These are the rare occasions that one can hardly believe is their own life, that something you actually lived out is an actual story that you get to tell to your kids one day, to your loved ones, and laugh about with people who shared those minutes, hours, that day-really-with you.
This is when I remind myself that being on the World Race does not create these memories. Sure, the fact that I am away halfway across the seas living a life on missions is a catalyst to opportunities to witness God’s best stab at storytelling, but I can be fully aware of how unexplainably brilliant a day like this was if it were to happen in the States too.
I got to live out this day. What I was hoping for an “off day” God turned into a memory that I will have a hard time forgetting for years to come.
The same sun that rises and sets where I am, exists in your sky too-remember that. Your life is happening right at this very moment.
Below is that day in the best of depictions:
My team awoke to the sounds of dogs barking and began giving eachother “that look” to who would play the part of preacher today at church. In Nepal the day of the Lord is on Saturdays and while we thought we were entitled to this day, that it was ours and we shouldn’t have to go to a service lasting between 4-6 hours long, we were not spared.
A pastor speaking minimal English in a red, borrowed wannabe Jeep Wrangler picks us up and we embark to a spot that he so sporadically tells us “is three hours from China.” Entering the church we take note that almost 75% of the congregation is children and I nestle into a familiar spot against the wall where a tired child falls asleep in my arms and because of my nose ring (and distinct separation from my team because I love the floor best) am mistaken for a Nepali woman. Fast forward about 6 hours, service has ended with Malia and Alyssa giving the members wise words to chew on later, our bellies are filled with chai and white bread (mom, you are probably laughing at the irony in my least favorite bread haunting me everywhere,) there have been countless failed attempts at pronouncing the orphans names, Pastor has gone upstairs to have himself a couple hours nap, and lots of laughs shared we begin what we assume is our journey back to “the Ranch,” my term of endearment for the 4 story building our entire 60 member squad has made home this month.
First we stop at the construction site for what is the foundation of a future home for the Pastor, his wife, his two biological children, and their TEN adopted slum kids. Hands outstretched we pray, figuring it is the least we can do because of their excitement and honest belief that OUR prayers are much more ordained and powerful than their own. But back to the Ranch we go.
“We are going to place where village people are living because their home has been leveled with the earthquake,” Pastor’s wife in her limited language ability explains to us next. Having cancelled our afternoon plans, my team looks at one another and sighs realizing the hopes we had for resting and rejuvenating are at this point out the door. Reminding one another to have joyful hearts, we trudge on and witness such a remarkable place that the Lord has His hand over. A community of homes all built of tin, a tin village as I called it.
Everyone is eager to yell “Jimahsi” which means “victorious Messiah” as we pass through their anything but spacious spaces. The little girls are especially eager to touch Alyssa’s, almost entirely non-existent to their culture, blonde hair.
We pray for a woman who has been slowly regaining her strength with a long battle with cancer. She is frail, small, and lovingly accepts our pleas to the Father to heal her. I am reminded again how lucky we are to have access to do a miracle like that, to pray and expect God to listen.
It is evident that we will be missed after our half an hour detour to visit these life-giving God-fearing people. The kids wave goodbye with loud “I’ll miss you”s and we expectantly look for the Pastor. We see him come around the corner with a speckled chicken in hand, it’s feet tied together and there’s squawking that it’s someone’s dinner tonight. Oh, what a norm it is here to see dead chickens displayed all over countertops for flies to land upon, but we will take this live and clucking one any day.
With the chicken in tow, back to the Ranch we go.
Rounding the corner the pastor spots a central basketball court where the local biker gang seems to have made their destination to have motorbike rallies. No questions asked that trusty Jeep Wrangler look alike is pulled over and our mouths drop as we watch tricks that take a whole lot more than a little skill.
Joking to my teammates as to what my Dad would say if I asked to hop on the back of one of these daredevil’s bikes, as a team we come to terms with the fact that the day is a) just getting started and b) that we have ventured much further into this adventure of a day then originally intended. Whether it be frontwards standing up, or backwards sitting down like we had just watched those crazy Nepali men trying, the only thing we promised ourselves we would do for the rest of the time is enjoy the ride. But, back to the Ranch we go.
You get the point of the story and how it’ll keep going.
Now at this point in the day we get stuck. Not stuck with what to do next, or how we should get home, or what would be the best approach for interactions with the hilarious couple of Pastor and wife even though we wondered all of those things. We actually got stuck. Going up a larger hill the driver of that SUV look-alike (Pastor) decided he would take a daring stab at the massive dirt pile that lay amidst the hill itself. Here is where the vehicle gets its name of “wannabe Jeep Wrangler” because it took 5 women in their church kurtas with makeshift shovels in hand trying to dig out that bad boy to get somewhere, anywhere. Rolling back down the hill we laughed until our sides hurt like crazy as we gazed over the side of the cliff that could have resulted in our death, but thankfully the Lord had 9 more months in store for us. With a sigh of relief, back to the Ranch we go.
This last leg is what God had intended for this entire day. He is a man of stories; not only having the ability to create some pretty awe-inspiring ones Himself. He encourages us to live them out, be fully present, and to trust Him with MORE than just the day’s events.
As a detour is taken Courtney spots a wedding out the window, with everyone dressed in red, symbolizing a Hindu tradition. What a pleasant end to the day, I think, giggling and wondering how each of us will describe the day later. Low and behold we find ourselves stuck AGAIN. Kiersten, Alyssa, and I make eye contact as the Pastor is on his hands and knees trying to kick the giant boulder out from under the vehicle’s body- a rock so large that the wheels are unable to turn in either direction. The three of us are no longer grumbling, wondering what the hold up is, we are excited for what the Lord has next. Instead we are asking Him “Why?”
What is up ahead, God? What other different directions of You are you taking us in today? Where will we find ourselves if we simply say yes? It sounds like a drastic movie scene moment, but it actually was. All to often I want to be in control of my own life, thinking it would be easier that way, any intended pain would be spared from me, or maybe even that I can write a BETTER story. God, really loves me to just shake His head and think “Oh, Paige.” I would never have been able to tell you what I thought was coming in the experience later. Never would I have had the ability or sequential nature to choose the right patterns of the day to end up in that little home with that special family, in a place that only God has intended for me to sit and FULLY be.
With the wheel of the vehicle jacked up in order to roll the boulder out from underneath we receive an invitation to a local family’s home. It could have been because we were white, missionaries from America, or that the Pastor was charismatic, or that the Lord was calling for this divine moment, or that heaven would bring a bit of itself to earth with this experience. I’ll never know, but we all said yes.
We were invited into a home by a sweet little grandfather and his non-believer of a wife. My heart broke for what he told us through rough translation next: The old man had been tormented by evil spirits for so much of his life that he had cut off two of his own fingers and was NOW a living, breathing story of redemption. It was nothing special of a home, but boy did it feel like a place where love reigns.
Within moments we find ourselves with maggi noodles in bowls on our laps, as we listen to the life that has unfolded before this family’s eyes. Pastor’s wife and Malia sing old hymns that somehow managed to bridge the language barrier between them, the rest of us listening with remembering ears.
Our hearts are broken for this couple’s grandbaby. A little girl so small, her legs are the width of a half dollar at the age of three. Intently listening they tell us about her heart and how it has a hole in it, a hole that enables her body to properly pump blood to her legs. This disastrous hole in her heart also makes her incapable of having the life-sparing surgery she needs to get better because she cannot gain the weight she needs to survive the procedure. We lay hands and pray asking God to do MASSIVE things in this little, tiny shack that feels much like a place where God would dwell and do a miracle.
The baby’s mother explains that she became a Christian a few year ago with her dad. Her husband soon after left her claiming that she had chosen Jesus over him and continued to pursue other things and women, as well as coming by to check on her at times now and again. He’s left her but when we met her she was three months pregnant with their second child. She remained alone yet hopeful, something most western Christians never imagine would go together.
Together instead of breaking bread, we shucked corn as spontaneously the Pastor decided he would give “home church” (basically church at home) for this family. With a message, some songs via us, and lots of prayer we began to understand a whole new meaning of what the church was to say, be, and act like. That the church wasn’t simply an institutionalized idea or a building where people are to meet once or twice a week to show their dedication to the Almighty, that it was a purpose that the Lord has given us amongst intense suffering and immense joy that life brings about in seasons. That church was saying yes to a desperate man when we should have been heading back to the Ranch, but clearly our time was blessed more at his side. That church was about embracing the schedule instead of putting it into a box with time limits, irrational structure, and the need to exclude those that don’t hit the mark.
Church is good. Church is for God. Church is nothing like I have been taught and everything about what God wants to do in and through you.
Everything seemed to align in my heart when in the heart of that little house we came to the realization that our cups were overflowing. Our hearts were about to burst with the amount we had seen in that day, the goodness He has showed us, and the amount of love we had for that family we were sitting amongst. It took God six hours of sermon time, a whole lot of unintended frustration because of our own selfish ambitions to plan our day, a trip to the tin village, a moment with the local biker gang, laughter about moments we will never forget from memories we couldn’t control and a few times getting stuck to be found in that moment. Found where He needed us to be to come alongside those beautiful people in the mountains of Nepal at a time when they felt at their weakest and their world seemed to be crumbling at the seems. We, some girls from the United States, unaware of their impact or ability to meet needs of this family, were smack dab in the middle of God’s will-truly the safest place to be.
I cannot get you to explain how the very inner of my heart felt like. Again, I found myself wrestling as to WHY I had been shown so much favor in my life, but then I remind myself that this is not a season of arriving or a season of leaving. This season of my life that I am living through is all about becoming. I am becoming an individual who trusts more, a girl who loves harder, a daughter who dares more greatly and a believer who does MORE because my God says I can.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us. (Ephesians 3:20)
I am nothing without a God who is everything. He is the ultimate, the beginning of my day, the end of my story, and the choice within every single day. Just like this day, I am learning to only have the most expectant of hearts and to say yes always.
This day taught me three of the most important lessons on my Race thus far.
Lesson One: God always has the best of intentions and His best stories are created when we do not live in fear. You are not called to live in the offense of others let alone those around you, if you are following His lead He takes care of everything else.
Lesson Two: Everyone wants to go to church but no one wants to be the church. Out of those two one just seems easier and the other is too scary.
Lesson Three: People love to live out a story that is remarkable, a story that when the credits roll the audience is in awe because it ended too soon, but very few want to work to make that happen. Very few trust God enough to say yes to Him at every turn. I, myself, trust very little because it is in my nature to think “Paige knows best.” That’s a lie.
Lesson Four: Investing alongside people’s pain is what produces the most joy. Every. Single. Time. Joy costs the most pain.
Sorry for the expansiveness that is this blog post, more thoughts to come.
Love you all, be praying for this next month in Vietnam. xx
