still breathing

Apparently my dear friend Shawn Lesko has a difficult time reading my blog. Now that I have written two posts back to back in first person, I hope to win him back.

I thought about never getting to Part Two and hoping it would just be forgotten about. But since I caught some sort of Colombian fever, I have no way of claiming that I don’t have time to write. So, you know…so much for avoidance.

I’ll throw out a big of honesty.
And I’ll try to keep it brief.

My perception of God is skewed. I can read a thousand verses a day about God’s love and grace, but in my mind, I have still developed an image of God that is not very accurate of who He is. And with that, my perception of myself has become skewed as well.
I have a difficult time believing that my heart is good. And an even more difficult time believing that the Lord thinks I am good. So I find myself trying to prove to Him that I’m worth His love.

This has been a struggle for quite a while, but I try to put it on the back burner because I know they’re more important things to worry about. Apparently it’s a bigger deal that I thought. God revealed to me that the reason I was so distraught about not serving in the capactiy that I had hoped while in Bogota, was because I felt that my worth had sunk down a couple levels.

It wasn’t until the last day at the airport did I really get it.

The ten of us that flew down to Bogota, were complete strangers. The only thing we had in common was that we all worked for CFA.
And somehow, I found myself being more honest with strangers than I am with those closest to me back home in the States…especially one stranger in particular.

I became good friends with this guy, Caleb, from Alabama. We got along really well, and had similar humor which is just fun. One distinct difference, however, is that he loves to talk. Not like the annoying kind, just that he’s very wise and can speak truth into any situation…so he always has something to say. Luckily, I prefer listening, so I suppose that’s why we got along so well.

Anyways…
On our flight from Miami to Atlanta, me and Caleb got to talking…
He shared some of his story and I shared a little of mine.
and I swear it was like Jesus Christ himself had reached through my chest and grabbed my heart and to held it in his hand for the two hours we were on that plane.  

God didn’t want me to be a leader in Colombia, because He knew it would just be another opportunity where I thought I had to try to prove myself, and that’s not what I needed. That’s not what the Colombians needed, that’s not what the 9 other Americans needed…that’s not what God needed.

He needs me to be honest.

I’m not very good at it, because I don’t practice it enough.

I love the kids at Hi-Def more than I could ever love myself, and I’ll show them only what I want them to see…
And it’s exahusting.
And everyday when I pray about them, I also pray that I would be whatever the Lord wants me to be for them.
Apparently what they don’t need is an intern who has it all together because sometimes what we all need isn’t somebody to walk infront of us to pull us along, but somebody to walk beside us and expereince struggle and redemption together.

As Caleb spoke truth into my life, I quietly sat and sobbed in my plane seat…overwhelmed by how life changing God’s love can be if I would allow it.

Internet Explorer decided to freeze up on me right when I had finished writing about Colombia…and it deleted everything I wrote. It almost made me cuss.
After taking a deep breath, I began to re-type all that I could remember, and as I was half way through, Starbucks decides to close. I was royally hacked off.

So with that said, I can now move on and perhaps successfully blog about Colombia AGAIN. It is after all 4:00am and I can’t sleep.

Have you ever been to that place where you just can’t find the words to do justice to what your heart is screaming? Life is kinda like that right now.

God really messed me up this week…and not in the way I assumed it would happen.
I’ve been on a handful of mission trips, so my expectation was that this one would be similar. My prayer leading up to the trip was that I would only focus on serving the teenagers that we were gonna be hanging out with, and really investing in them and showing them Jesus. I was expecting to do hands on things. And talk about Jesus with them. And have “spiritual” things happen. You know, like when you come home from a mission trip with that sort of satisfaction of really encountering God through serving other? That’s what I wanted.

Sometimes we don’t get what we want.

By the end of the week I was owned by guilt. I was a leader of pretty much nothing, and felt like I hadn’t made any difference for anybody. I didn’t know too much about the camp that we were doing with the teenagers, accept that we would be teaching them leadership skills centered around the S.E.R.V.E model that CFA uses. It was more of a character building camp, and my only real responsibility was to be in the camp alongside the kids…not leading discussions or really teaching.

I didn’t understand, until I really sat down and had a chat with Jesus(hey-zeus-the cordinator of the camp) about the vision of Operation Reconcilliation. He explained that Colombia does not have the same opportunities that America does. There is no free enterprise or encouragement to begin your own business. Education is difficult to come by because college is so expensive. Teenagers cannot really work until they are around the age of twenty, because there are issues with child explotation. It can be discouraging to grow up in an enviornment like that. His passion is to empower young people. His vision is for Colombia as a whole to be transformed by raising up the next generation to have hope for something more than just becoming a farmer or street vender to survive. His vision is to meet the physical needs of young people, in order to get to their heart.

The camp isn’t advertised as a “Chrisitian” camp, because halfof the kids wouldn’t come. It’s focus is more on character building, and along the way it is emphasized that regardless of success or failure, God is the only true fullfillment in life.
There was one 15 year old boy who was a pretty self-proclaimed Athiest. He didn’t bash any of the refrences that were made to God, but it was pretty clear that he wasn’t buying into it.

Him along with 5 other kids gave their life to Christ.
And at the last meal we had as a group, we asked who wanted to bless it, and he replied, “I’ll say the blessing…how do I do it?”

I’ll never forget that.

It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about what I could do or how well I could lead or serve. It was about the Kingdom of God stretching beyond the U.S border and beyond the cultural barriers and embracing the fact that He will do what He needs to do regardless.

Alright…that’s all I got for part one. Part two is a bit more…personal so be patient, it may take a day or two more to figure out how to put it into words without scaring off the all of 2 readers I have.

Love.