When I began to prepare for this journey, in the summer of 2015, I can not express to you the excessive amount of time I spent online trying to prepare me for the trip that would inevitably change my life. I googled what to bring. I googled the things that made people turn away. I googled the beautiful things. I googled the adventurous things.
In the research process I came to several conclusions. I knew that I would see hard things in the duration of the eleven months that I was serving. I knew that at some point I would be faced with poverty that eradicated every thought I ever had towards hunger or need. I knew that at some point I would see social situations that I did not agree with and would have to turn the other way. I knew that there would be times that I wouldn’t live in ‘comfortable’ places, eat foods that I wanted, do things I enjoyed. I knew that I was going to travel the world loving the least of the these alongside of people I prayed would become my closest, dearest of friends.
But, really, there was nothing that Google could have said that would have really prepared me for what was to come.
Because Google couldn’t have possibly begun to tell me what it would feel like to love and lose in quick succession, rapid intervals, with little to no opportunity to catch my breath.
Google couldn’t have taught me what it would feel like to hold loosely and love deeply, to love richly devoted and surrendered to the cause that is so much greater than my own comfort.
Google couldn’t have begun to express how beautiful, gut wrenching, fun, and stretching living in community is (24/7/323). No one could have told me that love like this exists for people you didn’t know. No one could have told me how difficult and rewarding loving people in their truest forms would be. No one could have told me what it would feel like to be ready to say see you later while also never letting go.
Google couldn’t have shown me that I was broken, yearning and searching- filling the broken cisterns full of false hopes, expectations and distorted realities. I ran myself dry trying to keep them full, taking water from the River of Life and pouring it into a hole in the ground that’s broken, instead of dwelling in the River. Instead of making my home in Jesus, I had made my home in the world but I couldn’t see it yet.
I’m glad I had to find out the hard way. If you find yourself at a crossroads between what you know and what you know you are being called to, jump in! Do it!! The water is fine!
Here’s to sweet surprises! To hard lessons! To dwelling in the River!!
