Mozambique!

*reader discretion advised.

No joke.

This is like the hard and heavy side of missions that most people prefer to not think about. Happy orphans, busy hands, burdened but joyful hearts... this is the stuff that testimonies are made of. Usually. But mine isn't.

Mine sounds more like this:

"[I] am afflicted in every way... perplexed... persecuted... struck down..."

We sat under a tree in Mozambique and I lost it, friends. Whatever shred of sanity or satisfaction I had been retaining, in light of such obvious neglect from leadership, such intense disregard for my well-being... something within me snapped. Maybe it was the cumulative cultural stresses or frustrations with this organization, but I was not okay.

I sat under a tree with abysmally dirty feet near my tent with Amanda. I was wearing old smelly clothes with my glasses and oily face eating cold beans out of a can with a camping spoon. And I asked myself with incredulity, "is this my life?" "Is this for real?"

I'm here to help people and here I sit in one of the most impoverished nations on MY continent, stranded, without a translator, running out of water... with a sprained ankle.. thinking, how is this missions? How is this fulfilling my desire to help people? I have NOTHING. I can do NOTHING. I can't even say, "hello" in this language and there is no one to teach me. What, for the love of God, am I supposed to do?

And I cried.

Then I wrote this...

Emerge Better

Back and forth between

Hot and cold, under

Good and bad, without

Growth or stagnation

Seeming to change.

Push and pull because

One way or another

I must emerge better.

Bright and dark between

Covered and exposed, under

Mystery and revelation, without

Knowledge or ignorance

Seeming to change

Study and sigh because

One way or another

I must emerge better.

Sway and stop between

Noise and silence, under

Melody and dissonance, without

Fluidity or clumsiness

Seeming to change

Practice and try because

One way or another

I must emerge better.

Rage and rest between

Chaos and silence, under

Stress and solitude, without

Confidence or insecurity

Seeming to change

Storm and hope because

One way or another

I must emerge better.

BUT WHY this way?

Why the constant change

And unending range

Of argument and advice,

Of wrong and right...

To take mine

To make nice

To play the game

Or stack the deck

To follow the rules

Or cause the wreck?

Ruin or reward?

What are you trying to

Bring?

If I know one

Thing

It's that you're not often what you

Seem.

Work and play between

Night and day, under

Freedom and duress, without

Naivete or wisdom

Seeming to change

Pretend and age because

One way or another

I must emerge better.

I simply must get better.

-And so, slowly but surely, though it is still hard, I am holding out for my scriptural end:

"...but not crushed... but not driven to despair... but not forsaken... but not destroyed."

(2 Cor. 4:8 & 9)