“You Like Banana Cake?”

World Race Lesson #1: Never respond with an enthusiastic “yes” to a dish of food being offered to you overseas unless you can see it and are 100% sure that it is something you want to eat.

Today, Team X-Stream learned this lesson the hard way.

It was breakfast time in Cambodia, which of course always consists of rice and some sort of side dish. My team and I assembled outside to find that our side dish on this particular morning consisted of whole fish in a red sauce, topped with cucumbers and tomatoes. Now, you have to know, I am not a particularly picky eater. Generally I will eat everything placed in front of me and for the most part even enjoy it. This morning, however, I was struggling. Breakfast at home in Texas for me typically consists of Chick-fil-a Chicken Minis & a Dr. Pepper, or a cup of Starbucks coffee with a muffin, or a Chiloso’s breakfast burrito.

Not fish.

Never fish.

I did my best to do the culturally appropriate thing, which was to eat what was placed in front of me with a smile on my face and exclamations of “delicious!” I was successful, but my stomach was definitely arguing with me the whole time. So when a woman from the preschool across the yard came over and asked, “You like banana cake?,” of course my thought process was, “anything to get this fish taste out of my mouth” (that part was silent, of course) followed by an emphatic “Yes, please!” and a bunch of unneccesary nods.

My team can blame me for what happened next.

The woman returned with a plate full of food, but it was definitely not the “banana cake” that my mind had so artfully prepared my taste buds for. Instead, we found ourselves staring at a plate full of what looked to be giant sushi rolls, each one about the size of my fist. In place of seaweed, though, there were banana leaves encasing the roll; instead of fish in the middle, there was a chunk of what appeared to be red, uncooked meat.

My teammates did their best to nibble away at the “banana cake,” keeping smiles on their faces. The center of the roll was not uncooked, praise the Lord, althought it did taste distinctly like a strawberry flavored hot dog…if there is such a thing. The rest of the banana cakes ended up being discretely swept away into pockets to be saved for “later”…. a.k.a. never.

Yes, I have gotten to share the Gospel and do what some would consider “world changing” things, but for me the World Race been so much more than that. There are days, and in some cases there will even be months, where the Lord has just asked me to stop. To stop rushing around and trying fill my day with as much “ministry” as possible… to stop, and to sit, and to seek Him relentlessly.

My teammate April made an amazing point to me today. She said, “Lena, pretend you were married and that you traveled around the world hosting seminars about marriage and about how awesome your relationship with your husband was. But pretend that, in the course of giving all these seminars and talking to all these people, you never went home and you never called your husband from across the world to say, ‘I love you’ and you never spent any time with him. What good would all your seminars and all your conversations be? They would be worth nothing, because they’d all be based on lies about a relationship that you’ve failed to maintain, all the while encouraging others to do just the opposite. It’s the same with your relationship with Christ. You can travel the world and tell as many people about Him as possible, and about how great He is, and about how He’s changed your life, but if you’re not spending any real time with Him, if You’re not seeking Him out and allowing yourself to spend days or even weeks of undivided time with Him in order to cultivate intimacy, then what good is all your talk? It’s not, because it’s based on lies. You can’t tell people about a God that you have a relationship with if your own relationship with Him isn’t healthy at all.”

So this month I am learning how to just sit at the feet of my God, my husband, and cultivate intimacy with Him. Really, it’s almost like He’s forcing me to. The language barriers here prevent opportunities to just walk up to someone and begin talking about Jesus. The pace of life overall in rural Cambodia is a vast change for me as well, with a lot of down time in the middle of the day to escape from the sweltering heat. But in the midst of all this, God is giving me the opportunity to just seek His face and learn that it’s ok to spend time with Him.

Because I don’t want to travel around the world talking about my Husband and the amazing relationship I have with Him if it’s not true. God forbid that I ever forget that my heart needs Jesus just as bad as the people that I am ministering to. In fact, I may need Him now more than ever as God has set this year of missions before me. If you read Luke, you’ll find that Jesus Himself escaped alone as often as possible for times of extended prayer with the Father throughout His 3 years of public ministry…not to mention that He spent the first 30 years of His life in preparation before He even entered the public spotlight!

I believe there is much to be said about allowing ourselves the time to seek God’s face before we ever expect to be fruitful and effective in ministry. It is something I have never really given myself much time to do in the past, but it is something that I pray I will never let slide again.

So yes, the World Race may not be what I expected, but I don’t regret for a second my emphatic “Yes, please!” to go.

And banana cake…well that’s a different story…