I am writing this on my last day of ministry on the World Race. This will also be my last blog of the Race.
How do you put a year of your life into words? You can keep a journal every day, and still miss bits and pieces here and there. Are those pieces gone forever? I think no. We have a lifetime of forgotten, seemingly insignificant, memories that will pop up in our minds for the rest of our lives, right when we need them.
The snow white smile of a child in Africa and his mother’s desire for prayer to be healed from tormented dreams. University students in China’s Ivy League hearing the Gospel for the first time ever, and responding with curiosity. A sweet Mongolian family who opened their home to three strange American men for a month and called us their three American sons as we left them… and all the random hilarity and frustration that happens when you’re basically married to 5 other people. These things and many, many more will come and go in our lifetimes. Will we simply keep chugging along in our lives, and forget these sweet memories? Or will we choose to LIVE to the fullest, every moment of this gift that is life?
This year I have experienced so much. I came on the Race with a deep desire to grow more intimate in my relationship with God, and to grow more relationally with people. I believe I have accomplished that. I have also seen a whole village in Africa line up for healing from a couple fresh faced Americans who were crying out for God to show up for them. I’ve seen men in Estonia, criminals and guys with hard, scary histories, weeping as they experienced Gods presence. I have shared the Gospel with university students in China, village kids in Africa, a blossoming church of believers in Mongolia and a group of ex-cons in a rehab facility in Estonia.
I’ve slept on floors, couches, tents, dirt, futons and blow up mattresses and called over 40 place “home” this year. I have seen 3 of the man made wonders of this world, and so many God created natural wonders that you wouldn’t believe their beauty even if I told tried to describe them to you. And you know what the greatest, most profound and over arching thing I have seen this year is? God is the same, yesterday and today, in China, America, Africa and Cambodia. I’ve worshiped with 11 different nationalities, and the presence of God and His love is always the same for all of us. You don’t have to sell everything and leave your home in order to be radically on mission for God. He is the same everywhere, and he loves all nationalities equally.
The main thing God has taught me this year is the discipline of self sacrifice, of dying to yourself. Only when you give up on fulfilling your desires, when you prefer Christ over yourself, when you prefer your friends and family over yourself, when you, metaphorically, “kill yourself” and begin to live your life for the purpose of loving others, THEN you truly live. This is a constant lesson and I am constantly growing and failing at it. We were not created to be self absorbed and conceited. We were created to be in ugly, raw, beautiful, loving community with other Christ followers; and alongside that community to serve the people of this world and bring the love and forgiveness of Christ to their doorsteps. This is what the World Race is all about. This is what the Local Church is all about. This is what Christianity is all about.
Is this moment really here? Has the time really gone by so fast? 11 countries? 11 ministries? 11 pieces of myself, left behind with the people I lived and served with and grew to love. Umpteen travel days and countless busses, trains, planes, taxis, tuk tuks, tsong taos, tempos, motor bikes and rickshaws, alongside 4 different teams with laughs and arguments that have all brought me, here. This has been the wildest year of my life, and the best thing is that I know the adventure is not even close to being over. The adventure continues everyday that I walk into our beautiful world that is shrouded by darkness, with the light and hope that is Jesus inside of me. The fire that I have felt this year will never die.
Die to yourself, in order that you might truly live. Love, so that you might be loved fully. Live every day as unto the Lord and as if it were your last day on this gorgeous planet.
What we do in life, echoes through eternity.
This will be my final blog. Thank you so much for following me on this amazing journey. Thank you for all your comments, your prayers and your financial sacrifices that have kept me afloat this year. I love you all.
