this morning we went to bucharest international church, prepared (as best as possible by world race standards) to serve though praise, “drime” (drama + mime), and/or testimony. true to short-term missions form, we came to bless the local church, but i left more blessed by her. we attended both services – english and romanian – and so there was a lot a took away with me.
one of the church members, an ex-pat from england, tracy, has been in romania for almost two and a half years and is returning to england. her message this morning, a “testisermon” (testimony + sermon) reminded me why i’m out here.
she became a christian when she was fourteen and considers her conversion experience to be like paul’s. she grew in faith and told God she would do anything He wanted her to do. God told her to be baptized – being dunked underwater (sans nose-plugging) then speaking before a congregation and all – but she wouldn’t do that.
“i thought i would try to skirt the issue,” she recalled. “when God’s not in the big decisions, you make bad decisions,” was the lesson she learned in hindsight, one that took sixteen years to master. the bible reading stopped, praying ceased, didn’t hear from God, and eventually going to church stopped altogether (or almost), she told us. “i almost enjoyed the spiritual decline, because in the decline, i got comfortable.”
she was slowly drawn back by His grace. she shared the vision God gave her, in which she saw that though she wanted to go around God, He had never left. that He’d been waiting for her, to the point of boredom, “can we go now? are you ready?” he’d asked her, all this time is something that brings both great joy and some sorrow, tracy said.
she grew strong again, in her church in england, her house group, her support networks. then God led her to romania.
“the first question that was burning in my heart when i landed on romanian soil was, ‘does it work?’ and by ‘it’, i mean, the gospel. . . ” she said. as everything that was familiar to her, all the good things and blessings she’s been surrounded with, was stripped away and all that was left was Jesus, she wondered if that, her faith in Jesus, was enough.
it was. “it was worth it.” here she was now, not wanting to leave romania. the first thing she learned while here: “we come close to the heart of God when we leave our comfort zones.”
sounds awfully familiar. how awesome, as in, i’m left in jaw-dropping awe, at this reminder that abandonment/brokenness isn’t a world race concept. this is what we all want deep down inside – to be close to God – and drawing us out of what’s comfortable is how He brings it about.
you see, this month has been hard. it’s not for lack of creature comforts; casa shalom is far from uncomfortable. most of the difficulty is the stuff going on inside of me.
for one thing, the feeling that, with regard to personal growth, i’m sliding back after having lunged forward (or trying to, anyway) has nagged me. with the end drawing ever nearer and being faced with the questions of what happens when we’re back in north america, which, by the way, are quite difficult to answer when we don’t even know where we’ll be next month, it feels as my grip on God’s faithfulness loosens up once in a while.
then i’m being faced with the reality of going deeper in community; that breakthrough in community isn’t going to be like gracefully diving into a pool, piercing through the water’s surface tension. no no, it feels more like trying to pick through an icy lake with nothing more than a butter knife. i can be pretty tenacious, but the tediousness of that gets tired.
while being able to update you easily on what i’ve been up to here has been good, i think it might’ve been better to abstain from it altogether (except for world race stuff). facebook enables the homesickness that had been more or less latent since january. the more i spend time lamenting what i’m missing, i’m starting to realize that there’s a lot i don’t miss.
i don’t miss the feeling of wanting more out of church and my church community on sundays. i don’t miss feeling isolated and wondering what everyone else is up to. i don’t miss wondering if i’m the only one who hasn’t checked out for the day. i don’t miss feeling like i’m the only one that wants more. i don’t miss filling a third of each day sitting at a desk so i can have money put into my bank account.
pretty soon, i’m going to miss this; i’m going to miss out on this and the people i’m with right now, if i keep missing that, which wasn’t enough to begin with.
have i been craving the comforts of home, or just the comfort of home, that i’m forgetting how close He is to me and has been to me these past few months? that even though i’m changing – which He’s doing, even though it doesn’t feel that way – and things will have changed back home, He hasn’t? that He’ll be with me wherever i am?
i guess maybe God’s still drawing me out of this new comfort zone i’ve created, in which case, i better not keep Him waiting.
to be continued, i think.
