Tea-chah, I am (not) finished.

The World Race will be over in two days.

TWO DAYS.

It's hard to believe that this weird, awesome... all the things journey will be coming to an end so, so soon.

Remember when it was only thirty days until Launch? It wasn't so long ago. I remember typing that blog on my beautiful MacBook with a screen that was intact, sitting on the floor in front of my fireplace, trying to avoid doing important things like... Well, figuring out how many containers of floss to pack, writing 'thank you's to supporters on those dinosaur cards, and preferring my family members when it came to that dang chicken chili.

It wasn't so long ago, and even then I knew time would fly once the Race started. I knew I didn't want to come back anytime soon because I had no idea what to do with my life when the time came.

And it's just about here.

Oddly enough, I'm not flailing around in Crazy Land about it anymore. That's how it was for a long time, but not now. I think the revelations started to solidify while I talked aloud to myself and pushed kids in wheelchairs around the orphanage campus in China.

The main one? The World Race will not transform me into the best Christian ever. For so many months, I had Ideal Reagan pegged to appear in Africa, then Asia... She had her moments but was never as fully present as I expected. I was determined to have this whole preferring everyone 24/7, listening prayer, squad leader worthy faith thing figured out by Month 11 at the LATEST. And each time I would finish another month with a deep sense of failure and regret for not becoming all that I was surely meant to be.

"But perfect Reagan isn't the goal," I told myself. "If that's what I'm striving for, I will always fail, because that 'ideal' - based on my performance, being good enough, earning great faith - that's impossible."

"Perfect Reagan isn't the goal. Jesus is. Strive to be like Him, not an ideal image of myself."

Taking that pressure off myself to do and be all these things was a big step for me. And it allowed me to listen to a Voice other than the frustrating, critical one in my mind.

A Voice that reminded me that He loves me. That if I ever feel far away or haven't intentionally pursued Him in awhile, I can always start NOW. Not after I feel like I've gotten all my crap together. Right now.

And this was so freeing because it allowed me to do things like stop freaking out all the time.

Stop being afraid of going home.

Discern between the things that matter and the things that don't.

Love my family.

Trust that God will lead me every step of the way.  Not just say it.  Really trust.

Invest deeply in every moment of life because I will certainly miss a lot of beautiful things if I'm focusing on every other moment but this one.

And it's a good thing, too, because Month 12 of The World Race deserves all I've got.

This is not the end.

Wrecked

One week in the Philippines has landed me in the prayer room about every two or three or four days.  Being the highest point on the grounds of the YunJin Lyso Ministry Center, its glass walls enable a bird’s eye view of everything around you:  the dilapidated village of tin-roofed shacks next door, the glistening structures of downtown Manila in the distance, the people milling around the pool or dining hall or lounge areas below.  You can see while staying removed.
 

 
In spite of all expectations, the Month 11 high that was supposed to carry me through these final days of the World Race never quite made an appearance.  Instead, it’s been a battle against heat, irritability, distractions, introversion, and burnout.  The guilt that comes when I compare my Fancy Land life to what I see when I walk outside this gate every morning.  The feeling that I’m never doing enough, even though I know that the doing is not what it’s about.

This month, our squad has been given the absolute privilege to reach out to nearly every kind of need in the surrounding community.  Through the seemingly countless ministries of YMC, we are able to feed people who have been displaced by typhoons, teach orphans and abandoned children, encourage girls who have been sexually abused, disciple expectant mothers, and share the love of Jesus with street kids…
 

 
The harvest is plentiful.  But feels entirely overwhelming.  There are so many people, so many needs, so many everything… and no way fix it all.  What do you say to the woman who was flooded out of her home and is now living under a tarp in a school gymnasium?  How do you even begin a conversation about healing with a girl whose story of hurt is more despicable than you can fathom?  How can you adequately explain a loving heavenly Father to the fatherless children huffing glue on the streets?
 
How do you be?
 

The beautiful conglomerate of factors that drives me to that sacred nook time and time again.
 
While I’m up there, I pray.  I play guitar.  I cry.  I don’t typically do all three in one sitting, but that was the case this time around.  I was sick of everything inside and around me…  And I had to go. 
 
Do you ever randomly open the Bible and ask God to give you the passage that will explain your whole life?  Isaiah 35 was the wish-for prophetic passage, so I read.  I got a couple of verses in and then felt like I should read it aloud.  I started over, using my inside voice this time.
 

 
Right now, I want to type out the entire thing for you.  But I won’t.  I want you to read it for yourself.
 
And while your eyes soak in the words, I want you to experience it.  I want you to allow images of yourself and those you love or like or have met only once – I want those images to flood your mind the way they did mine.
 
I want you to strengthen your weak hands and make firm your feeble knees.  I want you to tell everyone who has an anxious heart,  ‘Be strong; fear not!’
 
Why?
 
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
With the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
 

 
Everyone who has ever been abused,
abandoned,
told they are worthless,
treated as though their bodies were simply objects for another’s pleasure,
forgotten;

everyone who has ever been plagued by fear,
felt like a failure,
forgotten that the same God who raised Christ from the dead lives in them:
 
Be strong. 
Fear not.
Your God will come and save you.
 
The woes of the world kept my heart reeling.  But I kept going.
 
As my lips gave voice to the future of the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute, my mind was barraged with visions of people whom I have been blessed to encounter over the past eleven months.
 
A picture of We Tao, a precious two-year-old little boy from China, blind and deaf since birth… whose eyes will be opened and ears will be unstopped.
 

 
A picture of Old Man August, a kind old man from Mozambique, paralyzed by a stroke years before… who will one day leap like a deer.
 

 
A picture of my Josie’s Angels, beautiful and unbelievably joyful girls from the Philippines, rescued out of sexually abusive homes…  whose haunt of jackals will one day be driven away forever.
 

http://instagram.com/amybook

 
One day.
 
One day, there will be a place where they – where we – will be safe.
A place that will belong to us.
A place where we will belong.
A place where no lion, the Devil, will be allowed to walk, because only the redeemed will walk there.
A place where gladness and joy are the norm.
A place to sigh no more.   
 
I was broken for the brokenness; wrecked for the ordinary.  I wanted that day to come now.  I was tired of the world.  I am tired of the world.  Of it, for it, in it. 
 
But one day… one day Our God will come.  Our God will come and save us all.

That is the promise that will keep me going until the end.
 

Martian Children

Commencing a 2-year-old’s fit.
Please leave me here, God.  Don’t send me to a rural village in China to work at a special needs orphanage. 
That literally sounds like the worst ministry ever.
I told You the other day that that is the one thing I just can’t do:  work with special needs kids.  You already know I can’t do kids.  Why do I have to go there?
I don’t want to redeem all the past children’s ministry months.
I don’t want this to be what leads me to greater dependence on You.
I don’t want this to be the area where you break me down.
I don’t want to be miserable.
But I don’t want to choose joy.
Why, God?  Why?
 
This was a prayer I wrote the day Summit team leader Ah-be-guy-ul sat us all down in a living room in the middle of the Nepali foothills and announced our ministry for the following month in China.  The day I decided God clearly must not like me that much after all, let alone my squad leaders.  I’m not a kid person, in case we all forgot, and special needs sorts of things have always made me uncomfortable.
 
Turns out, my expectations were crushed like dust beneath the feet of reality, as usual. 
 
Our “rural village in China” is a city of 500,000 or so (classified as small, by Chinese standards), with a sky you might occasionally see if you can wait out the smog. 
 

 
We live on the tenth floor of an orphanage among the children of Eagles Wings, a program of six family group homes.  Each home is run by a staff of ayis (“aunts”) and contains ten or so kids with various mental and/or physical disabilities.  Our ministry assignments included assisting at the Eagles Wings school; helping with the day-to-day things like feedings, changing diapers, and entertaining the kids; and taking them outside (or to McDonald’s).
 

    

 
Of course, the first day we walked in and met the kids, I felt a little like an astronaut on some obscure alien planet…  But once we started hanging out with them; learning their names; getting a feel for their quirks, habits, and hang-ups… the game changed.
 

 
These kids are awesome.  Their joyful, hilarious, sometimes bratty but mostly sweet personalities were unhindered by the slightly to severely modified bodies that housed them.
 

    

    

 
It didn’t take long to fall in love with them. 
 
To learn that Ji Lan likes playing in the dirt, scooping it up and pouring it out with whatever tools he can find, so grab some plastic cups from your kitchen and bring them outside with you.
 

 
Ja Ni likes holding flowers, breathing in the scent of each one, rubbing the petals between her fingers, so pick a bunch of them for her.
 

 
Fu Chang likes building LEGO formations and has a very specific idea of what he wants each one to look like, but cerebral palsy keeps him from being able to accomplish the vision himself, so be his body for him. 
 

 
Li Ju is a little stand-offish but will sound off an enthusiastic (and contagious), 'Wooooo!' when she gets excited,
 

Sha Li will use your chopsticks to pick the gross ginger balls out of your rice bowl,
 

 
and Yue Zhang will be more than happy to share her sunflower seeds and her lice.

  
 

It’s funny, the way God works on you and changes everything.  The way that, when you ask to be more like Him – really ask – He answers you.  Every time I exhaled a brief God, please help me to love the kids today prayer, it happened.  Every time I thought, Well, I could either be doing this sort of annoying, inconvenient thing, or I could be watching TV, I then thought, I’ll be doing something either way, so it might as well be something worthwhile.  Every time I stopped and wondered How would Jesus love this child right now?  What would He do? He gave me His eyes to see.
 

 
And, really, isn’t that how it should be all the time?