dear diary, being on the world race doesn’t make you cool (and other things God showed me in Nepal.)

*A note to the reader before reading: welcome to “dear diary,” a blog series I’m starting for the final three months of my World Race. In this series I’m challenging myself to do something I’ve never done before: make my journal public. As I reread my own writing from the past eight months of this journey, I hope to take you from the outside to the inside, to bring you along for the crazy, bumpy, beautiful ride. You should know these posts will be raw, and that I wrote them for an audience of One. God. That’s the only other thing you need to know—all of my journal entries are letters to Him.*

 February 19, 2015 – Month 6 – Pohkara, Nepal

Dear God,

After quite a stressful day—a piece of what has been a stressful month—I think you just spoke something to me, and I think I’m supposed to write it down.

I’m asking myself this question: what is it I have not loved about ministry this month?

I have not loved the lack of consistency or routine. I have not loved the language barrier that feels insurmountable. I have not loved feeling incapable of functioning within the bounds of the foreign and the unfamiliar.

I love the excitement of travel and distant places, yes, but wanderlust is losing its wonder.

I love connecting with people of different cultures and backgrounds polar opposite to my own.

I love loving people. I love the moment you be Jesus to someone in a random act of selflessness. I love building relationships. I love verbally sharing the Gospel.

What I learned today was that I do love these things and that I don’t love them more just by doing them in another country.

I love serving a homeless, hopeless woman in Dayton, Ohio as much as I loved starting a conversation with a beggar in Nepal.

I love taking Kee’osha out for a milkshake in Graham, North Carolina as much as I loved buying ice cream for Gilbert, the head hauncho of the Matagalpa glue sniffers, in Nicaragua.

I love discipeling high school girls in Young Life. I love taking a girl, who’s 15 years old and sleeping with her boyfriend, out for breakfast on a school morning as much as I loved treating Tup, a prostitute selling herself to men in Chiang Mai, Thailand, out for a frapuccino at Zion Cafe.

I don’t need to be in another corner of the world to spread the Gospel. Being in another corner of the world does not bring me more delight, more fulfillment, or more satisfaction in sharing Jesus. Because it’s not who I’m sharing with, or what, or where I’m sharing it.

It’s the Who I’m sharing.

It’s not about me. It’s all about Him.

This month in Nepal has opened my eyes to the extreme difficulties of sharing Jesus in a foreign culture—a Hindu one at that—and the difficulties have tested and tried me.

I don’t know what I expected? That being a foreign missionary would give me more satisfaction in sharing in the Gospel? Well, to be honest, it doesn’t in and of itself. I don’t think it works that way.

Being abroad isn’t a fairytale. It’s not all some great, epic adventure. You do really normal things abroad. You shop, you eat, you do your laundry. And guess what? Doing those things usually takes about three times as long and is unreasonably difficult. Simple things—bathing—are difficult abroad.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this, but I do know I felt You prompt my heart to write these thoughts down. So I’m writing them.

I know that I love looking into someone’s eyes and communicating the love Jesus bled out for them. And it honestly doesn’t matter where I am when I’m looking into the eyes.

There are lost eyes—everywhere. Africa. Central America. Asia. America.

I guess what I’m pointing out to myself is it’s not a mission trip that I’m passionate about. It’s Jesus.

It’s not a “missionary” I’m trying to be. It’s a follower of Christ who can’t help but pour his love out on everyone she meets.

I will share Jesus with the people around me for the rest of my life.

This year, I get to do that in 11 countries around the world. And that’s pretty cool, Jesus.

Help me to remain faithful, to seek Your face, and run the race where you have me today. Open my eyes. Give me strength.

I love you,
K