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Global Urban Trek 2008
Life in the Question MarkJuly 30, 2008
Friday was our last day at our host sites before leaving for debrief.
It was a surreal feeling knowing that we had two options as we left. We could choose to forget the poor we encountered because of their potential to convict us forever or remember them because of that potential.
As we sat through the party Baan Chivit Mai threw for us, I prayed over all of the people with whom we’d worked. I knew there was a great possibility I would never see them again. As I prayed I realized that I might be one of only a few people who will ever pray for them by name.
We hugged them goodbye and to each of them, Christian and non-Christian we said, “Prajow way Pohn” (God bless you). I’ve never meant it more. Yet at the same time, I’ve never questioned it more. Part of me felt like praying blessings over them wouldn’t actually bring them any blessings. I felt like their poverty was too big for my prayers to handle.
Now we’re in debrief. At the beginning of this, I felt more hopeless than I had when I left Klong Toei. We’ve been hearing stories of people on the other Asia Treks who saw the same type of poverty or even worse poverty in their cities.
I’ve been grappling with God’s call for me to live among the poorest again, but I don’t even know what that would do for anyone. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that call when I go back to school, I don’t know exactly what He wants me to do when I graduate – I feel like I don’t know anything and it’s frustrating.
I’ve begun to praise God for the fact that he doesn’t simply begin working in me at orientation and end at debrief. He doesn’t follow some six-week schedule of questions, answers and transformation. This calling I have is a calling to be a Christ follower, which means I don’t have to know all the answers yet and I don’t have to understand how God will bring restoration. I simply have to be faithful and say yes to every single thing He asks of me.
This entire trip I’ve been thinking about the death of Jesus and how, because he suffered, I should suffer. Somehow I’ve seldom thought about how He’s risen again and reigns now and forever. He’s alive and moving and wasn’t defeated by suffering or poverty. He’s proven himself victorious over all of it. His resurrection is what gives the poor hope and what allows me to entrust my life to Him.
Four weeks in the slum was hard, annoying and amazing all at the same time. But the reality is it was only a small portion of the lifelong journey Jesus is leading me through to become like Him.
- Jessica
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