"...do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." Matthew 10:19b-20.

Before leaving for Africa, we were told that the pastors serving as our contacts would ask us to preach at many churches and conferences. While I have spoken in front of groups, the idea of preaching was definitely daunting and slightly terrifying. Who am I to speak out the Word of God to large groups of people? I felt and still look like how the disciples were described in Acts 4:13: "...unschooled [and] ordinary..."

Now, after preaching at four churches, two youth conferences, and a leadership conference, I can confidently say that it is not my own ability but the voice of the Lord speaking through me. He is so faithful to give me words for the day. I do not have messages written down or prepared ahead of time. What I do have is the Word of the Lord in my heart from the time I spend with Him and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit guiding me as I look out over the faces of the congregations. I am truly amazed by the provision of the Lord as I offer up myself for His use. My part is faithfully spending time with Him so I hear His voice and the words He wants to share with His people at His church. I am His vessel and it takes so much pressure off when I acknowledge that it is all about God and not me. Be encouraged that His grace is definitely enough for today!

Last week, our team spent a day of rest in town doing errands. By the end of the day, I was tired, frustrated and feeling isolated from my team. I started to retrace the day and the week to determine where these feelings were coming from, as no one had said anything to me and nothing had happened in that moment to cause these responses.

As I looked back on the week, I realized that I had hugged orphans throughout the week and prayed with people in their homes, but I had not received affection from my teammates! The real shock from this realization was that I had to accept that one of my love languages is touch. I know it does not seem like a big deal, but I have spent a lot of my life either taking it for granted that I have been surrounded by people who I feel comfortable asking for hugs or I have spent time denying it as my love language because I don't want to look clingy or needy. So, the best part of the whole self-realization process was then coming before my team and acknowledging my need for their hugs and physical touch...actually, that was the hardest part.

But, really that's where the paradox of loving and hating the World Race comes in. I had to leave all that I've known to figure out more of who I am and in the process, become more of the work of art that God created me to be. It can be a painful process, but it's worth it.

I leave you with a thought about Moses. He had to flee all he knew in Egypt. After a period of 40 years, God met with him in the desert and from that vision, Moses became an anointed leader of the Israelites. He stood in God's vision and was given the mission of rescuing his people. Sometimes, to receive God's greater vision and purpose, we will be called away to really hear from Him. Welcome to the World Race...

When the Lord takes you deeper into the process of becoming more like Him and also becoming more of who you were made to be, it can hurt and be uncomfortable. Change and transition are tough, but they are necessary if we are to truly develop the depths of who we are.

While in Africa, I have been reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Currently, I am reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. A passage that stood out to me dealt with the transformation of one of the characters from a dragon back to a human and read like this: "The very first tear [Aslan] made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off...Then he caught hold of me – I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone..." (p. 90-91).

In Africa, I am learning more about letting go of my rights. I'm letting go of independent living because I need my team to get through each day here. I'm letting go of time and schedules because time is relative in Kenya and the schedule is constantly changing. I'm letting go of being able to explain and understand immediately because things are often "lost in translation" between myself and the contacts...even when we're both speaking English. I'm letting go of my right to silence and privacy at a deeper than in China as I live in the orphanage where we do some ministry and of course the kids always want to play. I'm letting go of my sense of entitlement as an American when I experienced the slums in Kitale; having people grabbing at my arms and getting in my face, yelling and clamoring for attention. Normally, I would have brushed them off and ignored them. While I didn't do that, I did feel a hardness come over me alongside an unwillingness to love.

Every day I get to look more closely at the depths of my heart and realize the ugliness that often gets harbored in the hard-to-reach places. Jesus knows though and He loves me too much to let me settle for mediocrity or to quit before the end. I am thankful that every day presents the opportunity to...change.

During the time spent in Nairobi, we were given the opportunity to go to the local hospital to pray for the sick and hurting people there. One afternoon, I took the opportunity and was ushered into the women's ward at the hospital along with a few other teammates.

It was there that I met a woman named Lydia. Lydia was recovering from surgery from a single mastectomy two days before that saved her from breast cancer. The chaplain informed our group that she was in a lot of pain. As soon as we approached her bedside, she propped herself up in the bed, with great effort and obvious pain. She introduced herself and we began to pray for her.

I started praying against fear and rejection, stating that God will always accept her. Then, I thanked God for her beauty and how He sees her as His precious daughter. At these words, tears started trickling down her cheeks. Her tears caused our entire group to begin weeping as we all knelt next to her bed, feeling the weight of her situation and the depression of a woman who has lost part of her identity and continued to pray.

When we finished praying, Lydia started speaking to us rapidly in Swahili, which the chaplain translated. The entire time we had assumed she spoke English. Her response to us was, "Thank you for your prayers. May the Lord bless you." I was truly amazed to see how the love of God surpasses language and cultural barriers. When He is needed, nothing will hold Him back from comforting His children.

"I will extend peace to her like a river...As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you." Isaiah 66:12a, 13a.

I want to share an amazing story of God's unlimited grace in China.

The first day at English Corner at the Chinese university, where we met with students to practice English, I met a girl. As I talked to her, she told me that she needed to go to class and was not supposed to be at English Corner. I was just going to say goodbye, when I felt a sporadic prompt to ask if she would like to get lunch the next day. She thought that would be a good idea and before she left I met another of her friends who decided to come to lunch with us the next day as well (this is how lunch meetings grow to 15 people).

The next day, I met the girls and after lunch we went to their dorm room where I met their six other roommates. A small group of us went to a park off-campus where we played some ping-pong (you should see them play) and then sat down to talk. The girls asked me lots of questions; one of them, "What do you think about religion?" and another, "How do people in America respond to death?" At which point, I shared with them about my belief in Jesus and the difference He has made in my life. Also, I told them how people who believe in Jesus have different ways of looking at death, compared to those that do not. For those who believe in Jesus, death is more of a celebration of life than a sorrowful lament because we know that the deceased is living in eternity with Jesus. However, those who do not believe are often very sad and may suffer more intensely because they have no hope, feeling lonely with the absence of the person.

After that discussion, I spent most of the next two weeks with these girls getting lunch, going shopping or hanging out in the dorms. Jesus was never a topic of discussion again, but I kept praying for opportunity and for the girls to get connected to a Christian in the underground church. I also kept wondering in the back of my mind if I had created this connection out of my own power instead of relying on God's wisdom. Little did I know the appointments that God had lined up...

First God Appointment

Toward the end of the second week, I was in the dorm with the girls and they wanted to see some of my pictures from the National Forest Park we visited on the previous weekend. After I showed them pictures, they brought out their own pictures. In one of their pictures, I saw the girls around the university sign with a boy in the middle of the group. Upon looking closer, I recognized the guy. It was a previous World Racer who spent time at the university a year ago with these same girls! It was such confirmation that the Lord had planned for me to spend time with these girls, building upon the seeds planted by the World Racer who had gone before.

Second God Appointment

On the last day of English Corner, my girls surprised me by showing up at the beginning of the time instead of coming at the end. We went out to the courtyard to spend the last two hours of English Corner together. I had a feeling that maybe this was a part of God's plan to bring them closer to Him. Again, I had no idea...Shortly into our time, a leader in the underground church approached our group to talk to me and she had her guitar. The girls were enthralled with her guitar, so she sat down and played some Chinese songs about Jesus. After she sang, the girls started speaking rapidly in Chinese with her (one of the girls translated for me periodically). The girls wanted to learn to play guitar and this leader had a place where they could come to learn. So, the girls gave her their contact information! I was really excited, but it did not end there.

Next, the leader talked to them about the Bible. The girls were also excited about this because their English teacher had told them that reading the Bible would help them improve their English. Right away, the leader took out a Chinese Bible and an English Bible, which the girls immediately began pouring over. The translating girl leaned over at one point and said, "I'm interested in the Bible, but I not really interested in this Jesus." I looked at her, leaned in, and whispered, "He's interested in you." She looked at me in surprise and asked, "He is?" and then promptly shook it off, talking more about how she couldn't believe. For a brief moment, I saw realization in her eyes and the need to be important to someone. It was so encouraging to know that these girls are completely in God's hands and He cares so much for each one of them.

The best part of the entire experience was that I got to watch the entire meeting and I knew it had absolutely nothing to do with me or my abilities. It had everything to do with God's power and grace in allowing me to be a part of bringing His kingdom to the university in China.

The past month, I have been in mainland China and, in order to keep our contacts safe, I have been unable to blog. It has been an amazing month and I will attempt to address some of the biggest lessons I learned while there in my next few blogs.

My prayer for going into mainland China was from Daniel 2:20-23:

Praise be to the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are His.

He changes times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.

He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him.

I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers:

You have given me wisdom and power; You have made known to me what we asked of you.

Before heading into China, my team was informed that we would be working at a university with students majoring in English by spending time speaking with them to help them use their English skills. If the opportunity presented itself, we could make appointments with them to hang out outside of school. The fundamentals were tricky. We could not openly share about Jesus with the students on the campus. We would have to be careful of those students who could be class monitors and thus report to higher authority those students who could be believers. We had to watch out for people who could be following us that would report our activities. We also had to be mindful of teachers who could catch wind of our mission to share the Gospel with students. Basically, the time in China would feel like a James Bond movie plot and the only way to navigate the uncertainties of talking to people was to tune into God, asking for His wisdom and discernment.

To be honest, I was excited about the idea of being undercover. However, fifteen minutes inside the borders of mainland China (not even close to our actual site), where people stared, took pictures, and laughed at us, and I had to immediately speak in code (not saying things like "Jesus", "prayer", "Bible", "church", "Christian", etc.), I was ready to make a run for the nearest airplane home. My heart was hard and I was uncomfortable. Who cares that God had a plan for me to be there? All that mattered was my well-being.

What I found after living in the community around the university, getting to know students, and asking God to have His way was that God had better plans and He was showing me how good life could be when I laid down my rights to having things my way.  Namely, when I surrendered, I started to really care about China and its people. I saw how God has His hand in this nation and cares deeply about the people who are persecuted and isolated for their faith in Him. Moreover, it was a startling reality to see how people live every day without rights, while I struggled to live without my rights for two weeks. It was quite the hands-on lesson of learning humility!

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds..." James 1:2

Pure joy; a phrase I have not thought much about and don't think I have ever seen...until yesterday. Yesterday was just like any other day in the Philippines. I got up to spend time with God, suffered through my sinus infection symptoms and hustled down to the van waiting to take our team to the dumps in Manila. My expectations for the day? Covering books in the school library and a mysterious sorting adventure in the storeroom at the school, sure to be enhanced by numerous cockroaches, which Mark would attempt to kill using a readily accessible blunt object accompanied by some screaming and shouting. Overall, it would seem to be an average day.

However, upon getting to the dumps, Pastor Nell met our team at the door and asked to speak to me. I expected him to ask us to share a word with his vocational tech class, as he had asked on other days. Again, he surprised me when he asked, "Can I share a word with your group in the library this morning?" I responded with an enthusiastic "Of course!" (I think I threw an "Awesome!" in there as well). :)

So, fifteen minutes later, Pastor Nell, a five foot Filipino man with the biggest smile I have ever seen and eyes that sparkle with the light of Christ, burst through the door with 7 English Bibles and his trusty guitar. He promptly began strumming and tuning his guitar, which he quickly abandoned, saying "The guitar is out of tune...and so is my voice." Then, he launched into the most heartfelt worship songs I had ever heard, despite an out-of-tune guitar and lyrics that escaped his memory. Of course, he prompted us to sing as we all made up our own lyrics and laughed along with him.

After worship, he asked us to open our Bibles to Psalm 19: 7-11. In verse 7 and 8, it says "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart." First, Pastor Nell told us his testimony of how his soul was revived after living his life as a squatter, high on drugs and stealing from others, when he found Jesus through friends. Second, he told us how our work in the library was making the simple kids in the school wise and that we were an answer to his prayers because he was heartbroken when he saw books destroyed by water damage sitting in boxes. When he got to the third description of the precepts of the Lord and how they give joy to the heart, he ended his word by launching into another set of worship songs, out of tune with missing lyrics, but it was the sweetest music I had ever heard. Throughout this word, his face was aglow with the love and peace of Christ and he has lived through more than I can imagine along with working everyday in the dumps of Manila.

Pure joy; an aspiration to the lightness of heart and peace that comes in the midst of struggle when Jesus is the center of our lives. Beloved, love and be loved by Him.

Journal Entry 10/7/08 (Unhindered thoughts straight from Summer's journal):

Went to the dumps yesterday (and today). It was more than my senses could handle – thick, gray sludge at least ankle deep that men, women, and children walked barefoot through. Shoddy shacks stacked on top of each other and next to each other, small dark escapes from the sun. The smell of burning garbage and soot that enters eyes, nose, and mouth. Yet people are smiling and happy to see us.

Once we entered the dumps, a woman was walking and, upon seeing us, she burst into a beautiful smile and my heart broke again. Who am I, God, that they would desire to see us? I saw community among families and more LIFE than many people have in the USA. At the same time, at lunch yesterday, I didn't want to come back – so much suffering and what can be done about it? But, then maybe it is not suffering, only need. It is suffering compared to my understanding of life, my experiences. But, to them, it is what they know.

God, I am reminded of the song that goes: "Ask and I'll give the nations to you. O God, that's the cry of my heart!" I feel you asking me, "Do you really want them?" To be entirely honest, I don't know. My heart hurts. I feel lost and unable to reconcile what I have seen with the life I know. Yet, I feel responsible. I have seen what life is in the dumps and I cannot turn from it now.