[Requisite introductory
sentence…] We were asked to write
a blog about how we felt before leaving on this mission trip. Here is what I’m
expecting…
Oh man. Expectations? For a trip
that is basically this? …traveling with a handful of people I have never met
nor will meet until three months before we leave. Eleven countries I’ve never
been to, with those people whom I haven’t met. One whole month in each of those
countries I’ve never been to with those people I haven’t met, doing different
kinds of work that will surely break my heart again and again. Oh, and two of those
months will be in places yet undetermined, wholly dependent on where the Holy
Spirit leads.
Am I allowed to be incredibly cliché and say “expect the
unexpected”?
For right now at least, I’m not too
worried about much. That may change as we get closer to leaving, but I figure worrying won’t really change anything or do me any good. I just have to prepare
the best I know how… spiritually, mentally, physically (any other “–ally”?),
and just let this thing take its course.
That being said, I am expecting some things while we’re out there. I expect to gain some clarity
about what I’m supposed to do with my life after the Race. I expect to see the
Lord’s hands visibly at work, even through miracles. I expect to eat some really weird
food…sleep in some really uncomfortable places…cry really hard…laugh really
hard…make some really incredible friends…and memories…and stories. And I expect
to be stripped of, well, myself. My ego, my wants, my comfort. And I expect it
to hurt like hell. But, in the words of singer Dustin Kensrue of Thrice… “We will burn, but we will not
burn up.”
It is going to be strange and maybe
scary and probably lonely at times out there on the World Race… but I have to
go. I can’t NOT go. As much as it is a mission trip, it is also a pilgrimage –
I need to go because I need to find myself. I have something pulling on my
heart, but I don’t know what it is. It’s a spiritual and physical pilgrimage,
and I will be tested, tried, purified, and broken and remade. We will
experience the world the way few people ever will, and we’ll see into the eyes
of the ordinary, poor, rejected citizens of their countries – and in those eyes
I will see myself reflected back at me. Their physical hunger will mirror my
own spiritual hunger, their impoverished lives will echo mine. On that day, the
rich man will meet Lazarus… but this time, will the rich man love Lazarus?
