Delighting in the Hard Questions

As I write this, I’m at Oak Mountain State Park sitting in a hammock after eating pizza in the rain. What started out as a frustrating afternoon (driving around for an hour trying to find a place to eat our now cold pizza) has turned into a peaceful evening of reading and reflection. There’s just something about a hammock that invites me to be still and sit with my thoughts. As an Enneagram type 7, being comfortably alone with my thoughts is not something I practice often. 

At this point, I’ve sent about 27 support letters out, asking friends and family to join me in prayer and support for my upcoming mission. Before sending the letters to friends and family, my proposal was sent to corporate sponsors by my mentor. One of those sponsors is generously funding half of my mission (PTL)!! Along with support I’ve gotten a few questions of “Why now?”, “Why Niger?”, “What are you going to do there?”, “Don’t you know there’s troubled girls to help here?” and my answer every time is “Because God told me to and Niger feels like home.” (More on this later.)

For over half my life now I’ve felt called to be a missionary and for me, right now, I feel like that looks like moving to Niger with friends that are like family and serving and teaching and holding and caring for orphaned girls. Sure it’s scary and sure there’s a lot of unknown. I barely even know how to greet someone in French. But sitting in this hammock, reading A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael by Elisabeth Elliot, I feel like someone is writing about all of my own fears. I realize they are not too far fetched and God knows my innermost being, because I haven’t said these fears out loud. Other people have, with His help, conquered the great adventure I’m about to embark on. Amy Carmichael felt called to the mission field at a young age and eventually moved to India and served for 53 years without furlough. The chapter I’m reading now is about when Amy was in Japan on her first mission and going through hard times. She writes:

“The nearest suggestion of anyone choosing missionary work because it was noble and grand, or a mission field because it was pleasant, horrified her. How could people at home write of a ‘delightful’ missionary meeting? Had they absorbed nothing of needs unmet, cries unheeded, griefs uncomforted? Did they attend for nothing but the tea and cake, the conversation, the chance to examine exotic curios, and then tell themselves that they were doing all that could expected of them? ‘Missionary work is a grain of sand, the work untouched is a pyramid... Face it. Look and listen, alone with God. Then go, let go, or help go. But never, never, never think that anything short of this is being ‘interested’ in missions.’” 

Yes, this mission is full of uncertainty. (When will the border and airports reopen? Where exactly will I serve? What if I don’t get fully funded?)

Yes, I will have times of grief that I won't be able to call on my parents to comfort me. (But I do have a good, good Father.)

Yes, some people may think I’m just going on a safari. (Ha! In my dreams.)

Yes, this mission will be hard but I’m ready to accept all that God has for me. I’m ready to go beyond my comfort zone and sweat my butt off wearing long skirts everyday. I’m ready to hold the hand of a little girl who has lived in fear her whole life and now feels safe because God put us together in that moment. I’m ready to die to myself every day because that’s what the Lord calls us to do. I realize it won’t be all tea and cakes (I'm probably allergic anyway). It will be hard and sometimes far from delightful. There are a lot of questions I have and other people ask that I don’t know the answer to yet. But I’m ready to take the leap. And I’m thankful for the people who have gone before me, like my girl Amy Carmichael, and the missionary family that I’ll be living with because I know they have so much to teach me and I am ready to learn!

Amy goes on to mention something the first missionary, Paul, said, “We glory in our weakness that the power of Christ may rest upon us.” (See 2 Corinthians 12:9)

Although I don’t have the most eloquent answer of why Niger and why now, I pray the Lord will always be glorified in my weakness.

In the next chapter, Amy writes, “All of life’s training is just exactly what is needed for the true Life-work, still out of view but far away from none of us. Don’t grudge me the learning of a new lesson.”

We’re all learning here. Learning to sit alone with our feelings, learning how to hang comfortably with a French bulldog in your hammock, and learning what’s next. All we need is what God gives us for the next right thing. Love my girl, Amy. 

✈️ Kerra