FRUSTRATED.
That’s the only word that came to my mind whenever I’d stop to think about how I was feeling yesterday.
I found myself sitting there, in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, my fourth month on the Race, wondering why I had never felt that kind of frustration before.
Then, BA-BAM!
Another word kept coming to me.
Rebuke.
Rebuke, rebuke, rebuke.
I sat with the Lord, and He spoke with me about my frustration.
About rebuke.
I sat, I listened, and I was taken back to a thought that He brought to my heart in the morning.
“What is my vision for this month?”
I’ve been through Nepal. I’ve been through India. I’ve been through Thailand. And now, I’m going through Cambodia. Through all of this, I realized that our team has been involved in some sort of children’s ministry every month.
In Nepal, we taught children English in a village, using textbooks that did not even have proper English in them. We taught in brick rooms that only had three walls, we taught in a mud hut, we taught as we dripped sweat from head to toe.
In India, we served in an orphanage and loved on children who have disabilities. We took them for walks in their wheelchairs, we watched them laugh wildly as they slid down slides, and we danced with them to Motown music.
In Thailand, we hopped from school to school everyday, teaching English to students through various songs, dances, and games. This was also the month where I lost my voice and received the scratchy, manly voice that I still have today (I’d like to think my team has come to love it).
And now, here I am.
I’m in Cambodia, and our team is now working with children whose mothers have been or currently are a part of the sex trade.
We’re in Cambodia, where a mother selling her daughter’s virginity is a normal thing.
Yeah, it’s a crazy world that we live in, and we are here.
It’s almost unreal, yes, but what people don’t realize is how complacent you could easily become on something as different and as radical as the World Race.
We’ve been with children every month- with disabilities, without disabilities, in villages, in cities, in run down buildings, in air-conditioned rooms- we’ve experienced quite the variety.
But in this, I’ve realized how easy it has become to go with the flow without any real intention to come out a different person- a better person.
To sit with the children, to play and to laugh but to still feel indifferent.
To feel almost numb.
This morning, I sat in these thoughts, and my frustration turned into a frantic search.
A frantic search for the reason why.
Why are you still here, Richelle?
You work with children every month, and as different as these children are from one another, are you any different?
Have you changed?
I finally sat down and opened my heart to find complacency, and in response, I asked my heart a single question.
“Richelle, what is the Lord’s vision for you this month?
Why are you here with these children?
What’s the point?”
And you know what? I’m tired of going through my days aimlessly.
As a visionary daughter walking around with no vision.
For the glory of God, yes. To bring His kingdom, yes. To give His love, yes.
But I want to go deeper.
I realized that I want to dig deeper.
DEEPER!
I want to dig, not only dig more into my relationship with the Spirit (which, mind you, could also be a whole new blog post in itself), but to dig into the people who are here- and genuinely. To genuinely care for each child, and to get to know them past their cries and smiling faces.
To genuinely dig, and to let their joy ruin me.
To let their joy rebuke me.
My vision for this month is to not only learn from the stories and the lives of the long term missionaries here, but to leave rebuked. I want to immerse myself so much in the love, the joy, and the energy of these children that I leave rebuked and compelled to live out that childlike faith that He calls us to have.
Yesterday, we went to the villages to pass out food. I was given a loaf of bread to hand out to anyone around me. Turning my face to the right, I quickly spotted a woman in the distance. From what I could see in that moment, she was draped in a worn, red, cotton dress- and almost instantly, our eyes met.
I came walking toward her with the bread hiding behind my back.
As I got closer, and closer… her smile grew.
“Hello!” I said as I stood in front of her, the bread still behind my back.
She didn’t respond, she just smiled.
I took the bread from behind my back and handed it over to her,
“For you!”
She stayed silent, but her face lit up.
You should’ve seen the exuberance on her face.
Man, the exuberance and the light in her eyes.
If the word JOY were to be given a visual definition in the dictionary, you would have definitely seen her face, in that moment, pasted onto the page.
And man was I torn apart by her facial response to being given bread for food.
I was rebuked by the joy of a woman after handing her a bag of bread.
Joy and gratitude had never felt so piercing in my entire life.
And that’s exactly what I want this month.
I want to pursue these people and these children so relentlessly and so intimately that I leave completely rebuked.
I want to leave pierced.
And pierced not for me, but for Jesus, who was first crushed and pierced for us.
Pierced for the sake of refining my cold heart, to make it shine like gold so that others may see more of Jesus and want to walk with Him and dance with Him, too.
Have we reached our full capacity for growth?
Have we become lazy?
Have we become careless?
Can we challenge ourselves more?
Can we stop living our lives restricted in walls of comfort and dressed in camouflaged complacency?
I know it’s hard, but have we stopped fighting the good fight?
Let me go back for a second.
The joy on that woman’s face in being handed bread for food silently rebuked me and wrecked my heart even more not only for His kingdom here in Cambodia, and not only for His kingdom all over the world
But it even wrecked my heart even more for home.
If you’re currently sitting in the comforts of home (America, Canada, Iceland, wherever that may be for you), do me a favor.
The next time you eat bread or see bread at the store, think about that woman who had pure bliss and gratitude beaming out of her face in being handed a loaf of bread for food,
And ask yourself– Why are you living?
What is the point?
Who are we to live this life aimlessly?
Brothers and sisters, I challenge me, and I challenge all of you.
Let us live our days with visions that seem too big for us, let us write Spirit-led poems that make no sense in the moment, let us pray for miracles, and let’s start believing in the impossible more fervently and more passionately than ever before.
Because I’m done with letting laziness, complacency, or even fear hold me back from truly experiencing whatever it is that the Lord has written for me.
And I’m ready to fight to break free every morning, in order to dive deeper into a flaming faith that births an organic walk with the Spirit that births deeper visions for the rest of my life.
Why?
Simple.
Because God is real.
And with Him, all things are possible.
With Him, life is hard, but so beautiful.
With Him, life is worth it.
With Him, life is real.
And in Him, life is found.
– – –
“Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.’ And He said, ‘Come!’ And Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’. Immediately, Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?'” Matthew 14:28-31
“You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” Psalm 77:14
“The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the LORD.” Matthew 15:31
