As we turned around to look, one of the ladies put her flower back into her pot to resell. We walked away laughing, thankful for the smiles we received from it.
We continued to wander aimlessly, just talking. Silently, becoming more and more doubtful. We were headed to the park where we were sure to find old ladies, when we passed a narrow street. We stopped and looked down the street, a random turn and change in our planned direction.
Almost as soon as we turned the corner, a little old lady turns a corner on a connecting street. She sees us and completely lights up, runs at us as fast as a little old lady can run, and immediately begins hugging us and kissing our cheeks. We had not even said a word yet. Its as if she was looking for us. She turns around to give Meg another hug and kiss and I see the hump on her back. I began to look her up and down and notice the color she is wearing. PINK! A pink blazer with cute little pink shoes. I am beside myself. My heart begins to pound and instantly more and more hope starts pumping through my veins. The flower we handed her just added to her beaming smile.
Our new little friend, didn’t speak a lick of English. Nothing, we couldn’t even understand her name. She begins trying to tell us things and we are lost. She pulled lighters out of her pocket, showed us coins, pointed to her eye, told us the number nine. We were beyond LOST, but we didn’t care. Using our hands, we asked her if she wanted food. She said yes and grabbed us by the arms and together we walked to the closest fast food place. We walked in and with the help of one mans broken English we were told her to order anything. She knew exactly what she wanted and ordered cevapi (sausages in a pita.) She pulled us outside and sat us down.
As we waited for her food, she again pulled out the lighters and tried to hand them to us. She kept pointing to her eye and showing us the number nine on her fingers. She even told the waitress, who spoke two words of English (nine being one of them,) to tell us nine. Thats it. Nine. She offered us cigarettes several times, as she began smoking one herself. Soon her food was out and she showed us her teeth, or lack there of. Meg and I looked at each other wide eyed like, how is she about to eat this? Next thing we knew she was done. She chomped through it like a champ and she was so grateful. The only time she wasn’t smiling was when she was chewing.
She was able to say, “thank you” as she gave us many more hugs and kisses. We walked away arm in arm. She was still trying to tell us things, but we just couldn’t understand. We stopped in the street and asked if we could pray for her. More hugs and kisses and then she agreed. We both began praying for her, as she repeated over and over again, “amen amen amen!”
The last of the hugs and kisses came as we said goodbye. She said “chow” and we were on our way. We walked away, both feeling incredibly full, but sad to leave her. We turned around to see where she went and she was still standing there waving and blowing kisses. We stopped and waved some more then continued walking. Again, we turned to look and she was still waving. We stopped to wave some more, blew some more kisses and then continued. We walked around the corner and took a peak. Off in the distance, the little old lady, wearing pink, with the hump in her back was standing there on thecorner, beaming with a smile, still waving and sending us away with kisses. We waved to her for the last time and walked away. Both of us touched our hearts, feeling the fullness of the Lord, never wanting to forget these moments.
Just that morning I was ready to give up. I was slowly loosing faith, but thankfully it wasn’t gone. It was a small hint of faith, but thats all God needed to work. Faith the size of a mustard seed.
Mathew 17:20 says, He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
There is SO much truth bundled up in this one verse.
Its okay that we didn’t know what we were doing in the beginning, because the Lord did.
Its okay that we were skeptical because it made the moment that much better.
Its okay that my faith was lacking because it made my faith that much stronger.
Its okay, because this is how Jesus writes his stories…
BUT WAIT!! This story isn’t over. For some reason, I hadn’t submitted the blog above yet. I was done, but had been dragging my feet with it, and now… I know why. The Lord wasn’t done. He never is. The last page of that book said, to be continued…
Two days later, one of the pastors here in Sarajevo wanted to give us a little tour of the city. Sasha, he’s been amazing to us. He fought on the front lines of the Bosnian War in 1992. Remnants of this war still loom all around this city. The bullet holed buildings are everywhere. Sasha was a great tour guide and we ended up in the same area of “Old Town,” that we met our little old friend in just a few days prior.
Meg and I reminisced that day and at one point she even asked, “What would you do if we saw her again?” I laughed and wished we would, but knew the possibilities were slim… or so I thought.
But you know God, and how he has a way of making the impossible happen. We turned the corner at the end of our tour, and there she was. Starring off into the distance wearing that pink blazer and pink shoes, and nibbling on a piece of bread. As we walked up to her she turned around startled. The look on her face was priceless. She was in disbelief too. She dropped her bread and began the hugging and kissing all over again. She was so happy and so were we. This time we had a translator, so all the pieces from two days ago slowly came together. The lighters she kept showing us, she was trying to sell. This is how she makes a living. Our friend Morgan bought one from her, with a little kitty cat on it. When he asked how much, she replied, “anything.” Thank you Morgan!
The number nine, was forher nine grandchildren. Her name is Dika, and she’s 81 years old. She told us through our translator how much she loved us the moment she met us. She said we might as well call her mom, and she expressed how much joy she felt being with us. Dika my friend, that is called the joy of the Lord and you have it too. All of our friends felt her joy from the moment they met her, to the moment she told us chow, with hugs and kiss, standing on the exact same corner, waving and blowing kisses, until we turned our corner just like the first day. Everyone else was laughing and soon felt the fullness of the Lord we had felt in the same exact spot, just a few days before. All from the little old lady in pink.
