Exit

When I talk to people about going places, I get really excited.
When I talk to people who have passion for places, I also get really excited.

When I talk to people who are passionate about going somewhere that is foreign to them completely, for the sake of knowing Jesus, my heart leaps.

By nature, I'm a passionate person.
I mean, come on. Those who know me will testify to that. Not just in the sense of talking about Germany or missions.
But by how my volume rises about ten fold when I start to get excited, which is code for saying I'm really loud.
Too loud, most of the time. That used to be something that bothered me, because I was concerned about being heard, so I increased my volume (or so I thought). But now, I just talk and realize it's part of me. It'll probably get me in trouble someday. It might have got me in trouble today. I digress.

Anyways. When I share a conversation with someone over coffee, and they talk about a place that they love or that the Lord has weighed on their hearts, I freak out. Part of me once believed that not many people in my generation, in my town, wanted to leave the place they grew up. Lets confess, we all like to feel comfortable. I like comfort. I like comfort foods. I used to not like change, or new things. We all are that way.

At some point though, comfort becomes mundane. And not many of us like mundane. No one likes eating pizza everyday. Even if it's your favorite food. If you ate pizza alone for a whole month, by day four you'd be craving a big piece of broccoli or a caesar salad, or something remotely good for you. And chance is you'd never want to look at pizza again.

Something I have passion for, is seeing people go out from where they're from, and experience God in a culturally new way.

I love this world. I want to go everywhere. When I meet people from abroad, I want to ask them a million questions a second like:

What is your biggest city? What is your food like there? How long have you lived there? Why in the world would you come here if you're from there?! How do you say "I need to poop" in your native tongue? (I can say it in ten languages, and counting...)

When one leaves what is familiar and what is normal, God moves. He transforms one's heart, opens it up and reveals Himself in an incredibly new way. And I LOVE that.

I loved meeting who God has showed Himself to be to the Germans, Mozambicans, and South Africans. And I have many, many more countries to go to, and to learn from, and see God spread His wonder and His love.

I've been rereading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller the last couple of days.
I sincerely enjoy the way the man writes. I identify with everything he writes about. Not just because it's about spirituality or is an alternative view on Christianity or anything of that sort. It's because he tells stories. Stories about real people, and real places, and real things. I identify with people. I think most of us do, unless you're from Tattooeine (nerd spell check please) or some other planet in a galaxy far, far away.

When a person shares a story with me about their experience in the slums of India, the remaining bits of the cities of Haiti, street ministry in the epicenter of London, or loving on kids in Columbia, I glean from every word.

We are all connected.
We are all part of one body.
We are all brothers and sisters.
We are all sons and daughters.

And to hear how the Lord has moved in your life in the area of missions brings me so much inner joy that I have to crazy things, like write really long blog posts about it, or pray for you for hours, that God will send you back to where you feel called. I feel that way a lot of the time.

Something I have on my heart, is how to make people feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.
I'm in the process of translating that in my ahead adventure.

How do I show people that this is all bigger than me going to Germany, or them supporting me?
How do I make them feel apart of something that is not simple missions work, but rather as if they were with me on the streets of Berlin, meeting new friends, and discipling them?

I don't know if it is something I can do.
In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't.
I'm pretty sure God has to make that happen.
He knows the desires of our heart, right? And this is for His Kingdom, right? So why worry about it, right?

Right. Right. And Right.

All I can do, is love God, love what He is calling me to do, and share it with whoever will listen.

The question is, would you like to listen?