Saying Goodbye

It has been far too long since my last blog update. I have no excuse rather than to say I have been busy soaking up every moment in my last month here. Unfortunately everything in this world seems to have an expiration date and I have been struggling with how to effectively leave here not damaging the relationships I have made or forgetting the lessons I have learned. This struggle unfortunately leads my heart to worry. I worry about how things will change for those I love here when I am gone. I worry about how I will adjust coming home being so changed myself. 

Jacques Cousteau was right when he said “People protect what they love.” God has given me such a heart to protect those that I have been entrusted in to love here. That’s why it seems easier for me to protect my relationships and myself by not addressing my leaving. I want to protect us all from the pain of this reality. How am I to tell my three year old roommate, who now calls himself my brother, that I am leaving and don’t know when I am coming back? How am I to leave the woman I am living with after becoming her closest confidant without causing her to feel abandoned? How am I to leave my team as their program is expanding in incredibly large ways? How am I to leave the people of this culture so oppressed by religion, materialism, and male-dominance? 

Yet the Lord challenges my fears of addressing my leaving through the way he chose to address his leaving of this earth to his disciples. He says “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” John 14:28-30

The disciples were Jesus’ closest friends. They were the people he did life with every day and had experienced the rawest things with. They were also the people he mentored and invested in deeply. How could he prepare those that he loved for the horrible way he was leaving? How could he say goodbye knowing what they would have to endure in his absence? Could it be that Jesus might have felt tempted to not address his leaving at all and just let the events unfold? When thinking about telling them, did Jesus have that feeling in the pit of his stomach that equated to dreading anticipation? What I am positive of is that Jesus shed tears over the thought of leaving his beloved friends and family.

 Jesus is fully God but fully human and can understand my feelings of leaving because he experienced them too. Through his understanding of me, he has taught me that it was because of his great love for his disciples that he had to prepare them. If he had not, they would have never known the significance of the crucifixion, the beauty of experiencing salvation, or the calling to participate in God’s future work as believers in Christ as Messiah. In the same way, if I don’t prepare my loved ones here for my leaving they may miss out on a deeper understanding of the unique calling of God on all of our lives. God at this time has called me to finish my Social Work degree at my college so I can further be prepared in helping oppressed populations, specifically women in sex trafficking and refugees. Where I will be after I am finished my studies, only my God truly knows that. God at this time also has given callings to my loved ones here: The calling to continue the work of rescuing and rehabilitating abused women. The calling to continue to heal in Christ from being abused physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. The calling to raise up holistically healthy children who experience trauma from abuse. If we avoided talking about the change that is inevitably going to take place, we fail each other in cultivating and encouraging one another in the knowledge of these callings. 

Just as stated above, “People protect what they love.” How much more so does God protect those that he loves! When Jesus was telling his disciples of his coming death, he did not leave them to feel abandoned or ill-equipped for the task of spreading the Kingdom. Instead he made sure they were taken care of by sending them an intimate helper, the Holy Spirit.

In John 14:15-21 Jesus tells his disciples:

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you will know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you will also live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” 

In John 14:25-27 he further states:

“All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you of all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” 

In the same way God has already been protecting and providing for the people I am leaving. We have two new staff members coming, one from South Africa and the other from Wales that are going to be living in our building at the Red Light District. We also have a woman who prospectively may take my place in running the safe house. The lady I am living with and her son have received their official UN refugee papers which essentially rescues them from the fear of being manipulated with the threat of deportation and allows her son to attend kindergarten in the fall. They also have reached a point of stability and independence enough to actually move out of the safe house. This will allow them both to take steps forward in further recovery and a more hopeful future. God has also been providing for me with the joy of seeing my friends and family, continuing my passion of studying social work, and all the possibilities of where he might have me go next. 

I want to leave you with this thought:

A friend of mine who spent his summer in Zambia said something very insightful before he left. He said “it isn’t about me. It isn’t even about Zambia. It is all about God’s love.” At the time I didn’t fully understand the weight of this. The hippie inside of me was quick to nod my head in agreement and sing a little Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”, but my practical side was saying of course it’s about you and your calling to the Zambian people too. It wasn’t until I got to this country and experienced the things I did that I began to understand my friend’s meaning. 

I recently was reminded of the powerful verses in John 15:9-17 that state:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit- fruit that will last. Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.” 

When I read this, it actually takes my breath away. I stand in awe of the beauty of our Savior’s heart. The heart that so loved the world that he left all the splendor and glory of heaven and humbled himself to be born in a dirty, smelly cave. The heart that so loved the world that he had compassion on the broken and used his power to heal the sick. The heart that so loved the world that he chose to spend time with the prostitutes, tax collectors, and fisherman of his day instead of with the prestigious religious authorities. The heart that so loved the world that when he was spit on, insulted, and beaten, he yelled out no words of hate, but rather asked his father in heaven to forgive his perpetrators. It is the heart that so loved the world that he gave his life as a sacrifice for all and continued on to beat the powers of hell through his resurrection to give us hope. We now get to live in the promise of this love of Jesus forever to be in the presence of our God because he loved the world so much.

 It says in the passage above that if you love Jesus you will follow his command. His command is this: for us to love one another. God chooses to use us to be bearers of Jesus’ love for the world. That is why my friend is right in saying “It isn’t about me. It isn’t even about Zambia. It is all about God’s love” God so loved the world that he saved it through the price of his life. When we share this love with another it isn’t about our capacity to love. It isn’t about that person and their capacity to be loved. It isn’t even about a people and their need to be loved. It is all about God and His furious love for His creation. God’s love surpasses one’s ability to love, one’s ability to be loved, and one’s need or seemingly lack of a need to be loved. 

1 John 4:7-12 explains this perfectly saying:

“Dear friends let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

God does not just love. He is love. Love is the very essence of God. When we choose to love one another that is how this world comes to know God and his heart because he lives within us and his love is made complete in us. 

This encourages me greatly because wherever I go, whoever I am with, and whatever I am experiencing God’s love with be shown to this world. How he pursues the heart of his creation! I am so blessed to be a bearer of God’s love. I encourage you all to embrace this command of loving one another and allowing God’s love to be complete in you wherever you are.  

Further things I would like to say:

It was my dear friend Corrin’s birthday this past week. Happy birthday!!!!! I hope you had a day filled with love, joy, and tons of laughter. Can’t wait to see you and go on our road trip with our crazy moms  

 

I fly out on the 15^th of August. I just ask that everyone be in prayer for the rest of my time here and the continuation of those prayers for these people long after I am gone. I will be home for about 4 days with my family until I have to move back into Hope so I will be seeing all of my college friends soon. Love you guys!