One thing I remember from our first night here was speaking with our contact about Vietnam. She mentioned how this country, especially the younger generation, is working hard to modernize itself. They are a bit behind and seek to be part of the ‘modern world,’ whatever that entails. I didn’t think much of it until I sat chatting with a group of Vietnamese young adults over coffee. For three hours I sat answering a million and one questions about life in America. Everything from family, to traffic to sex in the media. It was hard to answer some of these questions, I hadn’t given many of them much thought. Some were funny, others frustrating.
After 10 different countries I have strung together a common theme. As Americans we are looked up to far more than I ever imagined. The often ‘celebrity status’ appointed to us is still weird to me, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve just wanted it to go away. It gets annoying being followed, stared at walking down the streets, and asked to speak at anything and everything from weddings to church services to home visits. For crying out loud, I remember not even being able to go to the bathroom alone in Africa, as kids would peek through the shack that housed the squatty potty while I went inside.
This week it was perhaps the most frustrating, in a different sense. A young Vietnamese girl asked me about sex. She discussed how it’s not as culturally acceptable and is often taken out of American movies they see here. She asked me to explain the media in America. They all could rattle off celebrities they looked up to and movies they loved and it was a bit disturbing. I tried my best to explain that everything you see in the media isn’t always real, rarely so, and how sex in the media isn’t a good thing.
As Americans, we have a huge sphere of influence. It can be funny the things people know about our country out in the bush of Africa. But what image are we portraying? What example are we setting? Because the things I’ve heard aren’t exactly things I’m proud of about our nation.
Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself privileged to have grown up in America. But we have the power to change the world. We possess influence and our nation is catching the attention of millions of people around the globe. People are looking to us.
I believe Christians need to be at the forefront. We need to be first to act as agents of change. I believe God is beginning to make sense of my dreams more and more. In the back of my mind, I often believed this year would morph me into a missionary to the nations and it hasn’t. Yes, my heart has grown for the nations but I’m called to the United States for now. We need ‘missionaries’ in the states too. People who are willing to walk boldly and proclaim kingdom over America.
We need Christian actresses like my teammate Birkleigh Foreman, who aren’t willing to compromise themselves to take Hollywood by storm.
We need Christians like my teammates Ralph Kelley and Tres Washington who seek to be an agents of change in the church, stirring passion and fire in a sleepy generation.
We need Christians like my teammate Bethany Brueggen to show the compassion of Jesus Christ to healthcare in the United States.
We need Christians like my teammate Heather Dodge to move and shake in our education system.
We need Christians like my teammate Bambi Bigley to wake up corporate America.
And we need Christians like myself to be an agent of change in the beauty and fashion industry.
That last sentence was hard for me to write because it involves my calling. Something I’m still working on stepping boldly in. Knowing that despite what other Christians might think that God has called me there to be a catalyst for change.
As Christians, we have got to start working for change. We need to get out of the building that is church and start infiltrating. Leaving our mark for the kingdom everywhere we go, in every aspect of our world.
