July 10, 2008
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I got to speak about Brasil a couple places. Once for a whole 45 minutes. I just like to talk about it. Why? It’s just the little corner that it is mine. And I love it. And when you love something, you want to talk about it. It isn’t all the poor children in the world. It is my 147 children in Paudalho. It isn’t third world countries. It is my northeast Brasil. But what makes me qualified to speak?
After I spoke once, I had someone come up to me and say “Your life sounds so amazing!” there was a touch of something in their eyes to where I felt like they were looking at a movie star. Or a hero. But they were just looking at me. It made me want to be all I could be. To be superwoman and come back in a year and a half with amazing stories and…
At the same time I felt like there was something very wrong there. Something deceptive. I talked about a lot of things, but really, they only heard the good stuff. They didn’t know about the junk. The ugly stuff. The failures. The sins. But I do. And to see that look in their eyes…made me want to set it right. To say “You just got one part of the whole story, and if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t look at me like that…I just hope you would look at me as a friend, a comrade, and someone on the same journey as you.”
I have a home church. It is official. I belong at Horizon Central. They have reached out to me and called me a part of them. Even more than that, they say they are proud that they are part of me. They are going to put my picture on the wall with the other missionaries. They are going to send me off this Sunday. I will be sent. I will have a place to come back to. When that time comes.
Sometimes…I don’t like that. Now it is going to be harder to leave. For every person I get close to it is another person I won’t see, someone who’s life I won’t be a part of. It is someone else to say goodbye to. Part of me wants to sneak in and out and keep it simple and easy. But I can’t live like that.
When I see a plane in the sky, it hurts. Does it hurt because I want to go back so much or because I want to stay?
“Ministry is the fruit of finding your gifts and offering what you have. If you are living in communion with God, if you know you are the beloved, and if you make yourself available for service, you cannot do other than minister. Ministry is the overflow of your love for God and others. Ministry is when two people toast their glasses of wine and something splashes over.” –Henri Nouwen
