Going into month ten of the World Race, I felt disconnected from the reality that we were leaving Asia and heading to our third and final continent. Until then, Africa had seemed like a distant idea, this thing that we talked hypothetically about when we had down time.
Our last night in the Philippines, we found out what our ministry was going to be.
Team Changes: Unsung Heroes in the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
It would be our goal, our honor, to travel the coast and find new ministries for the World Race to partner with in the future.
My immediate reaction was overwhelming excitement. I had this romanticized idea of what an Unsung month looked like. I pictured us roaming around the Eastern Cape finding incredible ministries and being amazed by how the Spirit of God would lead us to the places we needed to be. I had this idea that God would manifest Himself in a way that I had never experienced before. I had this idea that with no plan God would have the room to do extraordinary things through us and around us.
Upon arriving to our first city, Durban, I was faced with the reality that things are never quite as black and white as I would like to think. Our first week as an unsung team was incredibly difficult for me. We were having trouble finding accommodations that were within our budget. We were having trouble finding places with free wifi to do the research we needed to do in order to find contacts. I was frustrated with the slow progress we were making due to extenuating circumstances. I felt out of control.
I quickly realized that to be an unsung team means research, e-mailing, calling, scheduling and excel spreadsheets. Ministry meant putting aside romantic ideas of what I thought my race was going to look like, and focusing on the fact that we were making a way for these ministries to be encouraged and lifted up by future racers. It meant delving into a side of myself that I had not previously tapped into. If you ask my Momma about my organizational and logistical skills, she would probably laugh and ask “what skills”? It is not in my nature to be business-minded. I want to run free in a field full of flowers and talk about Jesus with pretty words and have emotional experiences with the Lord that help my logical stubbornness be set free.
God gave me glimpse at what life could be like when I go home next month. If I don’t wake up every morning and choose to go find ministry, it won’t happen. In my life at home I don’t arrive to a new place every month with a contact and lodging and budget all set up for me. In my life at home there won’t be anyone in the “home office” giving me a sheet before I arrive with the low-down on my ministry details and what I will be doing. Ministry outside of the race means taking a deeper look at what God has given me passion for and going out and finding a way to expand the kingdom using those passions. It means living like Jesus even when my days aren’t labeled as ministry as a missionary.
In hindsight, I can look back on this month and see some really cool ways God moved. We had free lodging for three nights in Durban, our route was changed from the whole Eastern Cape to just East London for the second half of the month and we ended up staying with an incredible woman who became like a mother to us, our team became more a family than just a group of friends. God can move in any situation, but whether we see Him move depends on us. We can focus on the way we think things should be, we can focus on the things that don’t go our way, and we can focus on unmet expectations. Or we can find the sweet ways that our Heavenly Father is fighting for us every single day. We can focus on the plan God has intricately woven for us. We can focus on the crazy knowledge that the creator of the universe is orchestrating even the most frustrating situations so that we will know Him more and see our lives for what they can really be.
The Unsung Heroes are the people who aren’t waiting for opportunity to be thrown in their lap with an instruction manual and set guidelines. They are the people who have been transformed by an incredible savior, see the brokenness that remains around them and decide to partner with God in doing something about it.
We can all be Unsung Heroes.
It just takes opening our eyes and then taking one step forward, and then another, and then another until we’re walking at the pace set by the Lord and all of a sudden our life is changing the people around us because it looks like Jesus. We hold ourselves back because we’re afraid to take that first step. We’re afraid to dream big, gigantic dreams, let alone actually try to live them out. We’re afraid, but that’s okay. Peter was afraid when Jesus asked him to step out of the boat. What makes that moment profound is that even in his fear, he knew that Jesus was greater and took that step onto the water.
Let’s walk on water. Let’s be wild and free and crazy for Jesus and see the world change around us. When people come in contact with the spirit of God, they change. Let’s be the catalyst for that change.
