Culture shock and what it was like coming home

I've been home now for 6 weeks as of tomorrow, and I leave for Africa again in 5 days. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions, busy as expected, and it's passed so quickly, also as expected.
What I wasn't prepared for, though, was how it felt coming home. Don't get me wrong, I expected for it to be different and weird, but as a quote from the brilliant movie The Giver says, "Knowing what something is is not the same as knowing how something feels." Culture shock comes in various forms, and for me, it wasn't like the people who wrote blogs I'd read before, where they'd get home and just cry over the amount of stuff they had, ripping their clothes out of their closets in despair. For me, it was a thousand little things that added up to make me feel overwhelmed. The doorknobs are different, and a lot lower. The eggs are white. The ceilings are lower. The milk cartons are huge. The light switches are different. We drive on the other side of the road. The season is the opposite.
I could go on, but you get the point. When the everyday, ordinary things are constantly catching you off-guard, it's exhausting. I'll admit, the morning after I came back, I laid in my bed awake, waited for my family to leave for church so I wouldn't have to talk, then continued to lay there after they had left, and just cried. I cried because I was alone for the first time in 10 months (living with 7 other people doesn't allow for much alone time), but I didn't really want to see anyone. I wanted to be back in Africa. I wanted my life here to feel normal again. I despaired that I had to wait 6 weeks to go back.
Here's the best way I can think of to describe coming back after 10 months in a foreign country. In South Africa, they do this thing called load shedding. Load shedding is when the city shuts off the power in various sections of the city for varying lengths of time, because their power grid cannot handle having the whole city "on" at once. You never really know when load shedding is going to hit, or how long it will last. Once, the power was off for a couple of days. At that point, we had forgotten which lights were on in our house at the time that the power went out. So when the power came back on, random lights in various rooms of our house came on. The funny thing about it is, those lights being on once fit exactly where we were and what we were doing. But after being gone from our house and after we had moved on to doing different things in different rooms, those lights being on didn't fit our situation anymore.
Coming back from Africa, it feels like I am such a different person now, that my life here just doesn't fit who I am now. In a way, it's true. But I have realized that I can and should utilize the tools and knowledge I learned there, and apply it to my life here.
I had to realize that I had spent the last year seeing things most people here have never seen before, and learning things no one here has ever thought about before. I have gained an urgency for the Gospel that most people here have never experienced before. And as much as I wanted to just run back to Africa, I couldn't. Partially because I didn't have a plane ticket (heehee), but also because I know that someone has to be the voice that calls people here to awake. If a missionary's job is to equip and empower a nation to reach their own people, then that's what I'm called to do here, in my own country. If God uses me to show just one person how they can be involved in missions wherever they are, it will be worth it.

Responding to the tangible presence of Christ

I sat on a small plastic chair, the kind you might find in a preschool. The other members of my team were seated in other, equally random things: the dusty ground covered by a carpet that was just as filthy as the ground on which it was placed, a not-so-sturdy bench, and a chair whose back rest had fallen off long ago. We were here, at shack number 5871 in Diepsloot extension 1, for the second time in as many days.

 

Let's backtrack to the day before.

 

We were out trying to find houses in a squatter camp that has never learned the meaning of organization. The follow-up card in our hands told us that a man named Joseph lived at shack number 5871 and we needed to talk to him. A short-term team had come and talked to him sometime in July, and now here we were, trying to talk to him again, with nothing but a 4"x4" piece of paper to guide us. We successfully found shack numbers 5869, 5870, 5872, and 5873, but no 5871. We asked around the area to see if anyone knew a guy named Joseph who lived around there but no one seemed to know who we were talking about. We decided it must be the wrong area or house number or something, and were about to walk away when a lady called out to us and pointed to a guy coming down the road towards us. It was indeed the man of the hour. He invited us to come sit in front of his house (it was the one right in between 5870 and 5872 but had no number on it. Who knew?), and we started to get to know him.

 It turns out that when the team came to talk to him, they really had a conversation with his mom; he had just happened to be there and they wrote down his information. As we talked to him, we found out that he had questions about the Gospel that were as basic as "Who is Jesus?" We were able to tell him the story of the Gospel and answer his questions about how his life would change if he decided to follow Jesus. He confessed that he drank a lot and sometimes smoked marijuana and wanted to know if that would have to change. We were able to explain the balance of obedience to God and grace when we make mistakes and encourage him that being transformed into the likeness of Christ is a process that will span the entire course of his life. At the end of the conversation, he considered all we had to say and decided to make the decision to follow Jesus! We gave him the book of John and told him we could come back the next day with a full Bible and talk some more. He asked us when we would be coming the next day. "My friends need to hear this. Tell me when you're coming tomorrow so I can bring him to hear about Jesus." We told him that we'd be back at about 2 the next day and left after praying for him.

 

Now, back to me sitting in a preschool-sized chair.

 

We were back at Joseph's house, and now we were sharing the Gospel with his friend Gift. He sat, listening intently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Joseph was quiet, hearing the story of Jesus for the second time in his life. When we finished talking to Gift about Who Jesus was and what He had done for him, we asked him if he wanted to make a commitment to following Jesus like his friend Joseph had the day before. He was silent for a short moment, thoughtful. Then in a quiet voice, he said yes. What happened next is burned into my brain… I will never forget it. As soon as Gift said yes, Joseph's entire countenance lit up with exuberance and his fist shot into the air in celebration - he was the living picture of what God's excitement must look like every time a person comes to know Him.

 

Shortly after we prayed with Gift, Joseph left again to go get more of his friends. As we struck up new conversations with the people he brought to us, he continued to come in and out, bringing more people every time. He kept saying, "Tell them about Jesus! They need to hear about Jesus!" We ended up with 2 more guys (besides Gift and Joseph) and 2 ladies, one of them Joseph's sister. By the end of the 2 hours we spent at Joseph's house, all but one of his friends had gotten saved. I was absolutely blown away by each of their responses to the love of Christ. In the very middle of a squatter camp that knows misery like the back of its hand, God's presence was tangible.

 

Please pray for this group of friends to stand together in the midst of the dark place in which they live. Pray for continued growth in Christ and love for God and His Word.



From left: Gift, Joseph, Logan, James, Brian (Bailey on bottom)



From left: Chelsea, Salamina, myself, and Asamahle (Mindy on bottom)



Recovering mask artist

The first wave of harsh reality hit on the plane, before my feet ever touched African soil. It was a simple question that shouldn't have taken me by surprise, but somehow it managed to reach its fingers into my brain and flip the switch that turns on my never-ending overthinking.

 

"So, are you guys planning on staying 6 months or the whole year?"

 

To explain, we have to go back several months, when I got a call from the director of the internship informing me that the program had been shortened to 6 months, ending in August, with an opportunity to possibly stay till December. In my mind, there wasn't even a question. I just figured I would stay the whole year; no one would even have to find out that the program was shortened. After all that happened with the other internship I had planned on attending, I didn't even want to go through the trouble of explaining the change to all my friends and family. It was need-to-know information.

 

It never even crossed my mind that others would have a different plan.

 

I have never been so wrong in my life. It didn't take long for me to find out that others didn't quite have the same "I'm moving to Africa for a year but don't expect to ever see me again" mindset that I had. After landing in Joburg and arriving at the intern cottages, I found out that one of those people who didn’t intend on staying until December was my roommate. And up went the walls in my heart.

 

I won't say I became a sullen hermit who does nothing but grunt at people and hides away in a corner to sulk. But there's an art to being "vulnerable" while still hiding away the deepest parts of yourself. There's an art to looking happy and satisfied when you're really struggling. And there's an art to keeping your distance without being obvious. Unfortunately, if there's an art to wearing a mask, I have become a skilled artist.

 

God has a way of challenging people to do what is hardest for them, because in most situations, the easy choice is not the choice that grows you. For me, the hardest thing was (and still is) allowing myself to get really close with people. Add a deadline to the amount I time I have with that person and the likelihood of me baring my soul goes down to an all-time low.

 

I wouldn't have guessed at that moment on the plane what crazy emotions and growth would come from the answer to that one question. At the time, I probably just thought something along the lines of "that sucks." I never would have imagined the amount of tears that I would shed, the amount of questioning God it would arouse, or the sadness that would ensue. But as I became aware of those very things, God pushed me out of the boat and onto the waves, so to speak. The very excuses I used as reasons not to be vulnerable - "I don't have much time and it'll hurt more when she leaves if I get close," - became the reasons I should do the very thing I was terrified to do. I went to breakfast with my intern advisor Katie last week, and she asked me how my relationships were within the internship. I realized that morning that I was really holding everyone at arm's length. I kept people far from me to protect myself but ended up isolating and hurting myself instead. And so began the process of taking off the mask for good. I still have a long way to go, but I fully intend never to wear it again. Ever.

 

I am a recovering mask artist. I am learning to love despite risk.

 

Becca leaves in two weeks and my heart breaks, but I can say with confidence that being real and vulnerable and allowing myself to get close to others is so worth it. 

Abstract art & complete trust

Tuesday night there was an enormous thunderstorm at about 3 in the morning, and the thunder and downpour of rain shook the whole house. Exodus 19:16-19 gives a picture of the glory of the Lord on the mountain and His infinite holiness and how the people trembled at the display of it all. I'm reminded that He is the same God today as He was then. I'm amazed at what Jesus's blood really did. In Exodus 19:10-13, it says how no one could even touch the mountain that the Lord had descended upon or they would have to die, and no one could even touch that person. In Chapter 20 verse 19, the people beg Moses to tell God not to speak to them, for hearing His voice would kill them.  We serve the same God today as they did then, but the cross enables us the hear His voice. How incredible is that? 2 Corinthians 3:12-13, 16 says, "Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away …whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."

I think we often forget who we serve. Can the clay ask the potter what He's doing? We are often frustrated by what God chooses what to do, such as heal people or do wonders, but we would do well to remember Who God is. We are but clay in His hands. We have no right to ask what He's doing. He is good, and He is worthy of our trust.

I am the clay, and He is the Potter. I don't always understand what He's forming my life to be, but He can make my life into abstract life if He wants to as long as He's the one shaping it.

Despite Risk

To love someone is extremely risky.

 

I'm not even talking about romantic love. Of course it applies in the same way, but I'm talking about the kind of love Jesus referred to when He said, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (John 13:34) To love someone like Jesus has loved you is not easy, safe, convenient, or pain-free. Jesus's love took Him to a cross to be tortured and killed, and even then His people have rejected and continue to reject Him. That's risky love. To love someone like Jesus has loved you means being willing to love that person no matter how they treat you, no matter if they completely reject you, no matter if they leave you. To love someone like Jesus has loved you means never requiring any love in return. To love someone like Jesus has loved you means to be willing to forgive that person of every single thing they might do to hurt you. To love someone like Jesus has loved you means never giving up on them, ever.

 

The love that Jesus requires us to have for one another sees the risk and it loves anyway. It acknowledges that you stand to lose everything and to be hurt intimately, and it loves anyway.

 

What does it look like to love like that? Ephesians 4:1-2 says, "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." Romans 9:3-4 says, "For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel." 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 says, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

 

When faced with an opportunity to love someone whom I know may reject me or may not be in my life for very long, I am tempted to hide myself away and choose not to love that person like I should. I want to give them a surface love, hiding away the deepest parts of myself and not really giving them the Christ-like love that bears all despite fear. Ephesians 5:15-16 says, "Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."  Every opportunity to love is a gift from God. We are Christ's ambassadors on earth (2 Cor. 5:20), and we are responsible for loving people like He does. I believe we will be held accountable for every squandered opportunity (see the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30; see also Revelation 20:12). We are only given a small amount of time on this earth, and some relationships are even shorter than that. Psalm 90:12 says, "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I think sometimes God makes us painfully aware how little time we have with people so that we will make the most of every opportunity to love them. When we are faced with a reminder of the shortness of our days or the amount of time we have with people, there are two ways that we can respond: by throwing walls up around our hearts to keep them from being hurt, or to open them up completely and love with all we have in the amount of time that we have. I have had to face this concerning my housemates here. Some of us are staying for 6 months (leaving in August), and some are staying for the full year (leaving in December). We aren't 100% certain who's leaving when, and my heart wants to throw up walls to protect myself from intimately loving people who might leave halfway through the year. But God is teaching me to love anyways. To love despite the risk of being hurt, of being rejected, of being left. Because love is always worth it.

How never to be content again

There's a loose sting on the end of my jeans, and I've been meaning to cut it off for at least a week now.

 

This is an insanely simple, yet accurate description of how crazy busy my life is.  I am an extremely disciplined person, and my housemates would laugh at how much of an understatement that is. I make lists of lists of lists, and checking things off of said lists is like crack to me. This to say, it's not because of airheadedness that I haven't cut that little string off of my jeans. Frankly, it's because I don’t have any time. I feel like every second of every day is filled with something. And being in full-time ministry is exhausting in every way: mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. However, I want you to know that being a missionary is, in some ways, just as mundane as any other career path (if being a missionary counts as a career path). I go grocery shopping every Monday. I do my laundry on Wednesdays. Once a week I make dinner for our whole intern "family." Our weekly schedule looks more or less the same every week.

 

There is mundane in every career path.

 

It is easy, even living in South Africa, to lose yourself in the routine of everyday life.  It's easy to wake up on a normal Wednesday, go to Diepsloot extension 12, recite some rehearsed lines about God and the Bible all day, probably hang out and wash clothes with some people along the way, load up at about 4:30, go home, do my laundry, eat dinner, do homework, and go to bed. Every Wednesday. Over and over and over.

I have to ask God every day to make me excited about ministry. I have to ask Him to keep my heart open and learning and sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I have to ask Him to keep me from becoming hard, each day just trying to make it to the time when we load up and go home.

 

Here's the point I'm trying to make:

Your life is NO different than mine.

 

Sure, you probably don’t live in a foreign country. Ministry probably isn’t considered your main occupation. You probably don't find yourself eating mopani worms, ostrich, or zebra, or washing someone's clothes by hand in a squatter camp on a normal day. But the contents of your day do not determine what you can do with that day. I can say with confidence that you have every opportunity to share the Gospel and/or God's love in your day that I do in mine.  You're a stay at home mom? Cool. Did you know that you are the main source for the message of the Gospel to your kids? Did you know that the way you raise them can set them on a path that will glorify God or turn away from Him? Did you know that your kids were born with a sin nature, and that your influence will likely be the one that leads them to Christ?? That sounds pretty missionary-ish to me. You work in an office? Awesome. Did you know you could be the only representation of Jesus some of your co-workers experience on a daily basis? Did you know that you have the ability to show them the love of Jesus?? Did you know that your influence can reverse all the bad experiences they may or may not have had with the church? Did you know that if you are intentional, you can be the vessel God uses to change someone's life and turn their hearts toward Him? That sounds pretty missionary-ish to me.

 

Please, please, please, if you get NOTHING ELSE out of this blog post, please understand that the great commission is not an option, and it's not meant for a special elite group of people called missionaries. It's meant for you, specifically. There are people who, every day that they live, are marching towards the gates of hell unless someone throws themselves in their way and gives everything they are to stop them. And yes, though the majority of people who haven't heard the Gospel are outside of the United States (or even South Africa for that matter), God has placed you where you are, and until He calls you elsewhere, you have the responsibility to lead people to Christ where you are.  I wish I could reach through my keyboard across continents to your heart right now and make you feel the absolute desperation in my heart.

 

Know this: God's love is fiercely jealous, and He is pursuing every soul that isn’t following Him. He wants desperately to give you His heart for the lost. Sometimes this whole thing is overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like there are so many unreached and unbelievers that we could never reach everyone. Sometimes it feels like there isn't even enough love and passion for the lost to go around. But just do this, and see if God does not give you a burden for the lost: ask Him. That's it. Ask Him to give you a heart for the lost.

But receive this warning: if you ask, He will give it to you, and you will NEVER be content to just sit around and wait for people to die and go to hell anymore. The passion He gives you won't allow it.

What no one wants to hear about being a missionary

Believe it or not, missionaries have bad days too. In reading different missionary biographies in the past, I've gathered that, as a whole, the church doesn't want to hear about the bad days. They don't want to hear about weeks without a single salvation and days when you feel discouraged as heck. They don't want to hear about when the language barrier is too intense to keep up a conversation or when people you've visited for weeks won't come to their door to talk to you.
I'm here to tell you the truth:
Missionaries have bad days, too.
I want to be able to tell you that everything has been perfect since I've been here. I want to be able to say that every ministry day has been filled with amazing conversations and conversions and healings. I want to be able to tell you that I haven't struggled with my self-worth, that I've been completely confident in sharing the Gospel, and that there hasn't been a moment when I wanted to just go back home where I'm comfortable. But that's not the truth. Yesterday I had a bad day. It was a field work day filled with shack-to-shack ministry, and I felt like nothing significant happened at all. We talked to one lady we have visited before, but her English is so limited, we could hardly hold a conversation. Then we went to another family we met two weeks ago, but our conversation about the Gospel was pretty much non-existent. The last place we went, we ended up waiting for one of our friends to get back home to talk to them about a Gospel of John we gave him, and ended up waiting there with his family for over two hours. Sometimes conversations just don't go anywhere.
Even only being here for a month and a half, I feel the pressure that most missionaries feel: to make everything look good. It's not so much an appearance thing as it is a validity thing. You ask for an enormous sum of money to go make a difference in a foreign country, and you feel the pressure to show your supporters that you are. But the truth is, it's not our place to determine if we're making a difference or not. The majority of the time, God works in ways we can't even see. The most impactful encounter I have this year may be one to which I never give a second thought.
God has been teaching me to value the hard moments. Every encounter, every hard day, every time I wish I could just be home, God is using to refine me and teach me new things. He's growing my endurance so I will obey Him even when it looks like nothing is coming of it. He's teaching me to be vulnerable and just come out and say it: I have bad days, even on the mission field in South Africa.
The point of all this is just to say that God uses everything. He works through things we may never place significance on. So trust God. He knows what He's doing, even if it looks like nothing is happening. He's working everything out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. We just need to rely on Him for every breath, every day, every conversation, praying and asking God to work through us, even in ways we can't see.

My weakness is His strength

Wow. I can't believe it's been three weeks tomorrow since I got on the plane to come here. Somehow it feels like so much longer yet so much shorter than that. We now have our ministry placements, the area of ministry with which we'll primarily be working for the next 6 months to a year. Now that we know that, our schedules will start to take on some form of normality. I'll be working with Impact Kids, which has three different preschools in the communities of Diepsloot, Kya Sands, and Kwagga. My job will include planning events for the preschools, finding sponsors for students whose families can't pay for their schooling, and following up with and discipling the kids' parents. While it may seem odd that Impact Kids only has preschools, I've learned that it's very important for a child to go to preschool, because that child is 60% likelier to graduate high school if they attend preschool. 

This week we start our Zulu classes! So far I've learned only simple things like sawubona (hello), Unkulunkulu uyakuthanda (God loves you), and salle kahle (goodbye). I can already tell this is going to be really challenging. 

God has been really challenging me to rely on Him and showing me how I really can't do anything outside of Him. The truth is, I'm not all that good at evangelizing. I walk up to talk to someone and my mind goes completely blank. I can hardly keep up a conversation with a stranger at home in the US, let alone in South Africa with cultural and language barriers! But through this God had shown me how much more I need Him than I ever thought before. And the best part is, He chooses people like me who are horrid at this kind of thing to do it because through my weakness, He will glorify Himself. 1 Corinthians 2:3-5 says, "I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but in God's power." Praise God that it doesn't depend on me! Please pray that the Spirit will move in power through me and that God will ultimately receive the glory for what's happening here in South Africa. 

Communities

February 6, 2015 

We have only been here for a week and God is already doing amazing things. We have now visited the communities of Diepsloot (pronounced deep-sloot) and Kya Sands, walking through to get a feel for the people and cultures there, learning all sorts of tips and safety stuff, and meeting some of the people Impact Africa has met and discipled over the years. The communities are just that - communities. They are completely self-sustaining. Impact Africa has actually met people who haven't left there in months. You can get everything you need there: clothes, food, household items, anything. All these are bought a from little shops run out of shacks called Tuck Shops, or if it's big enough to walk into, Spazas. Today as we walked through Kya Sands, we stopped at a Tuck Shop and got come cokes for R6 ($0.60). Almost everything you can buy from the tuck shops is okay to eat except for meals that they prepare for you and anything you eat the skin on (apples, etc.). 

Some of you had asked me before I left the States if the water here in South Africa is okay to drink. The answer is yes! Joburg's water is the second cleanest in the world, so we're perfectly fine drinking the water. 

All the interns have all jelled really, really well together. Our Intern Advisor Katie said that she had never seen an intern class get so close so quickly. We've been taking turns telling our life stories almost every night, and it's created a bond that is already so strong. I'm excited to see how we work together during ministry and look forward so much to making awesome memories.  

Something that God has really been exposing in my heart just in the past week is my lingering insecurity. I have always had deep self-worth issues, and I thought that they had pretty much all gone, but I'm finding that they were only buried and ignored. He's pulling them up out of my heart and laying them before me, daring me to ask Him to do something about them. I love that God is already working in my heart after just a week. 

Second South Africa Update

January 31, 2015 

We have been in-country for 3 days now. So far we have been settling in, trying to beat the jet lag, and started getting to know the ministry, staff, handbook, expectations, etc. There are only about 10 American staff and 20 African staff, so it won't take long to get to know everyone. Yesterday we went grocery shopping for the first time. The ministry gives us food cards each month, and we have to budget out a certain amount for each week's grocery shopping. The South African currency is Rand, and 10 Rand is the equivalent of a dollar. So basically if you move the decimal place over once, you get the dollar price. We get R2000 a month, which is R500 or $50 a week. I have never planned my own meals before or done my own shopping, and doing it for the first time in a giant foreign grocery store that has the organization of a toddler's playroom is stressful to say the least, and that's not even touching on having a time limit, budget, and constantly converting rand to dollars in your head to make sure everything's a good price. 

Tomorrow is church, and I'm excited to see what it's like. After that we'll either go see a waterfall and have a picnic or play some volleyball. This next week will be more training and we'll get to actually go into the squatter camps to see some of the ministry areas and we will probably get our ministry placement, which is the area of ministry that we'll be working with all year. 

I love and miss you all and I will try to update you as often as possible! 

First South Africa Update- traveling

January 27, 2015 | 3:30pm (Indiana time) 

I sit in the window seat, watching a water drop slowly quiver its way to the top of the window. Glancing down, I see snow-dusted fields, the last that I will see of them until at least August. The thin but transparent cloud cover adds to the illusion that everything on the ground is one shade or another of white. If you're wondering if this whole moving to Africa thing feels real yet, the answer is most definitely not. I didn't even cry my eyes out at the airport, because after all, it is only a see you later. I am still at a loss for words. Is this really happening? 

As I was reading my Bible earlier this week, God gave me Song of Solomon 2:10-13 which says: 

"My beloved spoke and said to me, 'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.'" 

I feel God calling me away for this season of my life. For so long I have felt the desire to do something MORE with my life, and the day has finally come. I know He's going to teach me some powerful lessons and grow me more than ever before. I am going to need Him more desperately, more often, and in more tangible ways. He's going to strip me of any need outside of my need for Him. None of this is going to be easy. I want to thank everyone for their continued prayers and thoughts and messages; this is going to be crazy in the best way possible. I can finally say it for real: IM GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!!! 

January 27, 2015 | 11:35pm (Indiana time) 

I've been on the second plane for a little more than 5 hours now. Carly's and my plane was late leaving, so it arrived about 20 minutes later than expected. We only had an hour and a half layover in Washington, D.C., and the delay cut it down to about and hour and ten minutes. We ended up having to take a shuttle and two trains to our terminal, and by the time we got to our gate it was about 5:10 (our flight left at 5:40). As we approached the gate, it looked strangely empty. I heard Carly next to me say, "Oh, are they boarding already?" Turns out, we were the very last ones on the plane. I'm sure we would have been fine if we had taken a little longer, because the plane left on time half an hour later. All of my fellow interns (except for one, who is a returning 2nd year intern) are on this flight with me and it has been absolutely amazing finally meeting them for real. It is such a strange and wonderful thing to recognize people you've never actually met before, but for whom you have been praying and who have been praying for you! We all immediately clicked, and I'm already looking forward to spending the next year with them. 

Now I'm sitting here on the plane, all the lights turned out and most everyone asleep. I can't sleep. My eyes burn from tiredness and I'm exhausted, but the adrenaline still hasn't stopped. Everything is still so surreal, and I'm sure it will be for a while. I really want to sleep, but here I sit, writing this instead. I'm torn between the desires to eat a mountain of food and to run a couple laps. My legs are sore. 

That's about it right now. We still have a little more than an hour until the plane lands, and even then, we will only be landed for an hour. We won't even get off the plane. Then we will take off again and have another 8 1/2 hours of flight. 

January 28, 2015 | 8:15am Indiana time, 3:15pm SA time

I finally was able to go to sleep sometime between 3 and 4am Indiana time, and I got a solid two hours at least, judging by the number of Lord of the Rings soundtracks I got through. We now have about 2 and a half hours left on the plane! It's strange, because all the shutters on the plane are pulled down so people can sleep, so it's really dark in here, but it's daylight outside. My internal clock isn't sure what to think right now. Is it 8am or 3pm??? In about 20 minutes the crew will serve us lunch, the third meal since we've been on the plane. 

His ability, not mine

My little Graham is here to visit one last time before I go to Africa! I think he was every bit as excited to come as we all were to have him. Like most almost-four-year-olds, he constantly wants to be played with. I'm pretty sure I heard the words, "Hey Faith, wanna play cars with me?" at least 10 times yesterday. And I don't mind at all! I want to spend every possible moment with him while he's here.

At one point yesterday when we were playing, we started to toss a ball back and forth. It made me laugh, because every time he threw it, he threw it high and hard, and I had to stretch up and do my best to catch the ball, but when I "threw" it back to him, he would cup his little hands together and I would gently toss it so it would land right in his hands. Even though I gave him high fives and told him what an awesome job he did, I laughed because of how much the game depended entirely on my ability to catch and throw well, not his. 

It immediately brought to mind my relationship with Christ. I don't think we will ever know, at least until eternity, how much everything in which we succeeded or did well in life depended entirely on God's ability, and not ours. I get so caught up in trying to do my best for Him, trying never to Him down, when all along, everything is in His hands. It's based on His ability, not mine.
I'm not trying to underestimate or undervalue striving to please God, but in the end, we're not perfect, and we won't be until He comes again and sets everything right. In the meantime, relax. He's got this. You can (figuratively) throw the ball as high and hard as possible, and He will catch it and gently toss it back to you.

10,000 reasons

After about 5 months, I'm back to blogging. I felt like I needed a break to step back and let myself learn and grow without constantly trying to put everything into words. But now I'm back just in time for Africa, and I'm looking forward to using this blog to write about what God teaches me while I'm there. 

My friend Natalie just came and visited for a week, and while she was here, she showed me her Joy Notebook, in which she recorded at least 3 things a day that brought her joy. It made me remember a book that I started in 2013. I called it my 10,000 reasons notebook, and in it I wrote things I came across during my day for which I can praise God in an effort to one day get to 10,000 reasons to praise God. I kinda forgot about it and stopped doing it in April, but Natalie inspired me to start it back up, so on the 12th I began writing things I could praise God for throughout the day. Let me tell you, if you ever need a joy boost, do this! My reasons have varied from tiny mundane pleasures like a cup of hot tea with milk and sugar to huge blessings, like God's unfailing love or a specific incident of His provision. When I begin to see again that everything, every little minute thing is a gift from God as He romances me, my joy skyrockets. In just 3 days, I have become extremely attached to my little notebook, and I carry it everywhere. It is impossible to be sad while reading it. 

I know one day, probably 10 years from now, when I get to 10,000, the song by Matt Redman will have so much more meaning as I hold my little notebooks full of tangible, experienced reasons to praise Him. And I'll never want to stop. 

God is not delusional.

God is not delusional. Quite the revelation, right? But really, why am I telling you this? Well, I was driving alone in the car yesterday and worshipping very loudly (I'm sure I was quite a sight to behold) when I had this revelation. Now obviously I didn't consciously think that God is delusional, but I realized that when I consider that fact that we are blameless before God, I considered it like He's somehow seeing us wrong. Like, "Isn't it so great how God sees us as sinless when really we're all disgustingly drenched in it?" 

But I realize that we don't wear a mask before Him. He isn't seeing a false representation of who we are, He's seeing the real thing. I think this belief that God isn't seeing the real me actually causes me to shy away from Him in guilt and shame because if I believe He's seeing something false, I become fearful that He'll see the real me. But I can rejoice! Because it is I, not He, who sees a false representation. I have been made blameless by Jesus's death on the cross. God is not delusional. 

God is good

Today I was scrolling through facebook and saw someone's post about something awesome that had happened in their life. The post started out with the phrase, "God is good!" and they went on to explain what had happened. As I read this, I was taken back to my trip to Mexico in 2012. I remember that in the midst of the cold, wet, cold, long (or so it seemed), cold, trip, when I got an unexpectedly hot shower (I was expecting it to be cold), the words "Thank you, Jesus!" came out of my mouth more times than I could count. He then showed me that even though it's fine and good to praise Him when our hearts are overflowing with praise and thankfulness, but it is just as good and He is just as worthy when something not-so-great is happening. 

So as I sat here on Facebook pondering it all, God challenged me to start saying, "God is good," in times one might not normally think to. Of course, this doesn't have to be something reserved for times of extreme calamity, but it could be the little times, like when you're running late and you hit a red light. Or when you just finished cleaning and someone wrecks the house. God deserves our praise even when we are frustrated, upset, and flustered. 

Equally effective

Does God ever teach you through your own prayers? I was praying for a friend who's on a mission trip this morning when I prayed something for their team that was not from me! I stopped and pondered what I had just prayed, amazed! This was a revelation! 

I was praying for effectiveness in ministry, and praying against discouragement, should their natural eyes not see what progress they were making. My team in Australia struggled with this, as we had no salvations during our trip. The majority of our ministry was conversations about God and who He was, planting seeds in the college students of Brisbane. But it came to me to pray that they would know that the seed planters are just as effective as the harvesters. When I prayed it, I stopped to think about what I had just said. The seed planters are just as effective as the harvesters. I think a lot of times when we talk about planting a seed in a person, we basically think of it as a nice way of saying, "You didn't do all that much," or, "You didn't make any progress with that person, but someone else might later." 

Just think about a farm. Since I live in Indiana, I'm thinking of corn. Imagine two different farmers are working a single plot of land. One's job is to plant the seed, and the other harvests it at the end of the season. Let's say the first farmer observes other farmers planting seed, and, seeing no difference in the ground after the farmers plant their seed, decides not to plant any seed at all, saying to himself, "This is a waste of time. I'll just relax and let the other farmer harvest later." 

Why doesn't this scenario work? Because there HAS to be seed. The seed is that of which the harvest is composed! And the thing about the two farmers is this: if they both do their job, they are equally effective. If one skips out on his job, it is just as devestating to the crop as if the other did. 

To Know Him is to love Him

As I was worshipping one night at camp this past week, I looked around and contemplated the beauty of God as the noise of a hundred people praying for each other and worshipping filled my ears. Seeing everyone experience God so beautifully, my heart ached as I wondered how every year, I watch most of the kids go home and go back to living exactly how they had been before. The services are so life-changing, it causes some confusion as to how and the world anyone can experience this, go home, and act like it never happened. 

God revealed this to me: To know God is to love Him. He Himself is love. So if you know Him, you will love Him. You will love Him passionately because of who He is, and you now know who He is. Out of that love then springs obedience, because when you love someone, it is your greatest desire to live a life that pleases them. Then the obedience is not forced, but done with a willing and joyful heart, because you are pleasing the One you love. The ultimate problem here is not the lack of obedience. The greatest need is not to free people of bondage and addictions (though that is vital) or to teach them what things are sin and preach against them (although this must be done). The ultimate problem is that people are not seeking God. In Matthew 7:7, Jesus promises that he who seeks will find. When we find God, we will begin to know Him. When we know Him, we will love Him. When we love Him, we will obey Him. This is vital, because if we only pray for freedom of bondage and addictions, they may get free, but if they don't seek God and know Him, they will return to their bondage or find a new one. If we only preach against sin and teach what is sin, they will learn, but they will have no motivation to follow through, or will try in their own strength, fail, and give up.

We need to teach them how to seek God on their own, and when they find Him, they will start following Him. If we do this from a young age, we could watch and see even the need for freedom from bondage and addictions drop as the youth prevent the bondage from even happening by following Jesus. 

All I need is You

"All I need is You." I hear this a lot in worship songs, and it's a statement that I think often doesn't get a lot of thought. As Americans, we don't get a lot of chances to see if this rings true for us. Rarely, if ever, do we get to a point in life when we literally don't have anything but Him. Or even mostly nothing but Him. 99% of the time, we have everything and Him. We say "All I need is You," but we act as if we need everything else, too. 

Sometimes, God calls us to places where all we have is Him. It is then that the sincerity of our proclaiming, "All I need is You," is tested. Most of the time I think we either aren't listening for His voice calling us into situations that demand we rely completely on Him or we hear Him and pretend we didn't. This can come through material possessions or money, God calling us to give away large sums of money or give up our lush homes and excessive possessions so we can be in a better position to help others. But this doesn't always come through material things. Sometimes God calls us to a place that demands that He is our security mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. 

For example, God recently told me that I'm not to go to the Honor Academy. If you don't know me well, this might sound like a small thing. Let me tell you, this is no small thing.  I have been planning to go to the HA for 3 years now, and I've been fundraising for a year. I've raised somewhere between eleven and twelve thousand dollars to go. And now God, just out of the blue, tells me not to go. What?! Amidst all the craziness of having to re-adjust my thinking and having to tell everyone that I'm not going, God whispers. He says, "I AM your security. I AM your destination and your journey. I AM your abiding place, your safe refuge. The HA is not your security. You do not rest in knowing that you are going there. You rest in ME." 

All I need is Him. I don't need the "security" of knowing where I'm going. All I need is Him. 

Abba, let this ring true more every day.

I love the rain-but not really.

I recently saw a quote by Bob Marley that said, "You say you love rain, but you use an umbrella... So that's why I'm scared when you say you love me." As I sat in my grandparent's screened-in porch listening to the Florida downpour, I contemplated this quote. I love the rain. I love to listen to the gentle tapping on the roof, and I love to curl up with a book and some tea on a rainy day. But I use an umbrella. I try to avoid walking in the rain. I run through, laughing, trying to stay as dry as possible. Do I really love rain? I came to this conclusion: I may love rain, but mostly I love the idea of rain. I love the idea of a midsummer drenching, and of playing in puddles, and arriving home soaking wet, a large grin on my face. But the truth of the matter is that I only really love rain when it's convenient. I love rain when I'm inside to listen to or watch it, but when I'm forced to go walk in it, or stand in it, I may not be quite so happy to see a dark sky filled with heavy clouds. You see, it's very inconvenient to get drenched when you have somewhere to go or something to do. I don't always have the time to run outside during a rain shower and play in the puddles. Most of the time, rain is inconvenient to me. So I use an umbrella.

I got to thinking, do I love God the way I love rain? What if I mostly just love the idea of God, or the idea of obeying God? The idea of someone throwing their whole life away for the Gospel is utterly romantic. I swoon over the thought of giving everything to serve Jesus. My heart leaps in excitement at the thought of obeying Christ when it's hard, but that's just the thing: it's hard. It's inconvenient, and sometimes I just don't want to. I love the idea of going hard after Christ; I love the idea of obeying Him wholeheartedly without thought to my own wants, needs, or safety, but when it comes down to it, I think most of the time I only love the idea. At the moment that Jesus exposes something I must give to Him, or shows me something I need to do (or stop doing), I shut down. All those dreamy thoughts of the mystical wonder of obeying are now gone, and all I want is to do what makes me feel the most comfortable right now. 

Abba, give me heart that loves You, not just the idea of You, and that is willing to obey. Show me, like you showed Paul, what things I must suffer for Your Name, and give me a heart that is ready and willing to do those things. 

I love You. 

164.8 Million

The other day I saw a post on social media about a guy who won the lottery recently, a jackpot of 149 million dollars. The person who posted it made a comment about how lucky he is and how they wish they had that money. Can you imagine having that much money? It's almost unspendable. Even if you bought a 23 million dollar car (do those even exist?), that's not even a fourth of the whole amount. Who could possibly spend that amount of money? 

$149 million dollars is so much money, most of us could not even fathom the amount. If you have a $50,000 per year income, that's about 3,000 years of income. Three thousand years. 

Friends, the point I'm trying to make is this: even though we cannot even begin to fathom how much money 149 million dollars is, there are 164.8 million suffering or dying children in the world. If you had 149 million dollars, it would not even be enough to have one dollar for each child. Did you get that? Can you wrap your mind around that? Are you beginning to understand? Even at your very worst, when you are very sick or uncomfortable, you are SO much better off than any of these kids, and there are 164.8 million. Right now, 164.8 million real lives are suffering and dying. This is not a guilt trip, or a sad infomercial. This is reality. This is real life. The truth is that if you have a house, clean water, and food, you are among the world's wealthiest people. You cannot sit in your extreme luxury and ignore the millions who are hurting and call yourself a Christian. 

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

Katie Davis says:

"The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitues, or under horrific working conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children. And though at first glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians. The truth is that if only 8 percent of the Christians would care for one more child, there would be no statistics left."  (Emphasis mine)

Now that I'm pretty sure I've given you a picture of the need, here's the solution: YOU. You, whether you want to believe it or not, are extremely, unbelievably wealthy. You literally have before you the choice to give life to hundreds of people or not to. It may seem easy to ignore them, but they are just as real as you, and they are just as human as you are. 

The thing with Satan is that he doesn't operate in extremes. He would never come to you with the idea of spending all your money on worthless things so you no longer have the ability to bring life to God's people. Instead, he convinces you one item at a time. Just this one coffee, this one concert, this one soda, this one pair of shoes, until suddenly the offering plate is being passed and you have no money. One coffee becomes a caffeine addiction, one concert becomes an obsession, one soda becomes a frequent craving, and one pair of shoes leads to another. Soon, our entire budget is nothing but indulgences, and we can't even see anything wrong with it. 

 

It's time to stop. This is real. In the The Hunger Games series, there's two kinds of people: the poor, oppressed, starving, dying districts, and the fashion-obsessed, wealthy, extravagant, uncaring, and oblivious Capitol. Even though the heroine is a part of the districts and everyone wants to identify with her, does this situation not sound like first world and third world countries? Should we not more identify with the Capitol, who could care less about the districts as long as they have their entertainment, lush homes, extravagant food, and high fashion, even if it costs the districts in order for them to have it? 

If you want some real perspective on this issue, I suggest you read The Hunger Games books. While I'm not sure that this is what the author was trying to portray, she did an excellent job of it. 

The point of this long post is to call you to action. I encourage you to question every purchase you make. Is it wrong to buy things for pleasure? No. But the real question is, is it okay to make a habit of buying things only for pleasure when so many people die every day without experiencing Jesus's love?