by 6M Africa Immersion team member Chelsey Morris
It seems like just yesterday that I was sitting in my college dorm room, asking God desperately for a miracle. It was getting down to the wire with fundraising, and for the most part, the money had stopped coming in. Was I truly called to spend a few months of my life serving Him in Africa? Had I misunderstood what He put on my heart? Had I made the whole thing up? He answered my doubts with a resounding assurance of His love for me that day. If I close my eyes, I can still hear my mom telling me my grandparents' church had raised the last $1,000. I can still remember praising Jehovah Jireh, my faithful provider, for fulfilling His promise to send me to Africa.
Now, sitting at home, I can still feel the mud we used to repair the adobe in Arizona, I can hear a teenage mother singing "Amazing Grace" with tears in her eyes in Namibia, and I can remember how my heart melted at a kiss on my hand from a little boy named Bugani in South Africa. I can recall the sore muscles and bright smiles shared in Lesotho after a long day in the field.
The faces, smiles, tears, and stories of loved ones continue to flood my mind with joy and awe when I reflect over the last six months of my life. From the start of our journey together, our team set our hearts on abandoning any desire for tasks accomplished and check-lists completed. We were sent to love, and love we did. We loved without discrimination, far beyond our human ability, asking God daily to pour into us so that we might pour out to others a heart-saving love that fills an empty soul in a way that nothing on this earth can. We didn't go to Africa to make friends, we went to Africa to meet our family in Christ, and to bring others into our beautiful, muddled, broken-and-made-whole, adopted community of grace. We went to Africa to remind ourselves, and our new family, that we are all walking the same path to heaven in a fallen world. Regardless of language or cultural norms, God is real to us all. His love has the power to save us all from the sins we will certainly commit in our imperfection. He can call us out of our darkest moments into a heart-changing, mind-blowing, radically exquisite love that transforms us into pure, inextinguishable light. I pray that the lights living and serving in New Mexico and Southern Africa will continue to spread into a flame that no stronghold can contain.
My heart is impressed to share many stories and moments from a life-changing portion of my journey that I spent on the Navajo Reservation and in Africa, but one lesson stands above them all in my mind. One lesson has humbled yet comforted me since that hot, sunny day in July when we took our first steps together as a team: we can't accomplish anything in ministry on our own, in Africa or elsewhere.
If I sold all of my earthly possessions and sent out the profit to a worthy cause in Africa, but didn't have love, it would mean absolutely nothing. If I was burned at the stake for sharing the Gospel in Asia, but didn't have love, my life would be meaningless. If I gave up every comfort in America to reach out to my bothers and sisters right where they are, but didn't do it with love, I would be guaranteed to fail. My efforts will mean nothing apart from God. Eternal results don't come from a temporary fix; and the only thing that can permanently fix is the Cross, where Jesus became imperfection for us, where He became our justice.
We can't fix material poverty by changing the physical possessions of others, or by giving away all of ours. There has to be a change of the heart, a desire for new life in Him. We can't keep planting churches across the world or down the street if we pack up our tools and forget to teach the community what "Church" means; and about the God who is to be forever worshipped and praised both inside the Church and beyond the plastered walls. We have to show them who the Church is and why we praise our Savior. We can't go to every nation but forget to make disciples. We have to build relationships based on dignity and respect that goes both ways. We can't keep telling people about Jesus while forgetting to be like Him. Life as mission work requires getting into the nitty gritty details of everyday life with someone. Jesus came to walk alongside us in our filth and brokenness. He came to wash our dirty, calloused, unworthy feet. He came to bring reconciliation to the Church and the people who don't think they belong in it. Are we to act any differently? My answer, after six months of seeking and searching, is a heartfelt "no."
There is little glamour and great cost in selling out entirely for the sake of the Gospel, but there is no greater cause. After being back in the comfort-and-discomfort of America for two weeks, I am struggling to find where to go next with my life. I am so incredibly challenged by the beautiful hearts of the people in Bisti, Olievenhoutbosch, Rehoboth, and Maphutseng, that I don't think I can ever fully re-immerse into my own culture. In many ways, I hope I never do. The real hard part of Immersion for me isn't leaving; but coming back. We were taught in many ways how neither continent has all of the answers to brokenness, pain, material poverty, or social injustice. Only God's Kingdom, in its wholeness, can give us the right mindset when we think about loving others the way that He does. I don't need to live like my host brother in Lesotho for the rest of my life, but I don't need to live like an American either. Right now, today, I am still somewhere in between, trying to find the balance between the change in my heart and the complacency in my own culture. I may not have all of the answers, about changing a community or changing my plans, but I know for sure that we're meant for so much more than our comfortable, watered-down definition of the Gospel. God has put intimidating questions on my heart about my role here in the United States, and He's slowly starting to answer them. What if we were meant to give up everything we're afraid He'd ask of us if we fully surrendered? What if we actually lived out the words to the numerous praise and worship songs we sing in church? What if we decided to go all in, letting go of everything, including our fears?
I want to fully immerse in God's presence. I want to be so filled up with His love that my picture of God doesn't ever fit back into the tiny, little box I had Him in for so many years. I want my life to be messy, uncomfortable, and sometimes scary, as long as I am sprinting after Him with everything that I have; no looking back. I want to be intentional with every conversation, looking for new ways to show love in the unlikeliest of places. I want to go where the outcast and unseen by society sit in brokenness; waiting for redemption, waiting for Jesus. I don't want the American Dream, I want God's Kingdom.
Thank You, Immersion, for allowing God to challenge people like us to be radical; to live in a way that makes people ask questions. I'll consider the last six months "Chapter One" of a new adventure, and God is surely directing our steps towards what's next—even if we don't know what that is.
CHELSEY MORRIS was a member of the 2013 6-Month Africa Immersion team, who traveled to and lived in four unique communities in New Mexico, South Africa, Namibia and Lesotho. This post is a personal reflection and the views and opinions expressed are her own.
Learn More | Apply now for one of 7 IMMERSION terms launching in 2014!
Site developed and hosted by Skycog, Inc.