They literally would wake up, roll out of their van and go surfing.  If I was the stereo-typing kind, I would say they probably ate, smoked some weed, had sex and went to sleep.  Woke up the next day and did the same thing.  Seems like a pretty good deal. They all seemed pretty happy, laid-back, and relaxed.  

Running down that road on that day, it seemed absolutely glorious.  I thought for a hot-second about becoming a surfer.  (Except for the whole surfing, swimming, shark thing...that would be a struggle for me.)    But the lifestyle sure did seem appealing.  I pondered disappearing into a VW van and leaving behind all that 2011 has been.

The pain, the struggle, the heartbreak.  The pain, the struggle, the heartbreak.  The pain, the struggle, the heartbreak.  Over and over and over again.  Rinse and repeat.  

I completely understand how Job asked God to just kill him.  Just go ahead and finish me off, because I can't handle it anymore.  (You won't find that in the NIV, but that is the AJ version).    Round about the middle of November I was in the same place.  Just go ahead and finish me off God, because I am DONE.    It has been the year from hell.  All the dirty details don't really matter - and they certainly don't make it all better.   Let's just find a VW van to climb into and surf our troubles away.

Except.  You knew it was coming - the exception.  The explanation.  The thing is...in the back of a VW van or in ministry, or really, in LIFE...you can't really run away.  Oh, you can try.  Believe me, I have tried, sometimes harder than others.  But at the end of the day you will still put your head on the pillow at night and have to reconcile some things.  

I have in no way reconciled some things.  I still have WAY more questions than answers.  I won't settle for nice, christian explanations.  I won't stop wrestling.  I have no conclusions.  (i still may climb in that VW....don't let me fly to CA for awhile!)

But, this i do know:  "thou he slay me, yet I will HOPE in him"  Job 13:15

Thank you Lord for hope.  Thank you that this season is only about hope.  Thank you for people that HOPE with me.

I am not a Bank of America customer.  Don't forsee myself becoming a Bank of American customer.  And really could care less what they decide to do about their debit card fees.  My basic assumption is that they know what they are doing, have some basic business principles they follow to make money, and we are consumers.  We can choose to bank with them or not.  That is the cost of doing life.  

And I moved on to the next story.  Except  I really didn't move on.  I sat and thought about the mid-level manager that recommended that decision to his superiors.  I thought about the bank execs that sat and worked through the pros and cons of the decision.  I thought about the marketing team that had to plan their new marking push around this change.  I thought about their customer service agents that wil probably take a lot of phone calls from grumpy people today.  

I am willing to bet that Bank of America didn't wake up today and think "hmmm, let's charge a fee for debit cards!"  It is probably a decision that was tossed around for months, maybe even years.  Today, strange as it may seem, I have compassion for the people who made this decision.  The ones who will never really get a chance to explain to the general public why it is the best decision.  And if they ever did get a chance to explain - we wouldn't listen or believe them anyways, would we?

I learned early on in my leadership on the World Race this one phrase:  you will die DAILY on the cross of misunderstanding as a leader.    As a leader, your right to be understood is forfeited.  You will learn to be ok when your motive, action, heart posture is misunderstood.  

I sit regularly with some of the best leaders of our generation.  I am in awe at some of the sheer talent and gifting in these men and women.  They are sent out to lead others in unfamiliar countries, with strange currency, inherent risks and we ask them to die daily on their own cross of misunderstanding.  I love walking through this truth with them.  

But lately the theme has been Ready, Set, DIE!

The thoughts, hopes, dreams I have for my life have had to die.  My expectations for how my own life should look have had to die.  The way that I think things should be done have had to die.  My pride has had to die a few times.  Doing things in my own strength has had to die.    It has been a season of Ready, Set, DIE!  

I remember when I was first getting ready to go on the World Race and I could not believe the level of dying I had to experience. I could not believe that the Lord would ask me to give up so much.  I struggled to let go of friends, family, houses, trucks, stuff in general.  At the time it seemed so daunting and so cruel.  It was a very hard season of death.

And now I look back on that and think 2 things;  1.  that seems like such child's play compared to this season of death.  That stuff was easy compared to the things I am dying to these days.   AND 2.  the amount of LIFE that came from that death I can't even explain.  The things that have happened in my life because I said yes to that death.  The ways the Lord moved and worked and EXPLODED beyond my imagination.  All because of death.

My only conclusion to this Ready, Set, DIE is YES LORD!  I can't see it now, I have no idea what is coming...but I know that death brings life.  Those are His words after all......so I am embracing the Ready, Set, DIE....

I was rushing home from the gym.  Sweaty, holding a ton of junk in my hands and annoyed that my phone was beeping at me.  Didn't it know I was tired and really wanted a break? It was a text from my Dad and  I can count on one hand the number of times my Dad has texted me.  Not our normal form of talking.

The text read:    DAD:  Are you watching the news? They are in Kenya and it is really bad.

    ME:  No, but I will.  (meanwhile, heart is pounding as my mind whirls through every      possible scenario involving World Racers, Kenya and horrible incidents.)

I drop everything and run to the TV.  In my head I am wondering why our international safety updates this morning didn't mention any upheaval in Kenya.   All the while I am quickly escalating "really bad in Kenya" to "world racers trapped in collapsed government, or horrific plane crash in Kenya", or any other of horrendous situations as I flip through the channels.

CBS Nightly News comes into focus and I slowly sink to the floor.  (still sweating and holding all my junk, mind you).    The screen is filled with pictures of starving people waiting in line for food.  Children with forearms the size of my pinky because of malnutrition.  It was terrible.  If you missed the story on the news, watch it here:  CBS NEWS.

Immediately I am relieved because it has nothing to do with a catastrophic, international emergency. Racers are safe and happy and doing ministry in Kenya right now.  In my eyes, really things were fine. Of course people are starving, of course children's limbs are deformed from malnutrition, or course the refugees are walking miles for clean water.  None of this is new news to me.

It was one of those deep moments of realization that my normal is not the rest of the world's normal. Those scenes are familiar to me.  They are not familiar to most of the American public.  This is news to most of America.  Unfortunately, not to me.

And here is where the meltdown began.  The meltdown could go multiple ways actually, and I am still not sure which is worse.  

 

                   My mind went here:

**  I should be in Kenya.  I should be doing something.  This is NOT ok.  Children starving is not ok.  I think I will go tonight.  Yes!  I will buy a ticket tonight and go to Kenya.  I am not doing anything worthwhile here and people are starving and I have to go.  

**  How is this so normal to me and the people closest to me, who should have the most access to my life, don't know of this normal?  Have I not shared enough?  Do I need to do a better job communicating?  What can I do to get other people to see what I have seen?

**  We ARE doing something about this situation in Kenya right now.  Our Kenya Initiative team is there.  They are on the ground, working in camps, loving people, feeding people, building homes for people.  I just put 46 World Racers on a plane to Kenya last Friday from DC.  They are there.  They are being Jesus.  They are bringing hope, food, and life.  Here is a report from them just today:

Team Tuna Moto (Team on Fire in Swahili) needs some prayers for tomorrow. We are going out to big name grocery stores to have them partner with us/the local NGO we are working with, to supply a truck. That truck will be used to transport food to the starving people in northern Kenya. That and we are going to be trying to empower the local people to build relationships and help themselves fight hunger. God is in this place! lovelove Day one at ministries on The World Race .  

Okay - deep breath.  I am not going to Kenya tonight.  I am going to stay right here and continue to send others.  I am going to keep working on websites, marketing plans, logistics, and field care for the 400 people we have on the field right now.

I am also going to do more to communicate.   I am going to share stories of heartbreak and restoration.  Pain and celebration - America needs to see the "normal" that exists outside of FB and our cubicles.

And I am going to pray, encourage, support and love on the people we have in Kenya right now.  Would you join me?  Will you read the blogs on the WR page?  Will you click the link to the Kenya team and drop your hard-earned dollars into the support account that funds their efforts at restoration?  

 

Friends, I promise to you that I will do a better job sharing what is happening in the world.  I want to show you their normal.  I also promise to better show you what WE are doing to help the normal things of the world.  The teams that are traveling, sharing, praying and loving.  I want you to know what we are doing together to make news like that no longer part of their normal.

 

Just today I got word of over 100 healings last week in the bush of Mozambique.  Now THAT is the normal we should be talking about.  As soon as I get the details they are headed your way!

Last week I had church.  It was glorious and exactly like I think Jesus imagined church to be.  It was nothing like my pre-conceived notions of church.  It was not in a building.  It was not on Sunday morning.  There were only 4 of us there.  We were drinking wine and laughing.  We didn't sing songs.  We didn't stand up and sit down 3 times.  We ate delicious food.  We lingered around a table for hours.  We talked about the really cool things Jesus was doing in our lives.  We grappled through hard questions.  We were ok that there were not answers.  We enjoyed Him and each other.

It was church.

I have struggled to find a church here in Gainesville.  I believe so firmly that we are to enjoy fellowship with other believers and spend time together each week.  But I just have not found that one place that I am to attend each week.  There are churches literally on EVERY corner.  Instead I find myself trekking the 60 minutes to Atlanta for church - and it is awesome.  Except for the drive.  And the fact that it is a 4-5 hour affair. And that fact that I spend my life doing ministry - every day - and driving 60 miles to go to "church" each week after a week of ministry is just exhausting.  And makes me grumpy - and that is rather un-churchy of me, don't you think?

And then I found myself sitting on a patio having church one Saturday night.   It was nothing like normal church.  it was everything church is supposed to be.   

have you had church lately?

Beginning next week we all lose our lives (again.) to the amazingness that is training camp!  We welcome over 150 new racers to the woods of Tennessee (location change this year. again.) and I could not be more excited!  Halfway thru training camp I will jump on a plane to my beloved Guatemala to debrief the V squad. It is going to be an awesome few weeks.  Full of wild dancing, passionate prayers and lots of Jesus love.

Sometimes the time between January and May can be long.  We spend all spring gearing up for the summer and fall.  We sit thru lots of budget discussions, marketing plans, support coach phone calls and various other odds and ends all for this moment(s)......

Will you pray with us?  Here are a few hints to get you started:

**the staff and serve team for this camp.  camp can be exhausting.  pray for rest, peace, GRACE, supernatural abundance of love.  

**the racers.  they are walking into a massive transition in their lives.  many have sold homes, quit jobs, left families, etc...they are typically wide-eyed, terrified, and excited.  all at once.  it is beautiful!

**the message.  the bottom line of this whole deal is the message of Jesus.  His love, grace, forgiveness and demands to spread the word.  pray we do that with honor, love and grace.  

**partners.  i still need monthly partners to continue to serve with the World Race.  as the busy season approaches my ability to communicate well and drum up new partners dwindles.  pray I honor current partners well and that they know how loved and appreciated they are.  

Here are some pics of my weekend last week with some of my favorite people on the planet.  You will recognize their beautiful faces from my race in 2007.  It has been FOUR years since I first began.  ahhh!

2 years ago I sat on a bus in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and was absolutely terrified to be surrounded by so many muslim people.  Thoughts ran through my head about the bus blowing up, attacks targeting the "white" girl and just general fear.  As I rode the bus I was so caught off guard by the fear and racism I saw in my own heart.  I would not have thought of myself as a racist person.  But that ugliness is what I saw in the mirror.  I wish I could say that I systematically destroyed my racist heart that month, but I honestly remained fearful.  It was hard for me to ride on the bus next to women who I could only see a sliver of her eyes.  It was hard not to quietly pray under my breath that the bus would not blow up simply because an American was sitting on it.  It was hard to erase the things I had been programmed to believe for years.

I do know I was sad.  Sad for myself.  Sad for them.  Sad that I didn't see the way out.

I make it a habit to NOT watch the news.  I personally have no need to be made aware every night of the terrible things going on the World.  I am aware.  I know and I have seen.  I don't need a talking head to remind me of bombings, shootings, death and sickness.  I have seen it with my own eyes.

But Monday night I happened to be home and tuned in to Nightly News.  And I wept.  I sat on my couch and cried.  For America, for victims of 9/11, for people who lost so many loved ones.  I cried for Osama, the people who live in Pakistan, followers of Osama, and just the hurting world in general.   My heart was broken again for people.  People just like you and me.  People trying to feed their families, people trying to make it to the next day, people who are mourning loss, people who are trying to reconcile a good God to a hurting world.  broken.

I still don't really know what I think.  I am neither celebrating death or fearful of retaliation.  I know that God is LOVE.  I know that he is a God of GRACE.  I know that there is HOPE.  

I imagine I may not ever really know how I feel about Sunday night; equal parts proud to be an American and yet saddened by the death of a man so far from God.    I do know I was disgusted by so many FB posts, so many blogs and the response of many people I came across.  

While I sit and figure out how and what I feel, here are a few great responses.  I am proud to know these men and women and proud of them for boldly challenging us to grace and love.

Sami Moor (July 10 racer currently in Malaysia: "Brushing My Teeth with Osama"

Matt Snyder (brother and racer currently on Trafficking trip)  "True Justice"

Matt Patch (racer and friend leaving for Kenya)  "Feedback to the World"

i am obsessed with buying more.  a girl can never have too many lotions.  or body sprays.  or eye creams. or wrinkle reducers.  or bath salts.  or bubble baths.  or really anything from aisle 2-5 of PUBLIX!!

I don't remember this obsession before the World Race.  I don't think I hoarded cosmetics for the first 28 years of my life.  really, i didn't.  but now I do.  just one more amazing way the WR has made lasting impact!

I pray every time I have guests that they dont root around in my bathroom cabinets.  (we all know you do it, julie!)  The things that they would discover down there are truly shocking.  bottle after bottle, after ever-lovin bottle of lotion.  every fragrance you can imagine.  firming, toning, shea butter, smoothing, caressing, moisturizing.  you name it, i have it.  

I remember returning to the States, cruising the aisles of Kroger (god forbid the north does not have publix!) and feeling such freedom.  Mom's chase card was in my back pocket and i could buy ANYTHING i wanted!  ahhh!  the danger of the cosmetic aisle.  seriously people!  

maybe you should send help.  or maybe you just want a bottle of lotion.  either way is fine with me...