In America people think success is defined by your pocketbook, your job description, or the square feet of your home.
I’ve been asked more than a few times why I would decide to give up a year of my life back home to go on the mission field.
The reality is, to the world, my life doesn’t look too successful…
I have no job.
No car.
No permanent residence.
Everything I own is either on my back or boxed up at my parents house.
I don’t lead an ordinary life.
I used to want ordinary.
To follow a 9 to 5 schedule everyday.
To drive my car around the same town.
To have a closet of clothes to choose from everyday.
No offense, but now I realize ordinary is pretty boring.
Not that you can’t make the most of it, because you can, and you should when that’s the stage of life you are in.
But that’s not the stage of life I’m called to right now.
So who cares if I look successful?
Some of the most meaningful moments of my life have taken place over the last seven months…
I met a girl in a grocery store in Serbia because my friend said something about nasty carrots and I got to see her give her life to Jesus a few weeks later.
I watched baptisms happen in the Danube river.
I danced with my teammates in front of the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest.
I met a couple in an elderly home who had been together for over 60 years and watched the worship the Lord together with hands raised.
I raced Payden across a rickety, old, broken bridge over a river in Romania.
I watched Ian try to steer a paddle boat on a lake in the middle of a salt mine.
I was given handfuls of dirt over and over by a little girl in my kindergarten class in Alba Iulia.
I rode in a rotating Ferris wheel with my friend Caleb and watched the sun set over the Aegean Sea in Greece.
I watched African women dance and rejoice because they were given Asylum in Greece.
I met a world traveler at a random restaurant in Malaysia and got to share my story and the story of Jesus with him over food.
I held a butterfly in my hand in the mountains of Penang.
I taught the story of Christmas and danced to worship songs with Kiddos in schools all over Phuket, Thailand.
I played on a reef in the middle of the ocean with Paradosis.
I went scuba diving and saw the glory of creation underneath the water.
I made flower arrangements for a wedding in Myanmar.
I had a dance party at Myanmar Bible College with all of my students.
I watched three school boys accept the Lord in the mountains of Lesotho and then ask how they could keep following Him.
These moments have been incredible, but here’s the picture I don’t desire to paint: that the race requires no discipline or determination.
That would be entirely false.
Yes, I have experienced incredible moments on this race. But I’ve also experienced a lot of hard moments…
I felt defeated as I shared the gospel with the same people in Sombor multiple times and they still didn’t understand that Jesus was accessible to them and not just to their priest.
I locked myself in our bedroom in Romania and wept because I felt I wasn’t good enough for anyone, even the Lord.
I watched my teammate perform CPR on a dead little girl in a desolate refugee camp in Greece.
I listened to a girl share her story of slavery with me while I guarded her gate in camp.
I broke down in tears with a Farsi translator because I had to keep telling a father I couldn’t give his family a tarp for their leaking tent.
I experienced spiritual warfare in the form of haunting dreams when I was in Malaysia.
I talked to a drunk John with my squad mate so that TT could share the gospel with a prostitute in the Red Light District in Bangkok.
I cried myself to sleep in a hospital bed in Thailand because I had thrown up around 50 times from food poisoning.
I sobbed on my hands and knees on my bathroom floor in Lesotho wrapped up in my own brokenness.
I cuddled with beautiful babies here in South Africa who had been abandoned by parents who didn’t see them as worthy.
There are days that it takes everything within me to stay instead of jumping on a plane home and getting the biggest hug in the world from my family. But in those hard moments of despair or heartache I remember that I’m incredibly privileged to live the life I lead. I’ve been given opportunities that some people could never dream of. I’ve gotten to follow the Lord into scary places and walk out the other side stronger, better, and gentler.
If you didn’t catch it, I’ve definitely had more good moments than bad, but I wouldn’t trade any of these experiences.
Don’t get me wrong, you all know how much I love Texas, but I’ve realized that there is SO MUCH MORE to the world.
I’ve the beauty of God’s creation all around me on my worst and on my best days of the race.
Sure, my life is not the American definition of success, but it is so much richer.
When the time comes for me to have a house, job and car I will take what I have and run with the richness of it, but for now I am LOVING the life that the Lord gives me each day! One filled with 5 POWERFUL women of God, one filled with laughter, joy and a lot of heartache. It’s the best life I could ask for because it’s the one he has called me to.
Make the most of whatever He has called you to, it’s worth it 🙂
