My Grace is Sufficient for You

Over the last few weeks, many people have been asking the question about what we will be doing when we land in Hong Kong next Friday night. I have found it difficult to try to sum up the two weeks that I've been so excited about since July 28, 2014 - when we got home from Hong Kong the first time. We will be spending a week doing two sessions of Bible School, one morning and one afternoon, with sightseeing and time with friends from the school in the evening, and then a week working at a kindergarten camp at a different school with afternoons and evenings to sightsee or do as we so choose. This looked slightly like our schedule for last summer when we left, and I expected it to be nothing more than that - a few sessions of bible school, and maybe meet some new Hong Kong friends along the way. I was very wrong, however, boarding the plane in tears on our way home - knowing how big of an imprint that city and it's people left on my heart. I felt like I had 'unfinished work' to be done there, and I wanted nothing more than to have stayed longer.

As next Thursday, July 16th, has crept closer and closer, I haven't truly thought much about the trip. I've felt God put it on my heart to pray for a 'thirst' to learn about this place and it's people - last year and in almost all other situations in my life, I've found that I'm almost always most comfortable being in the background - listening to others talk and tell stories, and just simply watching. This year, I've realized my 'want to want' to make friends, learn about a new culture, and truly leave pieces of my heart in a city I may never return to.

People often seem shocked when they hear about this trip - they comment on the long plane ride, teaching kids who may not speak the same language that I do, and the true uncertainty of what lies before me in the next two and a half weeks. What people do not ever seem to grasp, however, is that it has nothing to do with me. People don't understand or don't know how much courage God poured into me before we left on our first trip - and how much I am hoping and trusting he will give me again. They don't grasp how much patience he gave me when I spent so much time trying to talk to kids who only knew a few words of English, where my strength came from on days that I did not think I could chase one more child down the long hallway or handle the heat and humidity anymore - but people will also never understand the pure joy that God filled my heart with when I watched my friend Natalie explain the gospel to Hong Kong first graders in broken English and lots of charades.

Last year during our time in Hong Kong I was given the opportunity to lead a devotion on our last morning there. My name was chosen randomly out of the three teams there and I was the only person from my team that was to do it, probably for fifty or sixty people. After a few months of thinking it over, I decided to share the story of how God had worked in my life over the last two years between high school graduation and then traveling to Hong Kong - those in between events of which included losing a friend to murder, watching my favorite five year old in the whole world battle cancer, and try to figure out why a heart that had never had a desire to go overseas for any reason, suddenly, in November of 2013, wanted to go with seven people I didn't really know, and maybe a little because of the requests from my friend Natalie.

As I was preparing for the devotion through the week, I could feel myself getting more and more nervous - those what if questions ringing in my ears so I couldn't hear anything else. What if I get up there and forget everything? What if it doesn't make any sense? Worst of all, what if I start talking about these people and these challenges and I start crying and don't make it through?

The night prior to the devotion I had skipped out on a dinner with the rest of my team simply due to exhaustion and one of my teammates stayed back with me. When he asked what I was planning on doing for the devo the next morning, I began sharing - and we talked for about four hours that night before the rest of our team got back - he asked question after question that pulled things out of me that I hadn't really thought about; all circling back to how losing a friend to murder in early 2012 got me to Hong Kong two years later. The next morning, he motioned me over before we went downstairs and he had found a verse to share with me; 2 Corinthians 12:9, the verse that reads "For my grace is sufficient for you, and my power is made perfect in weakness" - and I immediately felt the pressure to be perfect release from my shoulders. He prayed with me and then sent me on my way to get ready.

The devotion flowed that morning perfectly. Maybe because it actually went well, and maybe because I was too nervous to remember any of it, but regardless, it worked. I had spoken with the pastor ahead of time and he was translating in the event that some of my story didn't make sense to my new Hong Kong friends, or if I was speaking too fast (which likely happened) and I did not shed a single tear or really feel anything until I was done and seated - and then it felt like the floodgates opened. I felt both of my temporary 'parents' arms around me and I breathed a sigh of relief - it was over, and I could practically feel God working to unfold things - both in my heart and with new relationships being formed.

Looking back on the situation, so many things about that span of 24 hours have God's working hand in them. The very next morning, our last morning in Hong Kong, the passage in 2 Corinthians was 'the' verse for church that day - of all the verses in the bible they could have picked, it was that one. I can still see the look on his face when Ray turned around in astonishment and smiled at me. Looking back, while he was sharing with me and praying with me in my time of fear, I remember thinking about how he seemed like he had it all together - surely he knew this verse from other times in his life and was only sharing it with me knowing it would help. Later, he told me that that wasn't the case at all - as I was frantic for my devotion to go well, he was frantic to find words of comfort for me - and that is what he found - our weakness being made perfect in God's power.

This morning in church, 8,000 miles away from Hong Kong and almost a full year since that devotion, that verse came up again and I realized it was exactly what I needed to hear before leaving in just ten short days. Our Gospel reading this morning was out of Mark 6, where Jesus instructs his disciples how to go out - by taking nothing with them, and being dependent only on God's grace every day. The combination of the two passages seemed like a perfect idea to take as I was packing and preparing to head to Hong Kong in ten days. Although I've been there once, the worrier in me does not find that sufficient evidence to not think of every single thing that could go wrong while I'm there. What if I get sick? What if I find that I cannot eat the food there? What if I don't discover that until the food is already in my body? What if I have trouble adjusting to sleeping there? What if I don't jet lag well? What if, what if, what if?

Our pastor talked this morning about how God is most present and brings his deepest blessing when He seems most absent. I thought of my first time out of the country, with people I didn't know, thoughts of loss and grief still in the back of my mind, and then thought how God managed to bring his blessings in that situation. He continued to talk about how people truly do not know the redeeming power of being broken and weak.

Truthfully, that is the best thing I could have heard this morning as I am preparing travel overseas for a few weeks. The mental packing list paired with the 'what if' list seem to be at the forefront of my mind all the time and until the plane actually leaves Chicago O'Hare next Thursday, I'm really not sure I'll feel any better. But when Pastor was talking this morning, I thought of the little girl in my class last year, Faye, who I held such a strong bond with even though I only got to be in the classroom for three days. Faye spoke very little English, but she would contentedly sit next to me and color, asking for 'blue' or 'green' usually not even using the right color name. She held my hand whenever we walked anywhere, and God gently reminded me then that He doesn't need a week of me - as I thought of Faye this morning, I knew that I do not need to bring lots of material items, my very best teaching skills, or honestly, even a bible. I learned that these kids only expect my presence, and with that, God will work through me.

So for those who have been asking - we will be teaching Bible School, we will be working in a kindergarten camp, but we will mostly be relying entirely on God's grace and strength for day to day interactions. For those who have been asking, I know I speak for myself and a few others when I say that we are at least a little nervous. The only thing that has changed for me this go around is that I know to not expect to 'only' go through the motions of what's on my schedule - knowing my God will do much, much more. For those who have been asking, we would love prayers over the next few weeks for health, safety, patience, and bodies that feel well rested even when they aren't. We are expecting to be tired, we are expecting to not really know what we're doing all the time, and we are expecting to feel out of place.  However, we are so excited to go back to a life changing place and do life changing things with the only One who really changes lives.