Our individual tents of worship are calling us, lit up with anticipation.
I write this at the storytelling workshop of training camp in Atlanta, a week and half of preparation for what will be a year of stories.
Every person here has a different story that God fashioned to lead them to such a time as this. From Australia to Texas to Ethiopia to Ohio we come for a single purpose, to serve and follow Christ across the world.
So far at camp: An image of a woman in stubborn trust, that pays no regard for the world or her personal image fasted for 40 days only water. Men empty themselves their passion in front of many, for the glory of the Lord.
I’ve already heard incredible testimonies of hardship and overcoming them. How blessed I am to learn from and gather with all these people on a collective adventure. I realize I too have a lot to share, a lot to tell about what has brought me to this exact moment…
I got a free ticket to a conference that embarked a time where everything I knew about God’s presence was surpassed. This was Junior year, first semester, my most lonely time in college yet, where on my knees I yearned.
The first night the tongues and expressive worship made me uncomfortable. Doing street ministry that day at a skate park, though, was beautiful. One girl led us in love and in listening to God’s heart for a man.
The second night I decided to take public transit and go alone at the chance of experiencing more of God.
I go up front and as I worship, after on my knees for a minute, I feel this heavy weight on my stomach. Tingles travel through my legs and strongly in my mouth. Physically the presence of God, and I saw the same overpowering, loving affect of the Spirit across the room, as Steffany Gretzinger exclaims “it is worth it, He is worthy!”
The next day, I cried on a phone call to my mom expressing how I entered a different realm of experience (Acts 2) proving further the reality of the Gospel, and I had no idea how to go back and live my every day in a world that is not like that room, a world that doesn’t know Christ.
My friend and I had been praying with intentionality for God’s movement, and we began going around campus and attempting to have spiritual talks.
Out of fear and doubt, we eventually stopped. Even so, it was on one of our faith-sharing days that I was led into Franz Hall. There, a Vietnamese girl walks by who I had met Sophomore year on a bus to a field trip.
We ended up talking about The World Race since, at the time, I was deciding between study abroad in Ireland or graduating early and going on the Race. We discussed faith and discovered that we lived across the hall from each other.
So when she walked by a semester later, I invited her to our Christian campus club, Fish. Come this semester, I wanted to be intentional about continuing to pour into her. Turns out, God had already done the work. She comes to church with me and leaves marked with that indescribable joy that comes when you fully surrender and experience Christ, now a friend that is teaching my friends so much.
Back to Junior year, second semester, God meets me again at a conference. The speaker asks us to go one step deeper with the Spirit and maybe to pray for tongues. I say to God “if you want me to have tongues, will you give it to me?”
The night continues with a talk about compassion, and we prayed on our knees the things that break our heart. I poured out and articulated all my desires quickly in His arms of love. For a minute I go limp and still, again overcome with the Spirit. I stand up and across the room I see a man from my mission trip hands up worshiping, a man who had been made an outcast all his life. I say thank you God that you give a place to people like him.
And before I know it, I am moving my tongue rapidly and could direct the language I was uttering to pray for specific people. Ever since I have been able to speak in tongues. When done in love and for a purpose, it is a powerful thing.
So anyway, that and a book my Cru mentor gave me about campus revival, all led to the prayer night I started and God opening amazing doors of conversation as I asked him to that semester.
My three previous blogs discuss the journey of singleness, summer, and what led me to do the World Race.
Now for my last semester of college, I expected to continue boldly working for the Kingdom on my campus. Overwhelmed with all that I was leaving from the summer and with all that is ahead, my semester didn’t start out the best.
Like in the past, I toiled to find purpose and opportunity on my campus. But an epiphany led to some of the best weeks of my life.
I realized God was good enough to let this semester be my special time of rest in and with Him. I realized I didn’t have to search to find people to pour into. He had already set them right in front of me. I didn’t have to initiate and try so hard to plan my days, but he would plan my days for me.
Endlessly he has placed people in front of me at exactly the right moment. The pressure is off. For instance, he put a specific girl on my heart to reach out to. The next week I find out terrible things she is going through and connected her with one of my best friends who has been through such a similar circumstance.
But, within the span of a couple weeks, my Grandma gets sick and passes. Preparing for missing a week of school for training camp and witnessing my family go through this and one of the closest people in my life gone, I took back control.
This was a bad idea. But finally, I went to make space for God at the campus chapel, and I let go and remembered that, in every season, it is better to trust in the Lord first. After a couple hours there, He leads me to our dining hall. That night I ran into three students all of whom I had a special connection and talks of faith with. Walking back to my dorm, I realize that each of them were international students representing all the populations I will work with come January: affirmation where I had doubt.
My travel nurse in Portland happens to have been a missionary all over the world. She has seen many healed, like a mute-deaf girl who talked for the first time her whole life at her mother answering the question “do you believe Jesus can heal you?” She told me go behind Jesus, not before: affirmation.
The waves of grief of my Grandma come and go, but God is able to turn my pain, my family’s pain, and your pain into glory.
I spent four days in Colorado with two best friends in Christ. Along with amazing memories made, they saw the beauty and brokenness that I hold and walked with me through difficult theological questions and times. At one moment I broke down in tears at disappointment and grief and pain. All I could say to God was: I am weak. I am learning that I don’t have to be strong. I can be vulnerable and expose myself at the chance of greater healing and relationship. Christ’s power made perfect in my weakness (2 Cor 12:9).
At 3:30am my friends and I left for the airport. Them going their way, me off to training camp. So now I am here with the same purpose I began it all with; to see Jesus in faces across the world.
Anticipation.
