Weary.

It’s almost been a year since I wrote in this blog.  Even now as I sit here, I’m not sure what words to write.  If I’m being totally honest, most of the things that I have to write about aren’t good; which I suppose is the reason I’ve failed to write in so long.  They are ugly and painful and heavy and not what most missionaries want to write about.  We want to show the good stuff.  The beautiful journey God has brought them on.  The victories.  The progress.  The lessons they have learned.  But today I can’t really share those things.

Today I sit here broken.  This past year in Zambia has been one of the most difficult of my life.  I have never felt more alone.  Never faced so many challenges. Never been so overwhelmed by worry and stress.  Never questioned or doubted God’s plan so much.

I have come to learn the truth that when you give you heart to God’s work, the enemy likes to work overtime.  Every step forward you seem to take, Satan is right there to push you back.  He needs you to lose hope and give up.  He loves bringing confusion, frustration, miscommunication, division and discouragement into the things God is trying to accomplish.  He likes making you feel like your voice isn’t heard or your efforts don’t matter.  He loves reminding you how truly damaged this world and the people in it can be.

And when that’s not enough, he simply attacks your heart.  He loves beating you down over and over again until that little bit of passion you once had is completely gone.  And most days, that’s where I feel I am.  Do I love what I do?  Yes.  No question.  I am over the moon in love with the students at Haven of Hope, and I know they deserve someone to fight for them; but some days I wish it didn’t have to be me.  Some days I wish my eyes hadn’t been opened and I could go back to living in blissful unawareness of the pain in this world.  Some days I wish I could go back to normal life and let someone else carry this burden. Some days I wish I didn’t have to rely on other people’s generosity to meet my daily needs.  Some days I simply show up to school and go through the motions.  Some days I wish I didn’t have to feel all alone. 

I can’t tell you how difficult it is to write these words.  To open up my wounded heart and share it with you.  I like being Amy, the girl who never stops smiling.  The girl who gets to live out her dream every day.  The girl who knows she is doing exactly what God created her to do.  But I’m tired of wearing that mask.  It’s exhausting trying to assure everyone I’m okay 100% of the time.  I’ve weary from carrying this burden and it’s time for me to ask for help. 

I need your prayers like never before.  I need prayer for more passion.  To be refueled.  For strength.  For wisdom.  For direction.  For patience.  For trust.  For a submissive heart.  For courage.  For faith.  And most of all, for the love of Christ to be evident in my life.

I hope that you don’t read this and start to worry about me.  I know I’ll be okay.  Even though I might be walking through a valley right now, I am surrounded by people who love me and encourage me daily. I guess I just need to make that team of support a bit bigger.  I’m slowly learning that I can’t always be the one taking care of people…I have to let others hold me up at times. 

Despite the challenges of this year, GOOD things are still happening.  I have so much to be grateful for.  Even on the days when I collapse onto my pillow in tears, I get to fall asleep knowing I am weary from doing something that matters.  I have seen my students improve.  I have so many stories to share of LIFE change.  By simply showing up every day, I get to tell 86 students that they are WORTH my sacrifice.  And even when ministry is overwhelming, God has graciously given me a family here in Zambia that have walked with me every step of the way.  I have a church that encourages and challenges me.  I have friends who listen and give me their shoulder to cry on.  I am blessed beyond measure and I can’t thank God enough for what He’s done in my life.  I know that stages of heartache are simply part of being on the front line.  I also know that God gave me everything and everyone I need to get me through these stages. 

{So with you holding me up, I will keep on fighting.  Because this fight is worth it.}

Thank you for reading this.  For following my journey.  For loving me.  For encouraging me.  For praying.  You will never know how much it means to me.  It is truly the lifeline that keeps me going here in Zambia.

God bless you, dear friends.

Love.

“Dear Teacher Amy, I want to tell you about my family.  My 4 sisters have died and my real daddy has died, so I just live with my mother and I am very sad…I am an orphan.”

At the end of the school day, one of my students handed me this note on behalf of her friend.  I read it over and over again, letting the words sink in.  I knew these facts already.  Many of my students have similar stories.  But hearing it in their own words is something entirely different.  Hearing her call herself an orphan was heartbreaking.

That night I tried to find the perfect words to write back.  I thought of Bible verses and other encouragements, but I felt like it somehow felt trite.  The only words I could offer her were the truths that I’ve repeated over and over in my head these past 15 months.  I hate that you and your friends have passed through so much pain.  I don’t understand it.  I wish I could fix it all.  But no matter what, you are never alone.  We are your family now. 

Friday was a holiday here in Zambia and I went into town to run some errands.  While I walked up the road towards home that afternoon, I saw 6 girls in familiar uniforms.  They were my girls.  They had walked 90 minutes to get there and then waited almost an hour for me to come home.  My beautiful note-writer was among them.  Maybe my words had sunk in.  Maybe today she wouldn’t be so sad.

I scoured my pantries for food, and realized I didn’t have much to share.  But that didn’t matter to the girls.  They hadn’t come for food.  They had come for family.  They had come for love.  One by one they jumped in my shower and washed themselves with real soap.  They giggled as they used my hairbrush to comb through their own.  They used sunscreen as lotion for their brown skin when my other bottle ran out.  They happily washed their uniforms outside with detergent rather than simply rinsing them in water.  They lined up and asked me to “chisa” (iron) their clothes after they had dried in the hot sun.  They spilled sauce and rice all over my table as they took turns serving themselves.  They jumped in my bed and declared they were sleeping at my house that night.  They helped me clean up all the pots and plates and swept my carpet better than I ever could.  They filled my house with joy.  They felt it and I felt it.  But then it was time to go. 

This is usually the hardest part of the day, but it’s the part where I know we’re making a difference in these students’ lives.  Our students never want to leave.  Every day we line up in the schoolyard, say a prayer and dismiss the students, and every day they somehow make their way back into the school.  They sit next to me as I grade papers or write lesson plans and they refuse to leave until we all leave together.  Teacher Esnart and I always joke with the students saying, “We are leaving!  Are you going to sleep here tonight?”  to which they usually reply, “Yes!!” It’s sweet, but also heartbreaking.  It makes us face the reality that for most of our students, home is a place they don’t want to be.  There may be different reasons for each, but the core of it is that they don’t feel loved.  Many of them are seen as burdens; just another mouth to feed...or not feed.  But at least now they are starting to learn the difference.  They are getting glimpses of this thing called love.  This thing that they sing about in worship songs and have heard about, but never truly experienced for themselves.  Once you get a taste of the real thing, it’s hard to go back to the counterfeit. 

And so I understand why they show up to school early and go home late.  I know why they are willing to walk hours in the hot sun in shoes with no soles.  Why they show up at my doorstep on Saturday afternoons. 

They do it for love. 

And I am the lucky girl who gets to give it to them.

August.

I won’t lie.  August was exhausting.  Awful, in fact.  I had looked forward to this holiday month for quite some time, and it grossly disappointed me.  I find it painfully ironic that my church declared August as the month of God’s kindness cause it was one of the more painful months I can remember. 

I had to say goodbye to our short-term team and realize yet again that I’m quite alone here in Zambia.  I had to watch the man I love wash his brother’s clothes for the last time.  I had to counsel a close friend who was utterly betrayed by the girl he loves.  I had to desperately pray with a friend who had run out of ARV medication that the hospitals would be miraculously restocked in the morning.  And I had to hold one of my precious students as we watched a group of men carry her sister’s casket into a truck.  Her sister was 8 years old and she was also one of my students.  There is no sound in the whole world worse than the cries of a mother for her lost child.

God’s kindness?  Some days that can seem like a distant memory.

This month was the perfect storm of circumstances that left me vulnerable enough for Satan to kick my butt.  It was the first time during my 15 months here that I’ve truly felt lonely.  I’m sure every missionary has felt it more than once, but even knowing I’m “not alone” in my loneliness doesn’t really make it better.  I was overwhelmed, and anyone who knows me knows that my automatic response when that happens is to shut down.  So I did.  And I shut myself off.  And this went on long enough that I started to hear the quiet whispers of how pointless it is for me to be here in Zambia.  How much easier it would be to just give up and go home.  How selfish it is for me to ask for financial support from friends and family when I could just go get a job in the US.  How inadequate I am to answer the multitude of needs presented by my students.  And somewhere along the way I got lost.  I got scared.  I started doubting everything I’ve been so sure of for the past seven years.  Doubt can be paralyzing.

But then a funny thing happened; I went back to school.

I walked through that old, rusty gate on September 9 and was immediately greeted with that beautiful word, “Teacher!”  I listened to students who couldn’t speak a word of English in January eagerly tell me all about their holidays.  I studied their faces as Esnart told them that one of their own had passed away over the break.  I watched them explore our new books as if they were treasures.  I looked at pictures on Charity’s computer from our first class in 2010 when our students were practically babies.  I heard parents thank me for helping their children and beg for more spots for other relatives.  And I realized how far we have come.

It’s so hard sometimes to see the change in something when you’re in it every day.  It becomes ordinary.  Normal.  You get caught up in the mundane and trivial.  You focus on the things that AREN’T changing, instead of the giant list of things that have.  But these first two weeks of school, God has granted me the gift of stepping back; taking it all in.  I have spent a lot of time trying to remember what our students were like when I first arrived last June.  They seem like completely different kids to me.  The way they speak, the way they read, the way they look…it’s all progressed.  We have become a family, and that means something.  I may not a great teacher 100% of the time, but I AM here, and maybe that’s all they really need.

It makes my heart skip a beat to think about what could be.  And it makes my heart hurt to think about missing the chance to see if happen.

There are a lot of uncertainties in my life, and that scares me.  I don’t know how long I’m going to be in Zambia or how many more “Augusts” I’m going to have.  I don’t know why God called me to this place when others are called to stay in the comfort of their own backyard.  But God recently blessed me with one certainty that I’m choosing to rest in:  No matter what, I will never get to the end of my life and regret “wasting” it in Zambia.  It’s just not possible.  Sure, maybe there will be a day when I feel like I truly can do more for these beautiful children by being back in the US, but until then, being here will never be pointless.  It could never be the wrong choice.  How could anyone regret spending themselves on behalf of the orphans of this world?

God’s kindness is real, and it is is mirrored in his compassion. The way His heart DOES break for his precious children all over this country.  It’s not easy for Him to watch little girls lose their sisters or children to go to bed hungry.  On the days when I get angry and frustrated at how easily He could fix the situations in my students’ lives, I’m trying to remember that maybe I’M His answer.  And although that feels like a lot of pressure, it helps fight the voice in my head that tries to convince me I’m not enough.

For now, I’m trying to rest in the truth of this beautiful quotation from Frederick Buechner.  “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” 

And for now, that meeting place is Luanshya, Zambia.

Thief.

“Don’t let comparison steal your joy.”

-Theodore Roosevelt-

I read this quotation a few weeks ago, and it’s kind of been haunting me ever since. 

When you’re doing ministry in a foreign country, you tend to hear about and research other ministries in the area.  I’ve started following multiple people’s blogs, befriended a few on facebook, visited 2 ministries and met some new friends around here in Luanshya.  And MOST of the time, I walk away from these interactions feeling encouraged and surrounded by friends.  It’s a precious reminder that we are not alone in this.  Looking around Zambia, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the amount of need; but hearing more and more stories of other groups who are in this fight with us makes it a little less scary.

But recently I’ve found myself doing this joy-killing thing known as comparison.  Instead of being encouraged by how God has blessed the work of other ministries, I have found myself becoming disheartened.  I walk into new, beautiful classrooms that were built through the generosity and dedication of people around the world and I can’t help but feel jealous.  People tell me to take notes of the beautiful art projects and boxes of dress-up clothes in the kindergarten room and I bitterly say in my head, “Ya, sure.  If I had room in my class for something BESIDES desks, a box of dress-up clothes would be the FIRST thing on my list.”  I know it’s coming and I try to fight it.  I ask God to take away the envy; to take away my terribly selfish mindset that would rather give MY students and MY ministry these incredible schools instead of these equally precious and helpless children. 

And when the jealousy fades away, I’m often left with this tiny, crippling voice inside my head that tells me that Haven of Hope and myself just don’t measure up.  That sending 150 kids to school isn’t going to make a difference in the long run.  That we’ll never have an impact unless we have the facilities of these other programs.  That we’ll never truly help the community until we offer skills training and feeding programs and a farm and everything else these others are doing.  I believe the lies that tell me my students aren’t making progress and they need someone better than me.  I walk into classrooms of other teachers and all I can see is the ways that they are more creative, more disciplined, more loving, more insert-teacher-word-here.  I hear the success stories of other groups and I wonder what I’m doing wrong.  I wonder why my students still fight and struggle with math and forget to say “thank you.”  I look at the people and ministries around me and I feel small.

And then I hear this quotation run my head.  And I realize that I’m doing it.  I’m LETTING comparison steal my joy.  I’m so focused on other people and the things that I don’t have that I’m unable to feel happiness.  And then I remember the undeniable truth of my life: that I am not in Zambia on accident.  Haven of Hope is NOT here by accident.  From the very beginning, our stories have both been God-orchestrated.  He wanted us here, so here we are. 

I just recently shared in church about the story of Peter walking on the water, and I laugh now because I really should have been preaching to myself. 

Because I am Peter. 

Peter saw Jesus doing something incredible and he wanted to be apart of it.  I saw Christ’s work in my life and in Zambia, and I knew I had to jump in. 

Jesus then calls Peter onto the water and Peter goes.  Jesus called me.  I came. 

So then Peter is standing on the water with Jesus and it’s AWESOME.  I mean, he’s freaking WALKING ON WATER.  That’s how I feel most days.  I mean, I’m freaking LIVING IN ZAMBIA.  I am doing the very thing I've dreamt about for the past 6 years.  I get to teach and love the most incredible children in the world.  Every day I get to see Jesus working and experience life in a whole new way. 

But then Peter starts looking at the waves.  And he realizes that he’s just a man.  He’s not Jesus.  He’s not anyone special.  He cannot walk on water.  And he takes his eyes off Jesus.  And he starts to sink.  That’s what I’m doing.  I’m taking my eyes off Jesus and instead looking at the people around me.  I’m realizing that I’m just Amy.  I’m no one special.  And I cannot make a difference in Zambia.  And some days I start to sink.

And that’s when Jesus grabs Peter’s hand.  He speaks those cutting, but loving words, “You of little faith, WHY did you doubt?” 

I think Jesus knew that the person Peter was REALLY doubting was himself.  He didn’t think he could do this incredible thing that Jesus had called him to.  Sure, Jesus had TOLD him to come out of the boat.  Sure, Jesus was right next to him the whole time.  But Peter was too focused on his weaknesses.  He forgot how much Jesus loved him.  He forgot that Jesus would never tell Peter to do something he wouldn’t then help him accomplish.  He forgot that Jesus would NEVER let him drown.  And I guess recently I’ve been forgetting those things too.  I’ve been so busy looking at the waves and counting the ways I don’t measure up, that I forgot none of those things matter when Jesus calls you out of the boat.  I forgot that Jesus is right next to me, standing on this water. 

Teaching in Zambia is never going to be easy.  I have no idea what God is going to make out of this ministry.  I don’t know how many lives we will touch or what kind of impact we will have.  But I do know that I am here for a reason.  I know that, for now, God has entrusted 53 students into my hands.  I know that He also asks me to be faithful in the small before He will ever trust me with the big.  I know that the need in Zambia is beyond my ability and I can only be grateful for the work of fellow volunteers and ministries.  Because in no way is this a competition; no one loses if we are all working towards loving and equipping the people of this country.

Today I am grateful to be called to Haven of Hope.  Yes, we have a long way to go; but that only means that someday I will have a testimony of God’s provision and faithfulness.   I will get to look back and SEE how far He has brought us and how much He has multiplied the small offerings we brought before Him. 

But until then, I will try to keep my eyes on Jesus.