Hey!! from Malaysia 🙂 Before jumping into this month here’s a little something from last month in Indonesia.
Last month I quickly learned that although, there is “ministry”, as their Team Leader my team IS my ministry. From team mates learning how to place their emotions, getting sick, dealing with spiritual warfare ha, you name it. It was a chal.lenge. for myself to balance these moving parts on top of actually going to ministry, communicating with the host, orchestrating team time, “staying face”, etc. etc.
I started to adjust to the idea of my team being my actual ministry while grieving the idea of coming home with “stories”.
Because, although a large part of the World Race is about stepping out into boldness by; engaging with strangers, sharing your own personal story of seeing Jesus work in your life, preaching in rando churches, leading worship, doing all of these things in obedience to the Lord and to just TRY and risk the (large) possibility of embarrassing yourself SO THAT people will meet Jesus…I have already done the Word Race 🙂
I have done these things. I already have really cool stories from that time that I went to 11 countries in 11 months.
So anyways, I was experiencing and understanding this shift, being content with not having this SICK experience in Indonesia that I anticipated when this happened –
Here’s the scene, it is our LAST NIGHT in Indonesia. We’re upstairs sharing a meal with our host and close friends, celebrating a birthday. Sharing tender stories, shedding happy tears when there is a knock on the door. Our friend answers it, comes back upstairs and briefly explains “someone you met on the street asked where you live and has been trying to find you. They want to take a photo with you.”. Now, having been BOMBARDED with photos and even videos from often strangers all month my immediate thought was not gentle ha. It was actually, “Absolutely not. We are sharing this tender moment, we leave tomorrow, we still have worship and it’s already almost 9:00…” bla bla bla, rude. With my team staring at me (haha) I took a breathe and decided to go downstairs to take the photo, please this weirdo that apparently had been asking around to know where we live ?? seems weird to me but whatever.
You guys. I go downstairs and there waiting for us is this absolutely beautiful high school girl that me and a couple team mates so very briefly interacted with the week before.
Three of us were walking home from running some errands when I mentioned to them that I was putting in my headphones not because I didn’t want to talk to them, I just had lots to do still and was feeling a little stressed. Unable to hear the street traffic and people talking at and about us, I noticed a group of youth smiling and bashfully giggling at us. They were amazed by US, a group of beautiful Americans that they may have only ever seen in movies. I saw them and in one fluid motion took out my headphones, turned around and engaged with them like they so badly wanted us to. They were shy and shocked that we approached them . I interacted with them all pretty generally as a collective group, saying “hi, how are you?”, giving high-fives and smiles, but I do remember there being one specific girl that I looked in the eyes and called beautiful. I asked if they wanted to take a photo and so the selfies commenced and with waves and hugs n’ smiles bye, we were on our way.
A week later, this girl that I called beautiful shows up on our door step with a friend… the night before we leave… after asking around trying to find out where we were staying … and shares with me that I had a special touch on her heart…. so in other words, a divine appointment knocked on our door at about 9pm.
After some sharing and translation from our host, we asked if we could pray for the girls. They said yes and came inside where we would be tucked away because these things are sensitive here in Indonesia. Through tears of joy we thanked God for these young women and that he allowed for us to know each other. We declared big blessings and safety over them and asked that this moment would be a staple of his pursuit for them. We humbly asked him to keep intervening in their young lives. We hugged them, took photos, smiled, laughed, cried and said good-bye.
10 days before the girls showed up on our door step, this was my prayer;
“In the same way that the world ~sends good vibes~ I am asking that my waves “hello” would communicate hope and my smiles joy. And I pray that in the moments when I’ve turned around, that it was you.”
This was a prayer of me asking the Lord to be present in the seemingly mundane, small interactions which felt weird to ask. Because even after doing the World Race, a year of taking risks and stepping out in boldness and bla bla bla, my mind still asked “How is it that people will see Jesus in me just by saying hello??”. This is language that we use often that still sometimes doesn’t make sense in my smol human brain. As it shouldn’t because what took place was beyond me. this is what I wrote in my journal after heading back upstairs from saying bye to the girls;
“God thank you for giving me both. -It’s like he was saying- “you can be a TL and have cool, divine stories! :)” I continued to write, Thank you!! Thank you!! Turning around matters. Turning around, taking out your headphones, smiling. Taking the selfie and looking them in the eyes and calling them beautiful.. you ARE there. You are in it and working.”
Thinking about it now is funny because I definitely learned all of this on my race. I for sure had 15 minute interactions with people that started with “hello” and ended with them receiving healing from their back pain.
But I guess it’s okay because it seems like God really wants me to keep relearning how present & beyond me he is.
Anyways, that’s one of my favorite stories from last month that I just had to share with you 🙂
I love you all 🙂
I’m in Penang, Malaysia as I was December 2018 so it is very sweet and reminiscent to be here again 🙂
I am still fundraising 🙂
and !! my team is thriving here 🙂
I will share more soon, thank you for tuning in!!
Go say hello to someone, tell them they’re beautiful & be prepared for them to show up on your door step at 9pm 😉
