arms and weak knees.
so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
There’s a
certain gravitas that comes with defying gravity; I felt it settling into my
gut as each plane of my trip took off and landed.
I noticed
a group of men and women who just looked like a short-term missions team,
something I guessed from my by semi-stealth intelligence gathering methods (read:
overhearing their conversation as I read while waiting at the gate at Terminal
B in Washington Dulles Int’l Airport). It
wasn’t until the second leg of my flight – San Juan, PR to Santo Domingo, DR –
that I actually struck up a conversation with some of them.
Dan and
Jeff sat in my row. They’re two of their
ten-member medical missions team comprised of doctors, nurses and EMT
professionals, but they themselves were the sole non-medical background folks from
Waynesboro Mennonite Church in (I suppose, Waynesboro) Virginia. We exchanged details of our trip and sat quietly
for most of shuttle between the two capitals.
Then I
got this hankering to pray for them. And
even with a World Race under my belt, it still took some courage to get over
myself and ask them if I could pray for them. And just in time, as the plane made its descent, I asked the Lord for
His favor and blessing and guidance and protection and boldness to cover them.
I hadn’t
got off the plane, yet the Lord already had me hit the ground running.
Remember
the word that Mike Paschal shared with us G Squad (October 2008) folks back at
M&N Squads’ (January 2010) training camp? The word was gravel, which Google dictionary describes thusly:
“Gravel consists of very small stones. It is often used to
make paths.”
It’s not
a coincidence to me that half the WR Alumni team is from G-Squad. Mother Teresa says, “we do no great things,
only small things with great love”; in other words (hers, also, I believe), “it
is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into
them that matters.”
mission was to pave the way for more to come in. How were we
to make that path through the rubble, to the lost and orphaned, the confused
and grieving, to the lonely and confused?
One pebble at a time.
Call us the
ground crew, if you’d like.
It’s a
stark contrast to what I saw. True to
the vision/image my formidable intercessor friend Jean received when she prayed
for me the Tuesday night before my departure, I saw quite a lot of UN signs at
the airport as well as at our accommodations in Santo Domingo. A good number of relief workers sported those
outdoorsy vests, many emblazoned with “WFP” (World Food Program) on the back.
And there
we were, the ten of us – a former Marine, a former investment banker, a single
mom and seven former World Racers – with a lick of, if any, disaster relief
experience, sitting in a way too comfortable hotel suite with Jack Larson of
Mision Emanuel.
Jack is a
man who’s spread out lots of pebbles throughout Santo Domingo. As far as I know, he’s not an educator or
healthcare professional or biochemist or entrepreneur by trade, but in his
thirty years serving in the Dominican Republic, his ministry has built clinics,
schools, a water filtration and bottling plant and a women’s co-op.
Raul, a
pastor/missionary in Azua, DR with whom the World Race has partnered with last
year and that week, said to me, “you know, when you’re a missionary, you do a
little bit of everything.” In that
statement, I learned yet again that to God what matters more to Him is how
available to and dependent on Him we are in order to obey Him.
It
would’ve been awesome to have a disaster relief experience or a medical
background but the lack thereof didn’t exclude me from obeying Him. Really all He required of me was a spirit
that was willing to say yes to whatever, however unskilled or uncomfortable or
inconvenient.
And you
know what I realize just now, as obvious at it sounds? That “Yes” springs from a spirit of humility,
usually symbolized by kneeling. . . where? [Cue SNL digital short of the same name]. . .
On the
ground.
