Relevant Magazine Writes that, “the world is filled with bad news and desperate situations. The natural response is to want to do something, to go and help. To make a difference. Have you ever noticed, though, that those desires to “go and help” always involve going to faraway, exotic lands where life is totally different from here? What is it about our desires to just do something that inevitably take us away from home, away from our (boring) jobs and into desperate and horrific situations demanding a hero?
Is there a dash of escapism mixed with our altruism?
Perhaps a bit of savior complex combined with our compassion?”
“Missions abroad can become an attempt to disconnect from anything and anyone familiar, as if by escaping the ordinary, life will automatically become extraordinary. But what are we running from? Behind the banter of good deeds is a common desire to prove something not just to others but to ourselves. We all want to be different, to see evidence we’re not just another number out of the 6 billion on Earth, to know we’re really alive. But is flying the 9,000 miles to Zambia and feeding starving children the best way to go about metting those inner needs?”
I totally have felt all of what Relevant just talked about.
“We sometimes think only of Pakistan or Zambia or Bolivia as fertile ground for “going out and making a difference–really living. But heroism belongs at least as much in the little town or big city where you grew up as it does in wild and daring exotic locations.”
So why am I bringing all of this up. Doesn’t really sound like I am building my case for going abroad for a year to all of these exoctic locations while asking you all to support me in it? But these are the things I’m thinking off. These are things that I struggle with when it comes to missions.
“If you can’t be extraordinary in your ordinary life, with your own neighbors,” even the ones that get drunk and come over to your backyard fire claiming to be duff-man, than “its highly unlikely you’ll amount to much–no matter what orphan you have kissed.”
“There’s a myth that its lame to send a check to Food for the Hungry or Compassion instead of going across the ocean to hold some person’s hand while they are dying. Sending that check may actually have a much greater impact than spending the money on your own plane ticket. Support the people and organizations you believe in financially and in prayer.”
Its not going to be any easier for me to follow Christ if I completely remove myself from everything that is comfortable here in Fort Collins by going to 11 countries around the world for a year. Whats hard is walking with Jesus in the day-to-day wherever that may lead us. I am not really good about the whole God’s Will thing either. I mean, I know when I feel led to do something, but sometimes its not always the most obvious thing to me. I wish God sent me monthly texts on how I was doing with the whole Will thing. He’d be a fast texter I think. Use as little words as possible to get the Point across.
I understand that missions are not for everyone. Heck, I am not even sure that I’m the “missions type” if there is such a thing.
Maybe God’s Will might have looked different if I chose to stay in Colorado and find a job somewhere, maybe I don’t need to travel all over the World to find that Will. But I think more than anything I am coming to the realization that God’s Will is just that we be “walking with him in the day-to-day wherever we are.” Whether God’s Will leads you to a bakery in the states or in Zambia with an HIV orphan.
It may be strange that I have set up this whole blog to read that missions aren’t always the best way of going about things and then to ask for support from all of you, but lets be honest, I need support from all of you. There is no way I can do this on my own. Hope this makes sense. I am not bashing on missions. I’m just making sure that I get my reasons right for going and that I am not just using an escape tactic to find God somewhere else. I love to tell the story, to be the hero as Relevant talked about. I truly believe though that the Lord is doing something with this World Race group that will tell a much, much better story than I could ever do on my own. A story about what it means to love.
I believe God is just choosing the World Race to show me and hopefully all of you something great.
I’m excited, and nervous, and then excited again, and kinda hugry. I’m going to go make a quesadilla.
Love, Nathan Salley
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