Clinging to Jesus


Being a missionary is hard. Actually, just being a Christian is hard.  I feel like I should understand that by now. But even though I have been following the Lord for a little while, I am still surprised when struggles come along. I think, “Why, Lord? When will this end? Is it ever going to be easy?”

Today, I was in the chapel praying and having a moment with Jesus. It was one of those “Is this ever going to end?” moments. “Why is there struggle after struggle? It seems that the moment one thing ends, something else begins.” I was frustrated and starting to feel hopeless.

The past few months in Haiti have been absolutely beautiful. I have been blessed to be part of a mission where I feel like we are able to make an impact and bring something meaningful to our mission field. Watching youth ministry take place in Haiti has been one of the biggest blessings, and most beautiful times of my life. I really wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. We are living in a blessed mission field, and we all know it. We are part of something that we feel has been ordained by God, which is a huge comfort in times of difficulty.

However, at the same time, this whole mission has been incredibly hard. It is difficult to move to a new country where I can’t communicate well with the language. It is difficult to leave so many things behind – friends, family, community, comforts, electricity, warm water, reliable internet, real windows. These are things that I knew I had to sacrifice, but didn’t really think it would be hard until it was actually real in my life. There is also a huge struggle that comes with entering into a new community in a new culture. As missionaries, we’ve always been taught that vulnerability is an important thing in community. But how can live out vulnerability, when only half the community speaks the language you are fluent in? How can we really know each other when we can only have simple, surface level conversations, simply because of vocabulary? Usually most of our prayer is in three languages: French, Haitian Creole, and English. It is even hard to pray together, when we are constantly aware that no matter what language we pray in, everyone cannot understand the whole prayer. While I know it is not true, and that love reaches outside of language barriers, it still sometimes feels that our community is crippled in our ability to truly be community.

Even our mission is hard for me. There are these incredible teenagers that come by our mission base all the time to hang out and play cards or basketball or talk or eat candy. I have come to love them so much, and it seems like the feeling is mutual. While they don’t seem to care that we can’t speak Creole fluently, it breaks my heard that I can’t yet really minister to them in the ways that I hope to. I want to know more of what they are saying so that I can tell them not to make fun of each other. I want to be able to tell them more about God and pray with them. I want to be able to evangelize in their language, but I can’t yet. My hope is that with months and months of building a relationship, they will really listen when we are able to speak with them about Jesus. I cannot wait for that day – but until then, it is painful to know that there is so much I want to say to them, I just physically can’t yet.

Lately, I have been overwhelmed by all these little struggles, and feeling a longing for familiarity. I want to know that if I share something in morning prayer, everyone in the room will be able to understand me. But I know that it is just not time for that yet, and it is time to dig in my heels and endure the struggle. I was reminded recently that nothing that is beautiful is easy, so I’m going to make sure to remember the beauty and remember the huge victories that God is winning – even if I can’t see them all the time. I was reminded when I was praying today that this is my time to CLING to Jesus. I have nothing to fear then, because everything good comes from that. Today I can be close to my Savior.

Keep praying for us!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Does it Mean to Give?

There’s something I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around lately.   I live in a country where people don’t have a lot of material possessions. They also don’t have a lot of food, and the food that they do have is not the most nutritious or balanced type of diet. Their houses are not great; they don’t have cars; many don’t have jobs. The question: What is my response? Many times, people here ask me for things. It seems that I can’t leave our mission base without someone asking me for my water bottle, my sweater, my shoes, some money. I’m pretty sure they see me as a rich white person. What I’ve realized recently is that in many ways, this is actually true. If you look at the big picture of the whole world and all of the people in it, I am rich, even though I am a missionary and I have to ask for money for everything that I have. I am rich, even though I buy almost all of my clothes on sale, and have many that were given to me. I am rich, even though my laptop is five yea...
Read more

My First Dance Class

Image
Picture this: seven Haitians teenagers and a white American girl with no rhythm dancing on a stage to the beat of a conga drum (or "tanbou" as they call in Creole). The man playing the drum is named "Ti-roro". He is in his seventies and is also the dance teacher. Yes, he did teach them their dance moves by doing them himself. This was my first of a few experiences dancing with Ti-roro's dance class. Three or four of the girls had grabbed my hands and pulled me onto the stage after asking me to dance with them. I couldn't say no, so I took a dance class for the first time in the 24 years of my life so far. While I have only danced with them a few times, these girls are a part of most of my favorite experiences in Haiti. They often come by after dance class, and even on days when they don't have dance class, just to say hello or hang out with us. One day I was learning Creole from a book, and it was teaching me actions and body parts. As I was readi...
Read more

From Naivete to Growth

Image
I remember sitting caffeinated, late at night, in the library with a friend in college, talking about foreign mission. One day, we could live in Africa, we said over our lattes and laptops. It seemed a glorious thing to me, this missionary life in a foreign country. At the time, I wanted to travel. I did have a true and real desire to love and live among the poor, but the rest of it was a dream, built on nothing – I had barely left the country then. In fact, I don’t think I had ever met a real live missionary. I had heard about mission trips, but never been on a foreign one. My imaginary life was just that, imaginary. A little more than a few years later, I was moving to Haiti to start a mission there with a few other people from an organization that I loved. I don’t think I could have admitted it then, but it definitely felt glorious. I had read a few books about missionaries, met some missionaries, been on mission trips, been inspired by the passion, zeal, and sacrifice of others...
Read more