This post is going to be long, so if you have the time and interest to follow me through it, pull up a comfy chair, grab a cup of coffee or tea, and join me as I process my latest experiences in Kiev.
Monday, December 6th, 10:15am-ish:
I've been wondering how much I should disclose in my blogs. How raw should one get on the internet? Maybe I'm not very wise. Maybe I'm pretty foolish. But I believe that I'm not alone in what I feel, and what I'm going through. I believe that what I'm going through might encourage someone, somewhere, out there, over the rainbow...
Speaking of rainbows, do you remember my previous blogs when I first arrived in Kiev? I felt God establishing his covenant of blessing with me by having rainbows come up in different aspects of my day, in different ways, for days in a row. I really felt like God was saying, "Look, Shaela, I know you left everything to follow me calling you out here, but I promise that I'm giving you a hope and a future greater than you can possibly imagine. I'm going to bless you and never drop you or abandon you. You've been asking to be my friend in 2010--you trusted me enough to give up your life of comfort and security on faith that I was asking you to. I won't disappoint you. This won't be for nothing--in fact, it will be for my glory and your credit, just as you've been desiring. It will be credited to you as righteousness." ("Follow You" by Leeland is playing on the Pandora radio station I made called, "God Speak to My Heart" as I write this...
here are the lyrics.)
So, the rainbow has become a significant sign of God's promise to me, like Noah, that he would never strip me of everything I love again, that he would be my home, and provide for me and bless me tangibly with deep friendships and a feeling of a stable and consistent family. That he would use me to do great things for him...to make a difference to others...
Lately, I've been doubting this promise. I've been doubting God, honestly. I apologize to him almost every day for my lack of faith, and I ask him to give me more, because I feel uncertain about my future here in Kiev. I've been reading the Bible over (I've only read it once through completely, and I want to change that...so I decided to put a bookmark in my bible and keep reading until I finish it--even if it's only 1 chapter a day, and to keep doing that for the rest of my life.)
So, anyway, I'm in Genesis, and I'm reading about Abram (Abraham's name before God changed it). I really feel God speaking to my heart. Abram left his home and comfort because he trusted God when He asked Abram to leave, assuring him that He would bless him. Yet Abram faced a famine on the journey, and began to doubt that God would protect him on the way to this great promise. (I feel like I am experiencing a certain famine of fellowship and camaraderie here. I think I feel isolated, or like I don't really belong.)
Abram chose to protect himself by getting his wife to say she was only his sister. This almost caused others to sin, if God had not stepped in to reveal Abram's deceit. Yet, God still considered Abram a friend, and promised to bless him beyond his wildest imagination. And Abram expressed his disappointment in God's promise, since God hadn't given him an heir for everything God would give him. So God assured him that he would have descendants more numerous than the stars or grains of sand. And Abram STILL went along with his wife taking matters into her own hands, by sleeping with her servant to get an heir.
I feel as thick as Abram lately. I feel like I'm taking precautions in my mind, in case God doesn't come through for me like I believed he said he would. (Woah, this is humbling just writing.) I feel like I've been developing back-up plans if this trip should turn out to be another mistake I made in discerning the voice of God. I've been imagining a brighter future for myself, taking matters into my own mind, which is just a step before taking them into my own hands.
Seriously! I don't
feel like God is protecting me from the things I've feared--nor do I
feel him blessing me as I imagined he'd promised. Yet, like Abram, I'm realizing that when God makes promises, he gives us time and tests before fulfilling them--to allow hope to grow. Hope in him. Faith that he will make good on his promises. When God makes promises, there is usually a period of waiting, and trials which provide us with the choice to trust and obey, to follow, even when we don't understand how this painful and winding road will lead to the promised land.
I don't feel like I'm making much of a difference here, but then again, everyone I confess that to tells me that I'm doing more than they are, or others...that I am making a difference to them. Yet, I feel afraid that I am disappointing God, that I'm not doing what he brought me here to do. This thought usually comes with an image of who I should be (so much more than I am), or a comparison to how much better someone else would be for this missionary role.
Yet, I look back over the last five months (I can't believe I've been here for almost five months!), and I see what God has allowed me to be part of:
- Three teen camps in one month, leading to 3 teen baptisms soon after.
- A baptism, and current follow-up studies with Julia. We get together every week, on Wednesday, have dinner, and read the scriptures of one of the 10 follow-up studies from my church back home, the Turning Point.
- Julia is actually translating the studies into Russian after we go through them, and our Bible Talk has begun to go through the studies separately with the guys and girls, so that we are all on the same page.
- Halloween party with great fun and fellowship with guests and friends.
- I've made friends with a missionary couple from the states who are very kind and helpful.
- Chris and I have made friends with a foreign couple who are really fun and friendly, Barry and Linda. Barry is from Ireland, and Linda is from Chris' home, South Africa. We watched a rugby game together and had a blast watching the Springboks win against England (go Boks!). We are hoping to hang out again next week.
- Thanksgiving dinner with our church small group. Great bonding!
- Denise (one of the brothers in our family group) and Sasha (one of the girls I got to know and watch become a Christian shortly after I came to Kiev) took me out shopping for warm clothes on Saturday.
- They presented me with an offering taken up by the group on my behalf, to help me afford some really good boots and a jacket to get me through Kiev's bitterest winters. I was so touched. Thank you, guys...I feel very warm and protected in my new down and fur.
- Having fun and friendly conversations with numerous English-speaking guests at our small group events.
- I'm really getting to know the people in our family group. They are each incredible, and I can't wait to be able to speak to them more fluently.
- Though I'm not as fluent in Russian as I wanted to be, I am able to say a few things now, and to understand things I couldn't before. I'm making progress, though slower than I'd hoped to.
Wow...writing all of that totally encourages me! God has done a lot in five months! It's just so easy to doubt sometimes, when we don't understand what's going on, or when we compare ourselves to someone else, or just to our own high expectations.
What inspired me to write this blog was a dream, or vision, I had last night. I didn't realize it might be from God until later, but it hit me like an epiphany when I did.
I've been having dreams of home and my past friendships almost every night for the past few days, and home has been weighing on my heart for weeks. Last night, I prayed in my heart for God to help my dreams to be more righteous, so that I don't wake up feeling more doubt or regret or longing for the past.
Well, last night I did have another dream about home. I dreamed that I was in some kind of elementary school, and all of the preteens from my ministry ran out to greet me, because I had just landed and come home to LA. I hugged them with tears in my eyes from joy, and told them how I'd missed them. Then we started devotional, and Brandon was there being his usual crazy, inspiring, giving youth-leader self, and it started raining. Everyone squealed with delight, and then as Brandon was speaking, tying in spiritual points to the analogy of a storm, I had a "
Double Rainbow Guy" moment and shouted in awe as I pointed behind them all at the most glorious, vibrant, and unique rainbow I had ever seen.
We all turned our heads to where I pointed, where the rainbow started in a traditional arch, then suddenly twisted as another line of rainbow bowed symmetrically around the other side of the arch. (I wish I could draw it for you...) But it didn't stop there. Oh no...
As our eyes followed the rainbow shaft higher into the sky, trying to find where it ended, we gazed in wonder as it twisted horizontally, and took on the shape of a red vine liquorice stripe, then a Twizzler's pull-and-peel, where two bands of glowing color (from violet to blue and red hues) wound around each other and looped in the sky like a rollercoaster track. It contorted in so many different shapes and colors, elegant and ethereal, before dipping down across the other side of the sky, to connect finally, beautifully, with the other edge of the horizon.
In the dream, I pulled out my camera and hastily began to snap a panoramic photo, trying to line up the edges of the rainbow with the edges from the last photo, to get one long, connected image of the miracle surrounding us. I had a hard time getting the best angles for the shot, as the rainbow twisted spectacularly and made it difficult to capture. Everyone told me to hurry, and gave opinions on how to take the pictures, but then someone else told them to hush so that I could concentrate and get the shots before the rainbow disappeared. But it wasn't disappearing. It was staying as bright and vibrant as a technicolor movie.
Again, when I woke up, I was stabbed anew with longing for home, but this time with more hope for being in Kiev. I remembered the joy I feel serving in youth ministries, and remember what Shawn Wooten told me once here, how "You're magic with children--you're like a magnet." That's what I wanted to do when I came here--help with the youth ministries...help with the orphanages. (I think I'll explore how I can help them, again.)
Then I remembered the rainbow in the dream, and the connection of rainbows to God's promise to me. And I felt so strongly that I need to stay here in Kiev, for as long as God wants me here, and I need to stop entertaining the idea that I can go home and start over...rebuild my life the way I remembered it.
I need to let go of the memories of my comfort as much as I needed to let go of the comfort to begin with. I need to live here in Kiev, heart and soul, until God calls me home. This is my home--I need to make this my home.
That thought scares me. I've clung to the idea that I still have a home in LA, waiting for me should this trip not work out according to my desires. Now I feel God telling me, once again, to let go of my life-lines, and to cling only to him and the path (or roller-coaster rainbow track) he's charted for me. That scares the tar out of me...
But what other choice do I have? It's God's way or bust.
In the words of Asaph, who wrote Psalm 73, "Whom have I in heaven but you, Lord? And Earth has nothing I desire besides you."
So, though I'm riddled with doubt and fear, I will follow you, God. Wherever it is, and however long it takes to get there, I will follow you. I want to be your friend...I want you to feel my trust in you. I want you to know that I believe you love me as a friend, and see that I love you, too.
Stay with me, God. I'm not leaving you. Even if the world throws me into the furnace, I'm not giving up on you...I'm not giving you up.
What promises has God made you that you find yourself doubting?
Believe that God won't give up on you...and don't give up on him. Let's wait and see how he fulfills his promise, just like he did to our fathers/mothers of faith in Hebrews 11. Let's take him at his word and follow him, even when we think he's leading us astray. Let's believe he knows better than we do, let's suspend our belief in the way things have worked for us, and let's believe in miracles...
And let us remember that rainbows can only be seen after a storm...
It has been an incredible, emotion-filled 9-month journey to the Ukraine and back. I am writing this post in the Pacific Standard Time zone again. Yep, I moved back to LA. My visa in the Ukraine had run its course, and so I must stay out of the country for 3 months, or get another visa before I can return again. I want very badly to return next spring, as the trees and plants were just beginning to grow leaves again when I left. We will see.
It has been an incredible, emotion-filled 9-month journey to the Ukraine and back. I am writing this post in the Pacific Standard Time zone again. Yep, I moved back to LA. My visa in the Ukraine had run its course, and so I must stay out of the country for 3 months, or get another visa before I can return again. I want very badly to return next spring, as the trees and plants were just beginning to grow leaves again when I left. We will see.
