It was on Saturday afternoon where so many memories were flushed into the present when I began to remember what it meant to dream and touch lives through missions again.
I had been invited to give a one and a half hour talk to a group of youth at a Youth Missions Conference. Photo after photo of Nepal and the children who so changed my life, and stories of how God used a little to make so much made my past fire and passion for missions so clear and vivid again. The youth, eager and attentive, had a hunger to know more. Yet, so much held them back. I knew what their struggles were: inertia, fears of the unknown, safety, parental objections, finance, time…
… and I remembered, those misty words I once told myself before: that doing missions requires… (gasp) sacrifice.
It all appears good- the wonderful photos with chocolate-skinned, sun-kissed children beaming from ear to ear at your wonderful camera contraption, the high-drugged experience of visiting a strange land, the feel-good juices tickling your veins. You vow you could do this forever, you would dedicate your life to this amazing cause (you think: how could anyone not?), you would give up your life to touch the lives of these poor children… “I will come back!” You say certainly, with the conviction of a lawyer in court.
Then reality returns, your life goes on, in a universe running in complete parallel to another world, far away. They never overlap. Nobody gets hurt.
The tough part comes when, in a very real and profound way, that other world reaches so deep inside of you that it transforms your worldview and challenges to seep into your world, back here at home. You are stuck, somewhere in limbo between the There and Here, wondering how you could ever reconcile the poverty and simplicity of what you saw, tasted and experienced with this high-strung, steroid-induced and glitter-glazed reality of which you live out, every day.
It hits you when you realize that you are a product of this harsh materalism, too. It hits you hard when you realize the discordance between what you long for, and how far you are from that dream. It hits you hardest, when you realize, you are like everybody else, running after the same things and chasing after the same fleeting mirages which leave us forgotten, and lost.
When you have to live it out, it hurts.
There was great applause after my sharing. But only later, over tea, did the real questions come. The youth confided in me their fears of hardship, of “dirtiness” and “grime”. It sounds silly perhaps, but I saw that they were just merely being… honest. Now that I’m actually getting married to a missionary, experiencing just a glimpse of the challenges unique only to this sort of set-up that transcends this many latitudes of love across culture, time, finance, I begin to understand a little more of what “living it out” truly means.
Living out those dreams does come at a price. Though worthy to pay.
Now that we are planning our own wedding, the discordance strikes me like lightning. The mould here is so set in stone that only a going-against-the-flow of Herculean magnitude on a minute-to-minute basis allows one to be any different. As we continue to stay true to our cause of dedicating our lives for mission work in future, God continues to show us His generosity through our parents. Yet, there are times I bleed with frustration. Frustration, not because there is a lot to do (which I guess, there is), but frustration because it becomes stark and apparent that my dreams, wants, and desires are nothing like that from the world I dreamed of serving. Be sensible. Be joyful. Keep it simple. It sounds easy when you put it in those terms. But in reality, our flesh wars with our spirit. I just wanted to marry the man I love. How did things become so complicated?
It became complicated because there are things to buy, money to spend and decisions to make. Does how much you like something justify the amount you spend on it? How much is a lot of money? What does being simple actually mean and translate into? Making the decision to spend on skeletal items like venue, catered food and sound systems are fairly straightforward. But everything else fades into nebulous gray outside of that. A wedding dress you like costs this much, and it presents to you as a difficult choice because you know there are cheaper options, there is money you could save and put aside for missions and all the ministries you have seen. You like flowers- are they really necessary? Wedding décor, even basic ones, unfortunately, cost a lot of money- what do flowers do? It would be nice to have a photographer for the day and dinner, and some pre-wedding photography- but are they really necessary?
One item adds up above the other. And while it’s all good to say to keep within the budget, I wonder if those thousands of dollars would not better benefit the walls of a peeling classroom in a hot African school, or be used to refurnish an orphanage or used to sponsor a couple of kids for their education. When you look at money that way, and its potential to make things happen based on your decision, an amazing realization falls upon you:
You have the choice to make the decision.
Money- it is completely and utterly innocent. Yet, it is the root of all evil. It becomes evil because it reveals to us the depravities of our sinful nature.
It all happened after a discussion with my folks about the wedding expenses, the day after I had given the talk on missions. They had decided to give us a certain sum, and it was up to us to decide how to use it. What is our approach? How much more are we willing to spend for what we want? Is what we want worth it? All these questions are fairly easy to answer in our society today. After all, extravagance has become the new normal. My community of doctors and high-earning colleagues have made my world here myopic and unrealistic. What was so difficult? Was making the decisions we had to make really so gut-wrenching?
Things get hard when you remember what you’ve seen- the broken houses, dripping with rainwater; what you’ve heard- the screaming children, soaked with dust; what you’ve held- the thin, warm bodies, caked with mud. And you realize your money and what you decide to do with it does have a real impact on lives, albeit in another world, and has an impact on who you are, and become.
Money. It truly has power like no other. Yet, a greater power remains, still.
As soon as I remembered the children, and remembered the cause we had been called to, and remembered Us– the unit that God had brought together through divine orchestration, it then became clear to me, that it didn’t matter that we had been given a sum of money. Because ultimately, no matter how much we liked the gown and package we had been offered, there was no way we would ever be joyful spending that sum on that gown. That money, in our hands, would go to missions in the end. That money, suddenly lost its personal value to us. No doubt, it was glorious to have the power and privilege to help others.
Yet, such is the complexity and divine simplicity of God’s economy that I do believe in His abundance and glory as well. After all, celebrations are big things in His eyes and I don’t believe He desiresor exults in poverty. This, I believe, is a test of faith, because while we may not splurge on ourselves through money we have been given, we can however, wait upon Him to provide. Provide not “dead” money directly, but food, a gift to buy a gown, people and abundance. But how? I don’t know. All I know is that God has always been and provided more than enough- the Kitesong and Rainbow books were fully sponsored, my roadbike came in the form of love and our new house has taken the form of a gift. Need I say more about His economy- that His love transcends the physical crispness of dollar notes and cold coins and is distilled in beauty and glory and joy through gifts and service. We may not use money to pay for professional photographers, but we believe God will provide volunteers with great talent; we may not use money to pay for the gown package we wanted, but we believe God will provide a gift in ways we least expected; we may not use money to pay for the wedding, but we believe God will surprise us. And I do think, that our natural tendency to place value on the gifts and love behind the giving or money, or the meaning and intention behind the monetary gift will stand us in good stead of helping us learn to let go and cling loose.
Foolish to waste so much time thinking so much about this? Maybe. A self-fulfilling needless headache which could easily be solved by simply choosing and searching and Paying instead of praying? Perhaps. Yes, it would certainly be easier to simply pay, pay for what we want, pay for the best deals, pay for everything we ever dreamed of and wanted in a wedding. But God has a better way. And we choose to pray and wait. And trust, and hope.
Serving, I was reminded, requires sacrifice. It requires prioritization, putting your Cause above all else, because there will always be a reason not to choose to serve. A holiday with friends, staying back to rest or a wedding, even, are all “legitimate” reasons for staying in our comfort zones. “Having face”, wanting to appear successful or decent are all “legitimate” reasons for wanting a grand wedding. But we have decided to go on a mission where God calls us to for our honeymoon, we have decided to guard our values about serving the poor above other things, and we trust that God will reveal to us more. His wealth is different, his riches, pure.
Whatever it is, I am beginning to see, that choosing missions and kingdom values does come at a price. It comes at a price called Faith, which is worth its value.
So yes, we will have many more countless nights staying up to discuss and discern our decisions, many more days of fasting and praying and seeking, many more days of tearing and letting go and delving deep… and I’ll always remember what you say when you told me, “In a way, it doesn’t matter how great the wedding turns out or how great you look that day, because you’re most beautiful in the mission field.”
We shall have a different sort of wedding, not one paid for with money, but with prayer, petition, and power. God will provide.
Let’s pray, not just pay.
* these photos were taken on 3 separate trips back to Nepal- what is pure, the smiles of the children, never changes.
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
– Matthew 6:33
“Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for–both riches and honor–so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings.”
– Kings 3:13