India:
God is in the waiting. We spent a lot of this month waiting. When will we eat? What time do we leave for ministry? What do we wear? When will we get wifi?
This month, I decided that I didn’t need to passively wait. I could seek out God in the waiting. Maybe that means opening my Bible app and reading His Word, or engaging with the person next to me.
So much of our lives consist of waiting. What would happen if we used this time for His glory?
Sometimes you don’t see the fruit of your work. Because our ministry in India involved visiting many different ministries, many of us felt discouraged because we weren’t seeing results. We didn’t witness healing. We didn’t see people come to Christ. But, on our last day, our host told us the testimony of his mom. How, in her lifetime, she didn’t know the impact she had on her community. Yet, at her funeral people told testimony after testimony of how she brought them to Christ—so many that they had to start turning people away.
We don’t always see the impact of the work that we do. Sometimes we are planting and watering seeds that someone else will harvest. That doesn’t make our work any less important.
Nepal:
God is faithful. He lifts our burdens and knows just what we need. Nepal was our all squad month, and I found myself struggling to find my place in this new community. I found myself battling old lies that I had allowed myself to believe about my identity. Yet, God continued to prove His faithfulness and offered to lift my burdens. He gave me much needed rest and peace, grounding me in the beauty of His creation.
Thailand:
God wants us to have childlike faith. Walking around the dusty village roads as we ran a clinic—passing our ibuprofen and cough syrup to the locals, a young girl found her way in-between two of us, grabbed our hands and jumped. An act of pure faith. She believed that we would continue to hold her as her legs left the ground. In this moment, I thought back on all the children in my life that had done the same. Blindly trusting us to catch them. And, I realized that this is what Christ meant when He talked about having childlike faith. All we need to do is grab hold of Jesus and jump.
Cambodia:
Light is stronger than darkness. Even in the darkest places, God’s light we be made known. During our time in Cambodia, I learned a lot about the genocide that happened in the 1970s (check out my reflections HERE). My heart ached for the Khmer people who still have not seen justice. It was overwhelmed by the darkness, yet I also saw the light. In the cavernous pit where many were tossed to their deaths, I looked up and saw the light pouring in from above and I was reminded that light always prevails. And, walking back out onto the streets, the hope written across the smiling faces of children confirmed this.
His relationship with each one of us is personal, and so is the way He speaks to us. This month, I had been caught in the trap of comparison—thinking I wasn’t hearing God as clearly as others. But this month helped me realize that God speaks to each one of us differently because He knows us intimately and personally. For me, that came in the form of a lost t-shirt that was found.
Vietnam:
He is faithful. For me, our first team change was painful. I was anxious and grieving. Yet, in the midst of my grief and anxiety, God reminded me of His faithfulness and of what He had promised me. And, looking back, His faithfulness was written all over this new team.
God’s love is contagious. The night we brought our bags down into our hotel lobby to leave, the wife of the owner gave us each a teary eyed hug. Over the course of the month, our interactions had been limited to smiles and waves, Google Translate conversations about passports and missing laundry. Yet, in those small moments, she felt the love of the Father. The way we live our lives grounded in Christ’s love is attractive and contagious. And, others can’t help but notice.
Ethiopia:
He wants us to stand out and be uncomfortable. Walking through the market in Ethiopia, we stood out. Many of us were touched, had our hair pulled, or even had rocks thrown at us. Crowds of people would stand and stare as we walked past. In the discomfort, I was reminded of the words spoken at the leadership conference I attended the weekend I decided to go on the Race: “God doesn’t call us to be comfortable.” We boast in our weaknesses and we willingly become undignified before the Lord if that is what He requires.
He wants us to seek earnestly after him as we do for water—which is essential to our lives. In middle school, I memorized Psalm 63:1 which states, “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Yet, I don’t think I ever fully appreciated what this meant. Being from a State surrounded by 20% of the world’s fresh water and containing so many lakes that around 45% of the State itself is water, it is easy to take water for granted. But, in many places, water is a scarce commodity. People walk hours every day for it. They sacrifice their schooling just to have it. We can’t live without water, but we also can’t live without our living water, Jesus Christ. Seeing people earnestly seek after water gave me a deeper understanding of this analogy.
Rwanda:
He cares about injustice and wants us to speak out. Silence is an action. Our voices are powerful and our words matter. Will we use them? Read my reflections on the Rwandan Genocide HERE.
We are powerful when we operate as the Body. In just two weeks, we saw God move powerfully through our team and our host as we were united in our mission to show Christ’s love to the people we encountered. I saw this most clearly in the life of a young boy named Yohanna—whose story is much different today because of the way God moved through our team.
While Matt and Kyle were preaching, Janine, Ashley, Tate, and I were running Sunday School. As I was leading the lesson, Tate noticed Yohanna unwrapping his leg bandage to reveal a wound on his leg. She caught Kyle on his way out from the service and had him check the wound. It was clearly infected and if not treated would certainly mean amputation.
At the end of the service, we bought Yohanna up to identify his family and we prayed over them—hoping for healing. When that healing didn’t come, we committed to helping him seek medical treatment.
Only a day or two later, the money had come in and Kyle was on his way to a Kigali hospital with Yohanna.
To make sure Yohanna got his daily medicine and had his leg properly cared for, our host volunteered to let him live with her. We pulled up a mattress and and extra chair.
He ate every meal with us, and sat in on our worship sessions. We gradually watched his demeanor change as the infection slowly disappeared and his pain receded. He would constantly tell us “Thank you so much” and “I love you so much” in Kinyarwanda.
On our last day, he stood up in front of Church and gave God the glory.
The next week during PVT, he came for his next appointment in Kigali and we learned that his bone had begun to regrow—a small miracle.
We had prayed for healing—but God had much bigger plans.
Not only did God provide Yohanna with physical healing, He brought his family to Christ. He provided them with health insurance, rent and food for six months, beds, schooling, and a place for him to stay as we prepares for surgery in fourteen months from now.
Bolivia:
He doesn’t force us to choose Him. He wants us to experience the fullness of His love, and He always waits with open arms for our return. We spent our month in Bolivia working at a rehab center. During our time there, we fell in love with the girls through shared meals and soccer games. Within our last week, three girls escaped the facility, assaulting their caretaker. Despite the circumstances of their escape—their betrayal—we longed desperately for their return. Our hearts broke for them, and still wanted the best for them. And, I realized God does the same for us. We constantly break His heart, yet He always welcomes us back with open arms. He knows our potential to turn away, yet He loves us anyway.
Peru:
Christ gives us freedom, and empowers us to do the same for others. Easter Sunday we had the opportunity to hike Machu Picchu—covering 21 miles and 145 flights of stairs. Around 5am, I began to feel faint as we trekked up the stairs. Seeing my struggle, Caleigh made me give her my backpack. She freed me from my burden in the same way Christ frees us from our burdens and shame. In doing so, she gave me the opportunity to extend that freedom to someone else as I was able to take someone else’s backpack later on in the hike. Christ does the same. He takes our sin and shame and offers us freedom. And, then He invites us to extend that same freedom to others.
Christ’s love is abundant and generous. Our hosts in Peru reminded me of how outrageous and extravagant the love of Christ is. This month, I read John Eldredge’s book Beautiful Outlaw. In it he talks about Christ’s extravagant generosity. In John 2, Scripture details Christ’s first miracle: the wedding at Cana where He turns water to wine. Eldredge points out a part of the verse I hadn’t really noticed before: the amount. It says in Scripture that there were six stone water jars of 30+ gallons each—filled to the brim. Meaning 180 gallons. Converted to bottles this is 908 bottles. Jesus provided nine hundred and eight bottles of wine! Jesus poured out His generosity on this wedding and he still does for us today as He gives His life for and to us.
Ecuador:
Humility. Humility is a word that God had continually brought to me over the year, but that was so beautifully displayed in our hosts this month. They gave us the best of what they had and never expected anything in return. They gave God all the glory. And, it is the kind of humility I hope to emulate in my life.
Colombia:
God can use us even at our worst. This month, I felt very tired and easily irritable. In some ways I felt like the worst version of myself. Yet, as we sat down with our host on our last night, she told us about how she saw Christ through us. I was shocked. It was such a beautiful reminder of how God can always use us.
Overall, if I could only pull one lesson from the Race it would be that He is faithful.
He provided $17,000 for me to follow Him around the World, and He will continue to provide as I step into this new season.
As the lyrics of Kristin DeMarco’s song Take Courage declare:
“Do not forget His great faithfulness, He’ll finish all He’s begun.”
Seeing His faithfulness in this season—and throughout my life—gives me the confidence to go forward with eager expectation of what He has for me next.
