For the first time since we landed in Bali, I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I remembered reading another racers blog awhile back saying the days that are the hardest to get out of bed are the days there is a battle to be fought for the Kingdom. As I crawled out of my bed net to get ready for the day, I thought we would go “treasure hunting” in Seminyak. We walked two by two to our hosts house, where we enjoy our breakfast with our hosts and sing and pray together. In the middle of our discussion, we got a call from a girl in our community that something was wrong with her mother.
The night before, my team and I gathered with our C3 community in someones home for music, prayer, food, and fellowship. We sat around the room talking with one another, going deeper, and discovering our faith together. After dinner a lady I had recently gotten to know sat next to me, telling me about her leg injury and her job interview, taking selfies, and exchanging numbers. On Sunday I had spent time with her daughter playing games, laughing, and sharing our faith stories with one another.
She was the one to call us the next morning asking us to pray for her mother. Five minutes later she called again to tell us that her mother had passed away suddenly. The women I had spent the previous night connecting with was suddenly gone, just a few years behind her husband. My hosts, my team, and I immediately grabbed our bags and drove an hour through the crazy Denpasar traffic to get to the hospital. Moments later, I found myself in the forensic unit holding her daughter in my arms as she wept and I prayed for the strength not to cry, for the strength she would need to get through the next week, for the strength of the community that came around her, and for the strength of God’s love to surround her.
Covered in sweat and tears I attempted to listen as she answered all the doctors questions in Bahasa, held her grandmothers hand, and was consumed by all the voices, business, and noise around her. After lunch, I returned to try and comfort her, feed her, and advocate for her as she tried to decide what to do with the body. As we sat on the floor in a corner she fell asleep on my shoulder as I sang Amazing Grace. After kissing her forehead goodbye, hugging her grandmother, and bowing to her elders, I walked outside and cried the tears I had been holding for about three hours.
I originally wrote this post a week ago about the challenges my team and I have faced thus far on our race. When my post deleted, I decided that wasn’t the story I was supposed to tell. Today I was humbled by the overwhelming power God, love of community, and loss of a friend. I open my eyes and remembered why I am here. It’s not just to go deeper in my faith, overcome personal challenges, or accumulate experiences. I am simply here to love the least of these. I was ashamed of how much energy I had wasted thinking about my own challenges and not about the people God had placed in front of me.
Despite the exhaustion, the discomfort, and the challenges, I am uplifted. I see that I am not in control. On travel days I am not flying the plane or driving the taxi. In emergencies I am not the lock on the door, the doctor at the hospital, or the phone placing international calls. When the water stops running I do not bring the rainclouds. When we are scaling a mountain to swim in a hidden waterfall I am not creating the beauty of nature or carrying my team back to safety. In all things God is the father, the creator, the provider. I am called to be his hands, to hold grieving daughters, to speak life to my team, to seek first to understand, and ultimately to surrender to his plans.
