Final Debrief Spoken Word

Hey WR family 🙂
I did a spoken word last night and my E squad family asked me to post it in a blog, so here it is!

Congratulations.

We’ve been to 11 nations, and oh dear Lord the tribulations and the trials and temptations, how we’ve grown in just a year, how we’ve learned to persevere, steering clear of disaster, offering grace a little faster, rebuking the lies, the lies that tried to mask our master’s love. We’re conquerors.

By no means perfect or complete, God if I had a chance to repeat this, I would’ve danced more, and sang more, and shared more, and listened. I would have danced more in the rain, tossed my umbrella, I wouldn’t have hoarded my nutella, and I would have spent more time face looking than face booking. I would have loved on more kids, and learned more names, played more games. I would have written more notes, and prayed over more goats, just in case. Lord knows, we’ve prayed over boatloads of sick goats, I could totes gloat about it, but enough about that.

I can’t go back, nor do I want to, and I think it’s for our safety. If this trip was any longer, someone would probably snap, kill someone and go to jail, and then we’d pray to raise the dead and then fundraise to post the bail! But let’s not go down that road, let’s just celebrate the fact we have survived 11 months doing mostly what we’re told, amen?

It’s been a good year. Good? Glorious. If only I had a dollar for every story where God stepped in and showed His glory, the Healer, Redeemer of the world, manifesting His power, making unclean spirits cower, and preventing hypothermia from Antarctic freezing showers!
Yeah, God is real. He’s more real than I’ve ever known, jokes aside, I can’t describe how much I’ve grown, how God’s made something beautiful out of the mess in my chest, my broken heart that heals and tears and heals and tears, not strong enough to beat or feel complete without Daddy’s hands right there around it. Fully reliant yet radiant, like the moon, stealing light from the sun, I take my light from the Son of God, He's shining in me, reminding me that I died and I'm weak, but even at my weakest He can still use me, broken and hurting, even when lies confuse me, I'm realizing His plans are bigger than mine, to put a weakling in the front line, I'm woken up from my grave, rising, a stumbling slave getting put on tv, my flesh is failed yet He's still getting glory? How can it be? I know His ways are higher, because somehow I'm both broken AND on fire.

I fully surrender, with my stone cold heart now warm and tender, and thank You God that it’s almost December. We go home, keeping no record of wrongs, but the good stuff, the good memories I want to remember.

Remember eating a dona waffle, and getting sunburned on the beach. Remember the kids at the trash dumps, and the screaming ones we tried to teach, remember the Nica widows for whom we’ve vowed to pray, and spending hours upon hours planting beans and raking hay, remember the poor’s unrelenting joy in spite of their condition, and that I rolled down a volcano in the fetal position. The women we met at the bars in Chiang Mai, and how much the Lord loves them and cries when they cry, the Cambodian prisoners who hungered for hope, and when the power went out, shadow puppets helped us cope. I’ll remember my cat shirts and people’s reactions, and teaching Malaysian kids about fractions, and leveling land for an Indian pastor, and a trip to Hipo, oh the funny disaster, flying by the seat of our pants in Singapore, and in Uganda knowing I fell in love for sure, killing mosquitoes, spiders, and bugs, being surrounded with 40 plus tiny hugs, making gum earplugs in the loudest church service, casting out demons and not being nervous, holding babies, kitties, teacups, packing, praying, snacking, napping, awkward squatting, watching Friends, movies, and people, being stared at, glared at, sitting on mats, walking into strangers’ homes, huts, singing random songs, thinking ‘I’m gonna die from this food’ and thank God I was wrong!!! Going for runs, having the runs, making pathetic blog title puns, spilling my guts, learning tricks from a clown, and oh, getting told to take a blog down… HAHAHA
Getting coffee at java, and eating food so spicy I swear it was lava, breaking my pride, using my tent to hide, thinking back it just brings tears to my eyes to think that I nearly compromised, I could have never come on this trip, I could have turned away, strayed from this painful and gainful way.

I thank God I didn’t stay.

Here we are, we made it to the end.We’ve laughed and cried, died to ourselves a million times, feels like forever, this 11-month endeavor to bring light into the darkness. We’ve flickered, faltered, fumbled, stumbled, and yet we’re back on our feet, and I see E squad as the resurrected soldiers, dusty, rusty, and heaving but breathing, tired but inspired to keep moving onward.

I see in your eyes the humility of weakness and the glint of certain victory.
With not a trace of our own strength, but by God’s grace, we ran as if to get the prize, we have finished the task, good and faithful servants of E squad…

we completed the race.