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?
 

On Butterflies, Getting Dirty, and the Holy Spirit

I met a man named Hammie once.
 
You meet a lot of amazing people on the World Race.  A good portion of them are on your squad, but it’s especially great when you get a contact who chooses to take a breath between ministry and family life and care about pouring into yours. 
 
Sometimes these people have no connection to the World Race at all.
 
Enter Hammie, who hails from South Africa, the land we had traversed only two months before.  He showed up to our house one night, sat down for a typical dinner of noodles, rice, fresh veggies, and potatoes, and told story after radical story of the way God has worked in his life.
 
Hammie and his wife Alti are dedicated missionaries who literally take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.  During one of their many mission trips, they had to go through the airport of a country where all Christian materials were strictly forbidden.  Their suitcases were full of Bibles and tracts, and they knew they wouldn’t make it through security without a miracle, as each person’s bag was being checked for prohibited items.  But right before the security entrance, they were pulled aside and taken through another way, and their bags were never opened.
 

 

The same missionary duo went on another hike to evangelize to a small village in the mountains, which God had told them would take ten days.  The Muslim guide who accompanied them said they would not be able to reach the village at all due to the weather.  Holding up his cell phone, Hammie asked the guide if they could pray to Jesus for a signal; and, if they got service, they could continue on the hike.  Knowing they were well out of range, the guide said yes.  So they prayed, and God gave them full signal.  They kept going, trudging through a life-threatening blizzard, which of course God stopped after they prayed again.  They got to the village after ten days.
 

Hammie told us that God speaks to him and his wife in a lot of different ways, but most often through specific Bible verses. Before a certain excursion to a small Buddhist country, He had directed them to “queens… will bow down before you” in Isaiah 49:23. Not knowing what it meant, obviously, they set out for the journey and arrived after hiking for seven days. Once they got there, they stood before the entrance, unsure of how to get through the gate or what to do next. So they prayed. The doors opened, and the queen came out, surrounded by her guards and servants. She asked the newcomers who they were. Without missing a beat, Alti responded, “I am Princess Alti, and I’ve come to greet you in the Name of my Father the King.” The queen bowed down before them and allowed them to enter.

 
Those certainly aren’t the only stories.  I’ll never forget the ones about…
 
the sudden appearance of money – thousand of dollars – necessary for mission trips and payments on their children’s homes, without ever having asked anyone for help. 
 
the feeding of an entire town, when food had been prepared for only twenty people.  Each person had more than one helping.
 
the ability to preach the Gospel in a language they had never heard to a group of people they had never met.
 

 
I listened to him talk at the dinner table, on walks from the school to our respective living areas, in sermons at the church and school and graduation ceremony and conference. 
 
These are the kinds of stories you read in the Bible.  The kinds of things God did a long, long time ago with people who really knew Him, could hear His voice in a whisper, could see His hand as a cloud and a pillar of fire.  But now?  Really?
 
I sat, and I listened, and I wondered.  I wondered at my own doubt.  Because God doesn’t just do cool things in some people’s lives because He likes them better than others.  He does it because if you have faith as small as a mustard seed…  
 
What if I had faith like this?
 
How many times have I had a crazy thought and wondered if it was from God?
 
How many reasons have I come up with not to do something because it was unsafe or irresponsible or simply sounded ridiculous?
 
How much faith has it really taken for me to live my life?  I mean, really?  Have I ever been in a situation where I’d be screwed if God didn’t come through for me?  Have I ever been willing to be there?
 
I’m not talking about skydiving or climbing up the 10,000 steps of the Panchase trek.  I’m talking about those flickers of revelation in the middle of my mundane, everyday life.  Those times when I hear a voice telling me that there’s something more, that I should do this thing that doesn’t really make sense, that maybe all things really are possible with God… and I can’t quite decide whether it’s just my own thoughts running rampant or if it’s actually a word from the Holy Spirit.  I’m talking about just… well, going with it.   
 

 
What if it’s not God?
 
Well, it might not be.
 
And He will inevitably redeem the times I’ve screwed up, disobeyed, or not stepped up to the plate.
 
But what if it is Him?
 
What if I’m missing out on something because I’m too scared or too safe or too committed to my color-coded, bullet-pointed spreadsheets?
 
What if my desire to get dirty was greater than my desire to chase the butterflies and rainbows within the confines of my comfort zone? 
 
What would my life look like then?
 
Probably a lot like Hammie’s.
 
Or Jesus’.
 

 

Hammie on left

It's the Becoming

It's the actually doing the thing you say you're going to do. 

It's the saying yes when God says to do the thing you swore you'd never do. 

It's the realizing you could never do it on your own. 

 

It's the waking before the sun, before the noise, before the goings on of the day just to get a glimpse of the Father.

 

 

It's the praying for someone else what you desperately want for yourself. 

 

It's the daily walking to the ministry for which you haven't been gifted, prepared, or excited. 

It's the praying for strength for every single one of those days. 

It's the knowing that strength will come. 

 

It's the deciding to hold and love on a diaperless baby.

 

 

It's the climbing a million stone steps, moving a million concrete blocks, preaching a million unexpected sermons, with joy instead of grumbling.

It's the washing of the feet of the destitute. 

 

It's the preferring your teammate, contact, or a complete stranger when you think it's ridiculous. 

 

It's the exchanging of emails with a stranger so you can continue having  conversations about the eternal.  

 

It's the mourning over the children you have to leave behind after calling them your own for three weeks. 

It's the acknowledging that they were never yours to begin with. 

 

 

It's the believing that God is still good when He doesn't do what you think is right.

It's the speaking out life over other people. 

It's the receiving those words of life that were spoken over you. 

 

It's the letting go, the moving on, the extending of grace when they are words of death instead.

It's the believing that healing, redemption, and restoration are on the other side. 

It's the getting there because you let Him carry you. 

 

It's the sharing of mine for the sake of ours. 

 

It's the determining to be vulnerable.

It's the knowing. 

It's the being known. 

 

It's the walking with authority because you know you're loved. 

 

 

It's the deciding to make the hard choice, break the pattern, let go of things that are good for the things that are great. 

 

It's the longing just to hear His voice. 

It's the learning how to listen. 

 

It's the fixing of your eyes on Jesus.

It's the asking Him to purify your heart so you can see. 

 

It's the giving up of the control you never had. 

It's the walking in freedom when you don't even know where you're going. 

It's the trusting that He knows. And He has you.

 

I Can See Everest from My House

We are in Nepal.
You can just leave me here.  
Really.
I love it.

The work.

The scenery.

 

The people.

We spend our brief hours of official ministry time hanging out with 18 students at a Bible school in Kathmandu, which was started in 2007 by our contact, Reuben Rai.  Our assignment?  To teach them basic computer skills.  Session topics on the list included blogging, photo and video editing, everything Microsoft Office, and "How to Tweet."  We never got around to the last one, which was kind of a bummer, but I did help two of our students set up their very own blogs!  Feel free to check them out, leave some comments...  Encourage them to post more than one...

Sam:  Holy Stone Band
Ishwor:  Ministry in Sindhupalchock

Students come to this school from all over Nepal with their Bibles, notebooks, clothes, and registration money in hand.  If they don’t have the tuition fee for the month-long term, they can pay in rice, potatoes, beans, flour, chicken, or essentially anything they have.  In addition to our highly technical computer training, our precious students learn about things like church planting, discipleship, Bible distribution, and Nepali church history.

Hinduism, followed by Buddhism, is the dominant religion in Nepal.  The Christian church is fairly young here, and many of the students are first or second generation believers.  Regardless of their ages (15-50) and the few possessions they can call their own, they are all excited to return to their home villages and spread the Good News.

And I’m excited for them.

Their graduation ceremony was held in the Methodist Church, which is merely a small room at the bottom of the dorm type building where we live.  I got a little teary during one of the “commencement addresses,” reflecting on the number of lives changed through this program and the way God is blowing up this country for His glory.  Many Christians are persecuted here in Nepal – beaten, excommunicated, left by their spouses, cast out by the families that raised them – yet the numbers continue to grow.  And the people are on fire.  It’s beautiful.

It was at that moment that I started seeing pictures of myself:  trekking through the wild, spreading the gospel throughout the Himalayas, teaching at the Bible school, adopting Nepalese kids… becoming a part of the movement.  Embracing what God is already doing here.  

I can’t yet claim that God is calling me to Nepal, but I can say that peace is all I felt.  

We’ll see what happens.

Hiking through the mountains of Tatopani


Baptism in the river


Residents of the Buddhist "Monkey Temple"

Buddhist temple
 

Mt. Everest from my (airplane) window