Leaving Germany

Wow… As I write this, I’m sitting on a bus going to Brussels, Belgium, where I will be meeting my ride to Morocco. James (one of my teammates) and I will be taking the next few days to drive to Morocco to get a car from our base back to the person who loaned it. It’s crazy- I can’t believe that I’m leaving Germany. In 4 days, I’ll be on a plane flying back to Boston and seeing Mama Bae.

What am I supposed to feel? After an experience like this, it’s going to be a while before I can fully decompress everything. 

Note: Everything you read after this is probably going to be a large word-vomit of processing.

Yesterday (7/31), we attended our final church service at the church that we partnered with. It was an amazing combination of thank yous from us to them, them to us, and exhortation to each other. At the very beginning of the summer, Jesus gave me this picture of me on our last Sunday, talking to the church. And, it happened. Classic Jesus. A few of us got to share unique testimonies about what God did during the summer, and I was able to share a testimony about our partnership with the church. I shared with them how God had put them on my heart before I even left, and how from the beginning I had wanted to work with their youth. I shared a few encouragements for them, and then shared with them a picture that The Lord had given me for them. And it was amazing! I shared with them how they are being led through revival, and that Jesus will use them to lead revival amongst churches and refugees. After church, several people thanked me for the work that I did with their youth and with their church, but one man’s thank you really stuck out. He said, “I don’t have the English vocabulary to fully say how I feel, but I want to tell you that I can hear when you talk and see in your eyes and your face that you truly do love our church, and you truly love our youth.” I’m so thankful that I was able to love these people well. And so thankful for how God used me within this church.

In the midst of the joys that this church has brought, I leave behind a lot of pain. Not my own pain, but pain that I’ve felt on behalf of refugees that I met. People I’ve prayed for. People who have such deep hurt, such deep emotional (and physical) scars, and people who have no more hope. People who wouldn’t ask for my help, because they knew that I couldn’t fix their circumstances no matter how badly I want to. Yet in this pain and hopelessness, I can proudly look back and see that I was able to bring peace and hope. I carried the presence of Jesus with me into each and every conversation, and although I was mostly helpless when it came to physically helping them, I was able to bring something far greater than a temporary problem fix. This was, at times, a difficult perspective to maintain. Do I truly believe that the Gospel is good enough for these people who have seen their brothers and sisters killed? Had their children taken prisoner? Wouldn’t it be better if I could process their papers for them, pull strings with the government, and reunite families? Or set prisoners free?

The Gospel is good enough. It’s more than good enough. I may not have been able to physically set people free, but spiritually I was able to partner with Jesus to see that happen. At the beginning of the trip, He gave me a verse- Isaiah 42:6-8. “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” Sure, in Germany I wasn’t on the front lines where I’m pulling refugees off of boats, but I was on the front lines of a spiritual battle. A battle against the enemy trying to keep these people chained and bound to hopelessness. But we brought light. We brought hope. We brought joy. We brought peace. We brought Jesus. In the end, what could be more important? Eternities are at stake.

I shared the Gospel so many times over this trip… At the very beginning, I received training on how to share it in a way that fit the cultural context of Muslims. Through learning new words and new ways to explain the Gospel, I realized more and more how simple and beautiful it is. What Jesus has done for us is so simple. Sin requires death as a payment. And when we sinned, our hearts turned black. We were no longer pure. And we were separated from God. But He loved us so much and wanted to be with us that He sent Jesus to die for us. To be the final death as the ultimate payment. Yet, He himself lived a pure and perfect life. So death couldn’t tie Him down, and He rose from the grave! And now after His sacrifice for us, we are pure, and able to be with Him again. He took the punishment for our sins for us.

It’s so amazing.

So beautiful.

So simple.