So I'm here in Vietnam and his month is interresting.
What I mean by that is well….this month is SLOW.
Vietnam is a closed country to an extent so you can't just go evangelizing and sharing everywhere. And they are not too keen on large gatherings either, or traveling OR hammocks in trees! Ok yea we tried to hang some hammocks in a park and well lets just say the men in green uniforms didn't really care for it. (the trees were big enough)
( It was a funny day though)(we go in trouble 4 times our second day there..oops)
There is alot of ministry going on but its being done by people that have been there for long peroids of time and know how things are done.
So many things were canceled on us becasue the police were watching and most of us are white and therefore stick out like a sore thumb.
So most of the time our teams were stuck with loads of free time. It was hard becasue we wanted to do so much more and it was hard to explain to our supporters why we were just in our hotels most of the day. And one question just kept rolling around in my head, "when do I becaome a missionary?", "I sure don't feel like one." So all those factors made alot of us uneasy. There were about two weeks of this and most of us were about ready to write Vietnam off. But..
That's when we realized something. God had begun to speak to our hearts about what "real" ministry is.
Me and so many other people had this idea in our heads of what ministry looked like.
You know the usual "lets evangelize, door to door!", or "preaching", or "visiting orphanages", or "hospitals." And you know those things are amazing things. They are so full of God but ya know, God most of the time refuses to work in the box of our thinking.
God began to ratically shift my mind to what ministry really is.
He spoke to my heart. He said that ministry is "loving the one in front of you with all you have." And the term missionary is only a fancy word for "a lover", "a discipler", "one who will be obedient to My voice."
I know some of you are shaking your heads and saying, "oh thats an easy one." "that is so simple, why didn't you get that?"
Well all I can say is that knowing simple truths and living simple truths are completly different animals.
I may appear wise in my own eyes and know all these things but until I live them out I don't really "know" them. To acknowlege them is on thing but for them to be apart of you is another. Its the difference between knowing your spanish homework and "knowing" your spouse…yea big difference.
When the pressure's on and life hits you fast or when life gets so slow that your just living, thats when the true reactions of your heart come out. It sorts the differences between your beliefs and your theories about life.
So this season has been a sorting season. I'm finding out that the Kingdom is so simple. And I try to live complecated theories, and I miss the simple truths. So God is taking it slow with me. Teaching me simple love.
Handing out a bottle of water. Throwing someone a smile. Letting someone ahead of me in line. Going through the park and picking up trash. Sitting with a homeless man who only knows how to say the word "ok" in english and eating an egg sandwhich with him. Buying a coffee for a woman begging for money and just listening to her. Playing soccer with a bunch of kids. Loseing uncountable arm-wrestling matches.
Its really simple. And really hard.
And really humbling.
And really strange to the world.
And really challenging to my view of ministry. But you know…its not about me. Its about Him and its about them. Its about being about His business and not my own.
Do I Have it down? Heck No!
Like I said Im only on "simple love". And Its taken me three months to even get a glimps of what He's doing. And there is 8 more fruits of the spirit to go. Thank God I have a lifetime!
But I say all this to say, the deeper you go into the things of God the more simple they get and the more complecated they get to the world. I'm loving this crazy journey and I can't wait to see what is next.
You can make ministry happen anywhere, anytime. Its crazy it took me comming halfway around the world to see that.
Ministry is just love.
Love
love
love.
*vietnamese military picture is not my own: http://www.google.com.my/imgres?q=vietnam+military
