going stir-crazy

Next Tuesday, it will mark the one-year anniversary of the last overseas missions trip I took. One year since I left the States for Romania. Fourteen days beyond that will be the one-year for being in the States mark.

And, in a way, it makes me sad.

I know that God wants me here for something. I know that my work here is important, that working in the local CEF chapter here in my hometown is important. That there are kids here who need to hear the Gospel. That I'm following God's will--at least, as much of it as He's revealed to me so far.

But...

I don't want it to be God's will for me to be here. I want to go someplace. I want to feel the press of g-forces as a plane takes off beneath me, carrying me thirty thousand feet up into the air. I want to be on my way to someplace on another continent, with strange smells and different foods and beautiful languages. I want to be running through an airport, trying to find an eatery with somewhat affordable food so that I can eat before I get on the plane. I want to have colorful money in my hands that crinkles oddly and shines when I hold it up to the light. I want to learn how to twist my tongue around the words of a new 'hello'. I want to see dark little hands put into mine. 

I want to run through a weed-infested churchyard, chasing a Romanian five year old who's challenged me to a game of tag. I want to walk through an African compound with a child on my back as we head home from church. I want to be in a Chinese high school where the beds are made of wooden slats and I don't have the option of a fork. I want to stare down from a plane window at the Sahara Desert, or the Pacific Ocean, or the soaring mountains of Germany. I want to stand below Big Ben, and walk along the fence of Westminster Abbey. I want to stand in an airport terminal and press my nose against the window and try to see beyond the fence that surrounds me. I want to go into a mall and feel that relief at air conditioning. I want to hug an orphan whose teeth flash white from a dusky-dark face.

I want to feel the press of a hand from someone who's just heard the Gospel for the first time. I want to see a smile from a child who's hanging upside down from a rusted carport, and know that as I smile we're communicating, even though he doesn't speak a word of English and I can't say more than three words in Romanian. I want to be able to sit next to an old woman and watch her prepare a meal for her family, knowing that words aren't needed, because we're sitting here, listening to the village celebrate the miracle of Christ. Words aren't needed. Our English and Nyanja is sufficient, because we don't need to use it.

I want all these things.

But I don't need them.

I know I don't need them. I know that there's something in this time here, firmly in the States, sitting behind a desk, reaching out to little kids who, more often than not, are of precisely my skin tone, that God has to show me. I know that He will use this time. I know He has appointed it. I know that He's going to reveal this whatever-it-is to me in His perfect time. I know that, when He does, I'll understand (at least in part), and I'll be the better for it.

But it's hard. And perhaps it shouldn't be. Because, everyday, God is revealing to me just how deep the hurt runs right here in my country, in my hometown. How deeply some of these children are hurting. How much of them simply need to be pulled into a bear hug and told how much He loves them.

So yes, travelling overseas is thrilling. I doubt my heart for international missions is going to go away anytime soon (at least, I hope not, because that would be sad). But for now, I'm working on being content right where I am. Giving my life up for the One who gave up His own.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

- Kyla Denae

life changing?

the people who stay behind on missions trips have come to expect big stories. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. There very often are big stories. I've had some of my own, from Zambia and China. I saw God work in mighty ways in my own life, and sometimes, in brief glimpses, I saw just what he was doing in other people's lives, too. My outlook was radically changed by the poverty in Zambia and by the atheism in China, by the different aspects of a lost world strangled by starvation in one hand and by materialism in the other. But I've had trouble pulling together my thoughts about Romania, and not really because anything big and spectacular happened.

Yes, there were moments that still shine in my memory. There was Rebeca and Estera, two sisters who followed me around at VBS. There was Bethany and Cami, the missionary's daughters, who I grew really close to, and who I'm pretty sure were the people I was sent to Romania to minister to. There were other times: when I stood in the middle of a sauna that we once called an auditorium and taught to seventy kids, via a translator, about the miracle that brought Philip to a lone Ethiopian man on a desert road and then carried him away once his task had been taught and, despite the heat, I didn't feel hot or uncomfortable at all. There was the feeling of closeness to God as I stood above Budapest and, despite the people around me, looked out at a city full of all lights except spiritual ones, and realized that He was still there, though few claim His name. There was the moment when we were all in a castle and stood in the great hall and sang Amazing Grace. The words echoed from the rafters, filling me with a sense of how awesome that grace actually is, how amazing it is, how utterly awesome God must be (and also, as a side-note, discovered that Amazing Grace really shouldn't be sung outside of a place that can make it sound so beautiful just because of the acoustics).

But despite that, there was no life-changing moment that I can point to. There was nothing that broke my heart. The thing that came closest was, perhaps, when I was talking to Mrs. Tyler and discovered that there are only a handful of actual Gospel-preaching churches in Hungary...but that had very little to do with my trip as a whole. I suppose that, besides that, the one thing I really discovered on this trip is that I'm not called to Romania. I mean, I loved it. I have made friends there that will live in my heart forever, that I still pray for, who someday I'd love to go back and visit. But I can't picture myself living there for a long period of time like I can in, say, Zambia, or even China. God sent me to Romania for a purpose, I know that, he put that desire in my heart, and there were things that I believe I accomplished. But for the first time, I think I went to a place where I was doing the ministering, not necessarily being ministered to, and a place that is now closed to me, at least for the time being. That door has closed, my purpose there is over for the foreseeable future.

I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. If that's "life changing" or not. Either way, I doubt anybody would want me to answer the question of "what did you learn in Romania?" with, "I'm not supposed to be a missionary there."

But it's true. And here I stand, waiting with eager expectation for the next door to open.

- Kyla Denae

NaNoWriMo, 50k, and Dallas

Yes sir! My 50,000th word was 'that'. Quite anticlimactic, I know. But hey, it is what it is. Last night I hit 50,000 words on NaNoWriMo, an accomplishment that I am quite proud of. 10 days! That's how long it took me to write 50,000 words on a novel.

Unfortunately, I'm only about one quarter through the events that I had planned for this novel. That's less exciting, just because that means I probably have another 150,000 words before I can be done and get back to Valiant. Either that, or True is going to end up like Ravaged Time, and I'll be scrambling in September and October to finish it before NaNoWriMo.

Of course, I might not even be in the US come September 2012! Hopefully, as you know, I'll be heading to Zambia, Africa. As a sidenote, one of my good friends Chelsea (who is currently on the World Race and will be back in the US in approximately 9 days, and back to my house in the beginning of December), is considering coming with me! We'll probably make a quick, month-long detour by China if everything works out, so...yeah. I'll keep you posted! :D

In other news, my mom and I are going to be driving with some friends to Dallas, Texas today. There's a Students for Liberty conference we're going to be attending. We're gonna get free books. So yeah. That's pretty exciting.

爱於耶穌,
~Liberty (紫涵)

Right on Time

So. Sometimes, I find God's timing nothing short of...well, pretty hilarious, actually.

I mean that in a very, very good way.

Being the control freak and worrier that I am (anybody remember the absolutely frantic posts I wrote back in April? I do.) I've already begun to spazz about the roughly $5,000 I'm going to need for my planned summer activities.

My word, why do I do this to myself?

Basically, I'm going to be focusing on Romania fundraising. That's about $2,000. I'm hoping to be able to go to Zambia on $3,000. But, back in September, it seemed like a smart idea to tell God that I wasn't going to start fundraising for that trip--I wanted to focus on Romania, and if he wanted me to go to Zambia, I'd trust him to provide.

See, this is why I do things like this to myself. I think that I'm actually going to be able to exercise a little bit of trust. But I don't. Silly, silly me.

This is probably more of just a commentary on my character more than anything else. Of course I began stressing about it. I started thinking about all the reasons God might not want me to go to Zambia, then I started thinking about not going to Zambia, and then I thought that maybe not going to Zambia might be better. Then I thought about little African children and their singing and their playing, and that ended that.

Because you see, I love Africa. But I still don't know why I do this to myself.

And so the cycle begins again. Trusting, believing God will provide because, after all, I want to go to Zambia. But what if I want to go to Zambia, but God doesn't want me to go to Zambia? What will I tell the missionaries? What will I tell the people I've told about my potential trip? Will they feel let-down? Am I letting this trip become more about the people around me and my own desires than about God? Will that make God not want to let me go to Zambia? Will I not get to go to Zambia?

But I want to go to Zambia!

So here I sit, full of countless worries, and then the money issue plunks right back into my lap. Almost $4,000 before the first of the year? Please. You've told maybe half a dozen people you're planning to go to Zambia. And your blog readers. All four of them. Woopiee for you. You're not going to be able to go to Zambia. That's simply too much money, and God's obviously not going to just plunk it in your lap. Maybe you should start fundraising. Maybe you should just forget this whole thing you're doing. After all, this faith is passive. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't express itself in works. Sure, you're starting work for Romania, but that hardly counts.

And I think, for just a second, that maybe I should just give it up, forget the whole venture. Just be content with going to Romania.

And then my pastor preaches on the awe-inspiring faithfulness of God.

*"God is faithful..."

All the time, no matter our circumstances, no matter what we think he's doing, God is always, always faithful. He will never forget us, he will never forget our needs.

"That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge...So that ye come behind in no gift..."

As my pastor put it: 'we can have confidence in Him to accompany us as we serve and venture out for him and stretch in our serving Him.'

Ouch.

Okay, God.

Not quite what I expected.

But okay.

I think I'm ready to try out that whole trust thing again.

No, I've not gotten some big check. No, I still have absolutely no idea how God is going to provide for a $2,000 plane flight to Zambia, Africa before the first of the year. Not a single clue. I don't know by what means he's going to send that money. I haven't the foggiest. But one thing I do know.

He is always, always faithful. He always has been, He always will be.

And everything will work out for His glory. So here I am, trying yet again to set out on this journey of faith and make something of it other than a huge mess.

*Scriptures from 1 Corinthians 1:5, 7, 9

爱於耶穌,
~Liberty (紫涵)

Lessons Africa Taught Me

سلام لكم في هذا اليوم

30,000 children die every day in Africa.

They are killed by starvation.

Unsafe water.

Malaria.

Diseases that have been eradicated in the Western world.

Infections.

HIV/AIDS.

25% of African children born will die before they reach the age of five.

Every 30 seconds, an African child dies from malaria alone. And that's just the children.

That isn't counting the millions of adults who are currently infected with HIV/AIDS and will die within the year. That isn't counting the millions who will die from starvation, war, disease in the next day.

But what is amazing about Africa is not so much that the people are suffering. Suffering is a human condition, it affects every part of human life, no matter where we live or who we are or how much money we have.

What is amazing about Africa is how wonderful the people are. In a place where people should be in the depths of despair...

They're happy.

In a place where people should be bemoaning their lack...

They are glad for what they have.

So why then is it that I, who have so much, can't get over my perceived lack? I suppose humans will always want more, and since I'm human, I guess I'm the same. But I don't want to be that way anymore.

Because I don't want to forget the lessons Africa taught me.

爱於耶穌, ~Liberty

Zambia

Suilaid!



An updated version of my old video...I don't know if I had already posted it...but here it is, a video of my trip to Zambia. :))

爱於耶穌,
~Liberty