Preface: I wrote this blog last summer when I was leading a Passport trip in Peru, but I still really like it and wanted to share it again.
Two years ago I wanted to be a missionary. I didn’t know anything about mission work and had only done a one week trip before. Two years later I’ve been to 14 different countries, doing mission work in eight of those places. I’ve experienced ministries that work with women that were raped by family members, ministries that work with kids to make sure they get fed, ministries that help build up churches, and various others. I’ve felt burned out, joyful, frustrated, angry, content, happy, homesick, sick of home, alone, doubtful, loved, cared for, supported, and very thankful. I’ve had times where God might as well have been standing next to me and times where God might as well not have ever existed. I skipped out on college to see this insane and beautiful world and to join in with God on all that He’s doing in it.
Two years ago I picked chaos instead of comfort. This Chaos that I picked brings a peace greater than any of my comforts can bring if I really think about it. This Chaos that I picked is elaborate and simple. The peace that this Chaos brings is better than ten hours of uninterrupted sleep and it’s better than a five year plan. There is Love in the Chaos.
One thing I’ve learned in these past two years is that Jesus truly died for us to have life here on this earth. Eternal life, yes, but also life here. He died to set us free. I’m free from pressures of a culture that might look at me funny when I tell them what I’ve been up to. I’m free from my imagination of what the future holds. I’m free from expectations of what missionaries or mission work is supposed to look like. I’m free from shit-stained eyes, eyes formerly enslaved and tortured by a vicious and carnivorous pornography addiction. Such a disgusting monster deserves an equally foul description. These are the things Jesus died for so that we may be free to live without the condemnation of the serpent who lives in this Garden with us, the Garden that is in the process of being restored with the help of God’s most favored creation.
Oh the places this Freedom has let me see, the people it has let me meet, the cultures it has let me live in and experience; I never could have imagined any of it. I couldn’t have dreamt this life in the craziest of malaria medicine-induced dreams. The best part about it is that it’s not over yet.
