I am Asleepin’*
Imagine doing life in community with people whose everyday ordinary lives push confines of faith, hope, love, creativity, efficiency, grace…m&m consumption. Yep. Me too. I’m a little intimidated and overwhelmed. And excited.
Each day (it seems), folks launch off for a week or years to pour a concrete floor in the Dominican Republic where it was long needed or heading to Alabama to clear debris and to rebuild, to Nicauraugua to do life in a writhing dump where girls are routinely sold to dump truck drivers so their family gets first pick of the junk, or to Swaziland to sit beside a mom dying of AIDS.
Wow. Speechless.
While stepping into this stream of life, faith, and wearying pace of love in action – I’ve been struck by how I am asleepin’; cozy and fed and relatively safe. No one has sold me lately for the price of the Cambodian farm payment or for enough coins to score a package of cigarettes or first pick of the dump truck.
As passionate as I feel about loving the unlovely, of serving and sacraficing the temporary for the eternal…my feelings aren’t enough. I must wake up. I must wake up to the day-to-day realities of the faith I have been given, the failures I damn near nurture*, the wounds of this old world, and the opportunities to intersect with the divine and to be brave and love. I’ve been asleepin’ yet driving full tilt down the highway.
What would it look like to wake and and dive into life with 
people who live for generations in a stinking garbage dump? Or in a New Orleans ward still rotting under a Louisiana sun or with the team soon heading to Cambodia to walk alongside women and children who have been trafficked into the lucrative sex trade in Phnom Penh.
Hot and buggy Cambodia is one thing. Hot and buggy Cambodia while swimming into the broken lives of women and children who have been used, tormented, raped, and often kidnapped is another thing.
A thing I cannot fathom. I am so grateful that these women can fathom it. Not only fathom it, but they have raised their project support in three months and are heading to their new “home” in a few short weeks. They are awake and on the move.
Next week the team will be in Gainesville doing the hardest work of briefing, dealing with the funk of life that sticks to us, and preparing as a team to connect with folks on the ground…in the brothel culture of Cambodia. Oy. Part of my new job here is to pray for them, to support them, to love them from a distance and if I can raise my monthly support goals, to pop over to Cambodia to walk with them, serve them, and love them up close.
Want to meet the next Cambodia team? They are pictured above: Laura, Kelsey, Lauren, Heather, Kristen, & Jenny. Meet Melinda, the logistics queen, by visiting her blog at MelindaGuerra.myadventures.org. You can hit the “Cambodia” links above and learn more about team 2 and the first team of Stephanie, Amaria, Elise, and Meredith who are already in fray.
It’s time to wake up. Join me.
*This morning I woke to an old worship chorus running circles around my dreaming. It’s called, Purify My Heart, and it is by Jeff Nelson. The words are below:
“Purify my heart, Touch me with your cleansing fire. Take me to the cross, Your holiness is my desire. Breathe your life in me. Kindle a love that flows from your throne. Oh purify my heart. Purify my heart.” Cleansing fire…ouch. The cross…OUCH. OUCH. OUCH. Holiness that heals and loves-does not judge or demand…oooooohhh. Lord, help me to wake up, abandon the foolishness of my fears and pride. If it takes fire to be free, please bring it-and then the healing balms to these fresh wounds. And then please fill me with a love that begins with you and not my own emotion and stuff. Please do your stuff in my life so I can get out of your way and live a life worth living-worth your sacrafice on that cross so many years ago. And Lord-please come alongside Madi & Kenan and the folks that I love in Kansas and points between & beyond. I miss them. Selah.
Touching – and true! As I reread A Purpose Driven Life, I wonder first, how did I miss all this good stuff the first time?
Next I am struck by the fact that we were never promised comfort or an easy life, but I know that is what I was thinking it should be. Thank you Allie for committing yourself and helping us to all WAKE UP!
Allie, this is really good. Discipleship is about helping others wake up to reality. It’s wonderful to see you rubbing your eyes, looking around and going, “Hey – I’m not in Kansas anymore.”