...2 (Slow to Speak Continued)

2.

If you know me at all or have read any of this blog, you'll know that I led a mission team to Mozambique, Africa this summer... It was 3 weeks long, then 12 hours after landing I got on a bus and started driving around to Illinois, Alabama, and Texas doing worship music. What you might know is that while I was on the trip (and for the 7 ish months leading up to it) I was usually FULL of things to say- what God was saying to me, what I thought He wanted to say to others... but primarily: what was happening in my life. Then, After the 12 hour turnaround to a completely different rhythm, my mouth practically locked up.

And what you don't know (unless you're Madison Kerner or one of the members of the Mozambique team) is what I've seen, heard, learned, touched, felt, and experienced up to this tour thing. And it's those things (I think) that have me shut up. I'm pretty much speechless.

I thought it'd be therapeutic to edit some of the 2400 photos I took while in Africa. But if the goal was to help me talk more, it was counterproductive. While it did help me solidify that the things I saw were real and actually happened, I think it could have made me a little more pensive overall, and a little less whimsical in my interactions with most people. Gosh, this feels good... getting this out. 

Here's why I've been 'quiet' (which, if you know me well, or are part of my family, you know I'm quite the opposite)....

a) I can't look at the side of the road here in America without thinking about how clean it is. The cleanest streets of Mozambique were where they were only 'half-covered-with-trash' because of the red sand burying the other. Walking on the side of the streets you wouldn't take a step without some kind of trash being under at least part of your footprint.

b) I am always thinking, in some way, about a few of the orphaned, abandoned, AIDS afflicted, abused, malnourished children I fell in love with while I was there. They wanted to come be with me, and I wanted to stay with them.

c) These are some of the things I've seen: A baby boy with his face burned off; A man crossing the street in Maputo's NYC type traffic, dragging his two dead legs behind him, using his knees as feet and his hands like the two forelimbs of an animal (there were too many sights like this one for me to list off); A teenager with Malaria, sitting in a shack next to the bocaria (dump), shaking and sweating, in desperate need of medicine that we take for granted; Children with nothing covering them from the waist down running and jumping in my lap, hiding single starlight mints in their mouths so they wouldn't get beaten up by other hungry children; A child (Santo, 5 years old, below) eating double what I could eat in a sitting, hoping it will fill him until the next Sunday he gets to eat at the church; Naked children wandering streets as we drove by, calloused feet protecting them from glass and trash all over the ground... This is the tip of an iceberg of scenes that pop in my head.

d) These are some of the things I've heard: A child at the center used to live with his mother who poured battery acid into his breakfast drink in order to kill him so he wouldn't cost her any more money; More stories than I can count of little girls that are put out on the street by their parents for money from prostitution. Okay, now I'm just tired of trying to spit it out in list form...

You get the point.

On the victorious side: Just read 'Always Enough' by Heidi Baker (co-founder of the ministry we worked with)... 

The dead have been raised.

The paralyzed have been given the ability to walk.

Limbs have grown back.

Eyes that were blind can see.

Deaf ears can hear.

Hungry people have food and clothing multiplied before their eyes.

I saw the church in Zimpeto (right outside of Maputo) groaning and wailing as a body over the crises of their country (while we were there, Mozambicans were being tortured and killed in South Africa). For a few hours straight. Children, Men, Women, every one. Crying out, literally, facing out around the church (what a concept!), interceding for dying souls.

Again, you get the point. It was intense.

So pretend you did/saw/felt/heard all this in a concentrated amount and then went on a jolly tour around the US playing hip praise songs to a bunch of spoiled brats (even the main speaker calls these kids that from the stage- cuz it's that true) that have to be impressed to give their attention away. From children that just needed a crumb from the dirt (and often ate more dirt than food when picking it up) to bratty kids that have no concept of struggle, needs, desperation, hunger, etc.

That's why I'm quiet I guess. Don't get me wrong. I'd love to talk about it. I have talked about it, and it's been great. But I'm quiet because most of the time we as Americans, or westerners, or somethings-whatever we are... Non-broken? Calloused? Blind? We talk so much more about movies, jokes, entertainment, music, etc. than we do about the Lord. Has it ever bothered you that it's 'awkward' to talk about the Lord in most settings?!

THAT'S why I'm quiet. I'm supposed to be with the broken. How do I know? Because I'm special or have some great heart? No. Because the Lord has broken me and is keeping me broken. It seems that as soon as I 'gain my footing' or get comfy, He (like the last two nights, holy crap.) sends me a dream of warning that breaks me and sends me right back to His feet.

I love to laugh. I love to joke around. But I just don't think I'll ever feel 'at home' in a camp setting where we're gettin' fired up for Jesus all the time, wearing our Jesus shirts, listening to Jesus rap music. I feel like my place is in the trenches, suffering and receiving His bleeding heart. In that place, zeal for His house will consume me, and I'll follow Him into the darkness to be the light. Not running to light and staying away from what needs to be exposed, helped, aided, and fought against. 

So, if you're broken, which I know many of you who told me you read this are...

I'm here, feeling it too. I'm praying with you. send me a message and tell me how I can pray more specifically. 

If you're from the camp staff here where I'm at, know that the listed things above have kept me from being whimsical on the weekends... I'm digesting a lot in the midst of a crowded season I guess. I support what you're doing as a ministry. I'm not feeling the Jesus hype of the services, and I know some of you aren't either. But I've learned (I worked at a camp two years ago) that it's kind of our way of facilitating a place for the Lord to move among American youth. Hook 'em a little bit, then deliver the word God gave us for these kids. Kinda sucks, but it's camp, ya know?

Thanks for reading this. To many of you: I love you and I love that the Lord put you in my life. Hopefully the things from the Lord will stick and the other crap will just fall away. Bear with me.