I spent last week touring the Caribbean coast of Colombia, it was a dream. We saw beautiful mountains, big waves, pretty birdies, and met lots and lots of new friends. Our goal this week was to reach out to anybody and anyone, build relationship, and share Christ’s love with them. Obviously, this is something that is different for every person. Some people are very direct, some people like to ease into it, and some people would rather just show some love to the person and eventually, when it comes up, talk about Christ. I usually fall towards the third type of person. I love to talk to strangers, strangers are my people, every stranger is a new friend, somebody to build a relationship with and to show some love to. I have never been and will never be a shy person, so evangelism is honestly a place where I thrive, I can walk up to somebody whenever I feel like (or feel called to) and make them my friend; sometimes this process takes days, where I need to continue to pursue this stranger day after day, sometimes it just takes an hour and we’ve built a connection. I’m going to tell you of a friend of mine I met the other day that happened so naturally, it was clearly a gift from God. I learned from him, and he learned from me.
So it’s my first night at this new hostel, this hostel was a beautiful beach hostel right on the coast of Colombia. The scenery was gorgeous, the water was wavy (my favorite), and this hostel was fulllllll of people! I made a friend really quickly, we talked about life and passion and the things we desired out of our travels. Him and I spoke a majority of the evening, getting to know each other in really good ways. Later on in the night, we were sitting together looking up at the night sky (you could see the whole milky way, it was friggin pretty) and he told me he was headed to bed. As he walked off, another random guy came and sat down next to me. I had no clue who he was, we hadn’t spoken yet, honestly, I hadn’t seen him at the hostel at all yet, but he was down to chat, so that’s a green light for me.
As he sat down there, we quickly jumped into talking about life. He told me about how he ended up in Colombia, about his job, what he studied, you know, surface level stuff. Then he asked me if I was in a relationship, I said that I was, then told him all about my perfect human being of a girlfriend, Hannah. And as we spoke, he got more and more excited hearing about her. I questioned why he was so curious about my relationship and he told me that he was also in a relationship and that it was really refreshing and eye opening to hear that there was a man who loved his woman as much as I loved Hannah. He was confused because he didn’t understand emotion. He told me that he hoped to love his girlfriend in the way that I could love mine but he had a hard time expressing emotions to her. He then tried to change the topic because his mind was so closed to the concept of emotion that it seemed to make him very uncomfortable and self-conscious to speak about. He asked me what some of the biggest lessons I have learned over the last 10 months of travel had been. Thank God that he worded the question that way because if he had asked what the number 1 biggest lesson I had learned was, the answer would’ve been drastically different. But since he decided to word the question as ‘some of the biggest lessons,’ I could pretty much give a variety of answers. The answer the Lord gave me to say was simple..
Vulnerability in emotions.
This dude opened up a can of worms he was not ready to hear, but the Lord knew that he needed to hear it, so I spoke out my heart. I told him that over the last 10 months, emotion has been interesting to me, you see, I have always been the guy who was either happy, or upset, there was rarely a middle ground. The Lord really began to open my eyes to how huge it was to express your emotions. You see, Jesus was emotional. Jesus wept, Jesus flipped tables in the temple, Jesus smiled and laughed. Jesus showed every emotion and has equipped us to do exactly that. Usually, the only people who have seen my emotions are those closest to me. That is something I have been working towards, something I have been pushing to change in my mind and to grow completely in. I don’t care to be the ‘cool guy’ anymore, I am totally down to cry with you, to laugh with you, to be sad with you, to really truly learn empathy.
Any who, I talked to this dude for like 35 minutes specifically on this subject, the Lord gave me a WORD on it, it was awesome! As I began to round out the conversation, I look over to my new friend and heard him sniffle his nose… this dude was crying. He was sitting there crying about how he had never realized the importance of this, how he knew that’s why my relationship with the Lord was strong and my relationship with Hannah, that was why I could love so hard. He felt that and really, it wasn’t much of my intent for this to happen, but it did. The man with no emotion sat next to me and cried for what he said was the first time in nearly 5 years. We then continued speaking about how he could grow into learning freedom in Christ, freedom from his past self and grow completely to the new man that he needs to be. I then got invited to go sing karaoke with some friends and on my way out of our conversation he looked up at me and said, “oh yea man, what was your name? I don’t think we ever did that part.” We both laughed hysterically and decided to not share names, to just allow that moment to be what it was. I doubt I will see this man on Earth ever again, but I expect to see him in heaven next to me, rejoicing in the Lord… maybe then I can learn what his name was.
Thank you for reading! I am still fundraising for my flight back to Milwaukee after the race is over. My flight costs about $200 and I have so far raised about $50 towards it. If you would like to help me get home, it would be a major blessing to me and I would love you forever. My Venmo is @MiiggySmalls and my PayPal is [email protected]. I appreciate your consideration and am so exited for the rest of this month in Colombia working in Medellin.
Much love,
Miguel
