World Race Envy

As most of you know, my friend Bethsaida left last July to go on a year-long missions trip with an organization called Adventures in Missions.  The trip is called The World Race, and for good reason - the trip involves visiting 11 countries around the world in 11 months!  She's been to Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Far East, working and serving along with local ministries.  I've been receiving email updates and reading every article that she's posted about the miracles that God has done in and through her.  But aside from the moments of glory, I've also read about sicknesses that she's had, sleepless nights, train rides from hell, the brokenness of the world and the unimaginable pain and poverty of third-world nations.  And for the past few months, after reading each of these reports and imagining the difficulties that she's facing, I've been finding myself facing an overwhelming and unexpected emotion.

I'd love to say that it was compassion, admiration, empowerment, or even righteous anger... but no.

It's envy.

Envy?  Why on earth would I be envious of what she's had to experience?  Why would I be envious of sickness and difficult living conditions and not having clean water?  Being separated from friends and family for a year to live with people 24/7 that she doesn't even know?  Constant traveling, exhaustion, spiritual warfare?  Am I nuts?

Well, yes, but that's not the point.

The point is that she's LIVING IT.  She's living Christ.  What she, and the other World Racers are doing is exactly what Jesus did when He was here on earth.  Looking to seek and save that which was lost.  Meeting tangible, physical needs of those He came in contact with - and then addressing the even greater spiritual ones.  Not caught up in doctrinal disputes, worship styles or church hierarchies - but simply going, serving, loving, sharing, weeping, praying and pointing the world to the only One who is able to save it.

I've sat reading many of her posts with tears rolling down my face, wishing that I could drop everything, get on a plane, find a country and start serving.  Please don't get me wrong - I absolutely LOVE the ministry that I have here with BTKIDS! and I adore every one of them dearly.  But I only get to be with the children a few hours a week - and even then the amount of time that I actually get the spend with them is extremely minimal.  Watching Bethsaida live love 24/7 has stirred something inside me that craves more - not more "work," but more Christ.  More giving cups of cold water.  More building homes for children who want to escape from the evils of the sex trade.  More conversations with a young person who is contemplating giving up their purity because no one ever told them they were worth more.

And as I sat and read and contemplated and cried over the past few months, I felt the Lord ask me a poignant question:

"Why do you have to go on an 11-month missions trip to do those things?"

Leave it to the Holy Spirit to just leave you with your mouth hanging open saying, "....uhhhhhhhh...."  But He's right.  The answer, clearly, is "I don't."  But yet... I don't.  I don't live love 24/7 and do the kinds of things that I desire to do overseas right here on my own turf.  And after some thought, I came to a new revelation about missions trips - they're easy.  And before you fall on the floor laughing, let me explain.  I don't mean they are "easy" in terms of the hardships faced, spiritual warfare, physical exhaustion, etc.  I've been on enough trips now to know that they're no joke and that they are extremely hard work.  But I say "they're easy" because they're sprints, not marathons.  You go on a 10-day, 1-month or even 11-month missions trip that has an END.  You get fired up about living love 24/7, constantly looking for ways to bless, encourage, share - and then you do it, and then you come home.  Mission: Accomplished.

But then what?

Most of us who are on trips know that the "high" that trips bring doesn't always last.  Life catches back up with us, and before we know it we're back to the same-old-same-old - looking forward to the next missions trip so that we can do it all over again.  And one danger of missions trips is that sense of "missions is something that we do 'over there'," and the mission ends when the plane lands back at JFK.  But what if... we were able to live with that "missions trip mentality" every single day of our lives?

You know what mentality I'm talking about, those of you who've been on trips.  You and your team are grabbing lunch before heading out to visit an orphanage, and a homeless person comes up to your table and begs for money.  What happens, usually, on a missions trip?  Your team sees the opportunity, invites him to come sit down, buys him lunch and looks for opportunities to share Christ with him.  Makes sense, right?  You're on a missions trip - there's a hyper-vigilance to the Holy Spirit.  Everything is a potential opportunity to make a difference for Christ - that's the mentality of a missions trip.  But now imagine the exact same situation as you and your friends are grabbing lunch in Downtown Brooklyn on a Saturday afternoon, and a homeless person comes up to your table and begs for money.  Same response?  If we're honest... probably not.  When you're on the 41 bus - are you thinking "okay, God, I'm looking for opportunities now to share Your love"?  How 'bout when we're taking a road trip with friends?  Are our thoughts geared first and foremost towards encouraging each other in the Lord and talking about the things of God... as we would be while traveling from place to place on a missions trip?

Going on a ten-day trip and committing for those ten days to allow God to use you in any and every way possible... staying constantly alert and "prayed up"... focusing on team unity... sword-in-hand, ready in and out of season... in some ways, that's "easy."  It's a short-term mission, and it will end.  But committing to living in that mentality EVERY DAY of your life, at your job, at your school, right where you are?  Now that's hard.  A forever missions trip has no end date.

My friend Gabby and I once had this idea that I believe will still happen someday.  It was to sponsor a weeklong missions trip... to New York City.  The planning, preparation and training would be exactly as it would be for a "regular" trip - team meetings, fasting and praying, strategic planning, a guardians team :), etc.  But the majority of the "trip" would be spent at our jobs, in our schools, with our families.  We'd take the "missions trip mentality" and plug it into our everyday lives.  Can you imagine what could happen in that week?  Lunchtime Bible studies could be started in workplaces.  Siblings could be witnessed to.  Homeless people could be taken to lunch and they could hear about the overwhelming love of God for the first time.  No one would have to take any time off of work, buy plane tickets or pack luggage... and best of all, it would show us that IT IS POSSIBLE to live in a missions-trip mindset in everyday life.  Not only is it possible... but I think it's what Christ intended in the first place.

So my World Race envy is subsiding somewhat.  I still admire and respect everything that Bethsaida is doing, big time!  But no longer do I feel that pull of "I have to go OVER THERE to 'do missions.'"  Now the pull is: "Jesus, give me a full-time, 24/7 missions-trip mentality right where I am, wherever I am.  Give me that hyper-vigilance to the Holy Spirit at ALL times, always ready, always prepared, always looking to serve and give and love."  I have a long.... LONG.... ways to go before I can get there.  But my path is set.  I now know my calling.  I'm called to be a missionary.

Agenda: Love,
amy:)