When I sat out to write this blog, I made a promise to myself and an unspoken one to you guys, my readers, to be as transparent as possible each time I put my thoughts into words. I also made a promise that no matter how difficult those thoughts were to put out there, I wouldn’t let fear or my own anxieties keep me from telling the truth about our faith adventure…so, please, bear with me as I openly and honestly tell you some truths that Jesus has spoken to me over the past few weeks.
In my last blog, I wrote about the reality of the Rez becoming home and how that truth hit me in a very unexpected way. Last night, while having dinner with my self proclaimed Southern sister, she asked me if I felt different having been here and going back to visit my family in AL. She told me of her concerns when she found out we were moving here. She told me how unsure she was of this family who was willing to move all the way across the country and concerns as to if we really knew what we were getting into. My answer, nope. I had no idea. Then I followed up with this thought.
I had no idea what I was getting into. I’d spent less than seven days here and was no longer going to have a dishwasher. Ha. I had seen but I’d not tasted. Now, after almost five months, I’ve tasted the beauty and heartbreak of living on the Rez. I have fed children who were starving, I have loved on mamas who weren’t sure how they could provide meals for their children or how they would make it without an abusive husband. I have watched as my husband works with teenage boys and girls who are unsure where their next meal will come from much less how they’ll pass the history test next period. I have seen the grace with which he handles families and children. I have watched my children openly accept and love other children with such genuineness that it is almost heartbreaking to imagine any other way of life. I have experienced the death of a child who was only five years old and explained to my sweet, innocent babies about the reality of death and why there is a such a thing. I have tasted.
There is a difference between simply seeing a need and feeling a need. There is a huge chasm between knowing there are people without adequate utilities and children without enough food and walking alongside those same people. I couldn’t go back to my life six months ago if I wanted. And amazingly, much to my surprise, I wouldn’t want to now. My heart is for the Navajo. My heart is for the families here who are no more lost or broken than I once was, still am, who are in need of a Savior.
A comment was recently made that sometimes God doesn’t call us to move, sometimes He calls us to stay. Well, fortunately for my family, He did call us to move. In a big way. Looking at it now, I can’t imagine what it would look like if we hadn’t said yes. I can’t fathom not knowing the beautiful faces of my Navajo family. I can’t consider the part of our immediate family that would be missing without the wisdom of our Navajo grandmothers.
This past weekend, a team from our home church in GA came with our ministry partner, TSM, along with a team from VA who serves with Pure Water Ministries. It was so good to hug our sweet friend’s neck and to hear all about what’s going on in his neck of the woods. Meeting the people who are praying for us, our family, our ministry was timely and priceless. It was, indeed, so much fun telling stories of our adventures here and having our Navajo family join in telling the tales. There was a harmony in the telling of those stories that I was unprepared for this weekend. There was a knitting together of our hearts with our Navajo families that I had not realized was taking place.
This was pointed out by one of the team members from our home church. She spoke of the amazing way God had allowed us to create real, heart relationships in the short time we’ve been here. I hadn’t thought much about the truth of that until the very moment she said so. She’s right, though. The beauty of our relationships here are nothing short of miraculous and He has to receive all the glory. She also made a comment that has hung with me since our conversation this weekend. She said, “I pray for you daily and I’ve often wondered how in the world you do it.” I was honest.
The first ten weeks here, I was miserable. I didn’t want to be here any more than I want to have a stomach bug while all three children have it too. Let me be clear, there was no part of me that wanted to move here. There wasn’t a tiny voice in my head that said, “Well, maybe…”. There was adamant, emphatic resounding NO’s in my head. I fought…I came here because my husband is the spiritual leader of my home and I refused to be the stumbling block in his walk with Jesus. I didn’t get what he saw here. I came this past summer knowing I was moving here and couldn’t fathom how in the world we’d make it work. I spent a lot of my time in the back of an SUV that week, crying my eyes out and being angry with God for taking me from my “forever”. I spent countless hours writing in my journal and asking Him to please change J’s heart…to please let J be wrong about what our family was being called to do and to convince him to stay in my little dream box. Do you hear the selfishness in all that? My, me, I… at no point in our journey to get here did I even consider the people we would encounter, the relationships we’d form or the love I’d have for my brothers and sisters.
Let me be clear, in no way, have I done anything. Every part and piece of our life here has been handcrafted by the Creator himself. Every friendship, every divine appointment, every act of worship and community and love has been because of Him. We aren’t martyrs. We aren’t missionaries of epic proportions. We are simply a family who seeks after Him each day. I am a wife, who followed her husband to a foreign land because I knew it was my job as his helpmate. I am a mama, who was living in constant fear that my children would miss out on something by moving them here, by homeschooling them and by taking them away from all they knew and loved. I am a woman whose greatest desire is for the children of this world to know, love and follow Jesus and to believe beyond a shadow of doubt He loves them and wants only good for their lives. The amazing part, that’s what my Navajo family wants too. We didn’t come here to change our brothers and sisters; we came to love them and to serve alongside them. I came out of obedience and I stay out of a changed heart.
I’m so thankful for the conversation this weekend. I’m thankful that God used it to open my eyes to the beautiful brokenness that has been our story so far. I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity to love the Navajo. I am better having loved them and being loved by them. My heart is forever changed because of the beautiful brokenness of this land. My children and generations of children to come will be moved to follow Christ because of the obedience of my husband. The magnitude of that is overwhelming to me.
How Jesus chose my family out of all the families who know more, who are better equipped and have more Bible knowledge to move across country to serve in such a high capacity is beyond me. I do know this, though. He doesn’t call us for no reason, he doesn’t call us because we know it all…He calls us when we are willing, when we submit to Him and ask him for eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart that yearns to love the way He does.
So, as I reflect on the past few weeks, I want to say that what I initially saw as a great sacrifice for my family, has become a rich gain. We didn’t sacrifice anything nearly so great as what Jesus sacrificed all those years ago. And the beautiful, broken part is I don’t have to because He already did.
Beautiful Harvest Project 