In 73 days I will be boarding a plane and flying far from Michigan. As I was sitting at home tonight I began looking through some old journals I had written. I found an entry that encouraged me. Inspired me. A moment I had felt God speak to me that I had forgotten about — and as I read it came alive again.
11.13.2007
“...This time she [Beryl, a speaker on our school] prayed for me saying that I would stand in the gap and rescue many. As she was saying that I got a picture in my mind that I was sitting on the edge of a rock high above the ground. Underneath the rock there were thousands and thousands of south east asian and south east african children praying, and laughing, and praising God. Behind them were a huge range of snow capped mountains. I heard God say, not in an audible voice, but in that special God way — Mt.Kilimanjaro, and the Himalayas. Nepal, Kenya. The vision must increase. So now Nepal and Kenya are part of the vision as well along with Cambodia, India, and Thailand. Why not? God is bigger.”
The vision of me traveling to these places, standing in the gap for these people, showing them the love of Jesus — it started long before I began thinking about moving to Thailand in October. God has been orchestrating this for almost 5 years. That alone takes away any anxiety that I feel about moving so far away. Knowing that He’s been planning this, and it’s time to go now...
Shortly after I wrote that entry I wrote a poem. I remember the day I wrote it. I was living in New Zealand, sitting at a picnic table in the backyard of our base in Mangere, just outside of Auckland. It was really cloudy outside, and kind of cold. As I sat I remember praying and I just started writing. When I finished writing, I had written a poem. I feel like it was an analogy of the society that we live in, and the importance of standing for truth. As I read it today it inspired me as well, to follow through. To realize that it only takes one person to live differently to reveal Truth, when people are living in a lie.
The cry of hunger
The weeping hollow anguish
That fills the air of injustice
A Call
Unanswered
Unspoken
Unknown
A grain of happiness buried in a sea of sorrow
We don’t want to see
So we are blind
We don’t want to hear
And now we are deaf
We arise in the morning
And place on our faces masks of ignorance
Of surprise
That we live in this world
Of thick, overwhelming, black
We appear to search
High and low
Far and wide
For a solution to it all
We’ve named it impossible
We call it unfathomable
It is known as unfixable
Through the disguises
With blinding colors of selfishness and pride
We look out our windows into a mirror of deceit
But if we climb of our the cozy home we have created
Past the barriers of a false life
If we allow our masks to peel back
and peer into the crystal clear ocean of drowning cultures
We can begin to pull them out and into reality
If we look into light
We will melt away the mask
And in the thick overwhelming black
We will illuminate Truth
We will decipher the codes
And find the keys
To the doors of the impossible
And the safe of the unanswerable
In only takes one
To start of a revolution
It only takes one soft beam of light
To extinguish the darkness
It only takes one
Mask to come off to reveal the deceit and lies of a nation
Of a culture
Of a world
It only takes one
Hand of courage
To pull a drowning generation out of an ocean of trouble
And where that one goes many will follow
And the weeping, tears of a deserted and lonely world
Will turn into shouts of joy and triumph
The thick overwhelming black
Will disappear
So I’m going to step out and assume that’s true. I will be the one that goes and speaks Truth. I’m willing to be one beam of light in what I know is going to be a lot of darkness that I experience when I move to Thailand, and am exposed to a world of trafficking and prostitution in the red light districts. I know that my heart is going to break for these woman who see no other way, and for these children who seem to have no other choice. But I’m willing to be the one to make a difference.
Because if Beryl was speaking truth into my life that day — it’s time for me to stand in the gap and rescue many.
In 73 days.
