A Warning to My Country: Come Awake

I have fought against writing this post.

That is partly because my subject matter for today does not quite fit with this blog's original intent. However, my main objection comes from the side of me that is so anxiously people-pleasing, so eager to be neutral. But like a prisoner to my crying heart, I must finally sit and write the words that are bursting from within me. I pray forgiveness, as always, if I write anything but truth.

I am certainly no prophet, and no messenger either. I won't claim that this is a word from the Lord that he has burdened me to proclaim to you. And yet I do feel burdened for my people, and I have a message for my home country; a warning perhaps is a better term.

I feel privileged to spend the majority of my time outside of the U.S., not because I don't want to be here, but because it allows me the luxury of an outside perspective of our society. Though I will never be completely objective I do feel I have a better understanding of America (for all intents and purposes in this post I am referring to the United States when I say America) than what I had before I left, and what I see does not encourage me. In fact, I have become deeply disturbed. This is not pointed to any group or person in particular, but to our nation as a whole. I fear we are allowing ourselves to be moved into a direction that is not only unhealthy, but dangerous. Let me explain:

I have watched my country slowly fade into a stupor, forgetting its past principles and focusing more on achieving fast, easy, and optimum pleasure. We have been lulled to sleep by our splendor and are cocooned in our wealth, dead to the realities around us. We have allowed ourselves to be deceived, and we accept these spoon-fed lies without struggle.

Whether we admit it or not, we believe the lie of advertising, that tells us we will be happy as soon as we purchase this next thing.

We believe the lie of consumerism that more is better, and then we construct big buildings just to store all of our stuff in.

We believe the lie of social media that we don't need actual human contact to feel connected to the world around us.

We believe the lie of pornography and erotica that we don't need real and pure intimacy to feel satisfied.

And we believe the lie that there is nothing more important than the world we are in now, and the life we are living today.

If I could say one thing to America, it would be this:

Wake. Up.

I feel especially able to say this because I have had moments in my life where someone has told me to wake up. For me, that someone was God. I want to tell you about the two occasions in my life when I was given a sharp shake to wake me from my daze.

The first time was when I was at college. For at least a couple weeks, maybe longer, I just didn't feel like myself. I felt off, and very distant from God and also my friends. I lacked passion to do anything worthwhile or productive. And like anybody who has a problem, I kept it to myself and asked no one for help.  It was around Easter and I went to a special service my college was having by myself. I sat in the back and watched silently as the story of Christ's death and resurrection was told in a very intense drama. As always, I was enraptured by the story of Jesus giving everything for me and for everyone. At the end of the service we all sang the song "Christ is Risen" by Matt Maher, and when we got to the chorus my eyes widened and I felt the walls I had unknowingly built up around me fall down and fade away.

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling over death by death,
Come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the dead." (Emphasis mine)

Come awake. That's what God told me in that moment. Wake up! Remember why you live, why all this is important. That's all he needed to tell me. I was "cured" from whatever had come over me, whether it was a spiritual attack or just human laziness.

The second time was just last year. I had come back from the DR to the States for a couple weeks to do a few things for the ministry. I had come with a strong passion to do what I thought was right on behalf of the people I work for in the DR. But after just two days of being back I fell once again into a distracted daze. My passion ebbed away as I was subdued by a comfy couch and all the world's entertainment at my fingertips. I was intoxicated by the pleasure available to me, the food I could eat, the warm showers I could take, even the soft toilet paper I could use. I gave up my strength and convictions for the chance to lie back and be fed by the distractions around me. I did it willingly, but I still ended the day feeling unsettled and unsatisfied.

I was alarmed at my sudden complacency, and as I pondered all these things I felt God giving me the same command he has given me before in times like this: Wake up. Come awake, and remember why you are here. Stop sleeping and start working toward what matters. Don't give in to the comfortable diverting stupor; fight it, and fight for the dream I gave you. Fight for the people I have entrusted to you.

That last paragraph came directly from my journal, an entry I wrote on October 2nd, 2014. I am telling you this because I truly fear that our nation is slipping into a stupor; I truly fear that we are willingly sacrificing and compromising our convictions and opting instead for a temporary pleasure that our enemy is selling to us. I'm not one to delve much into conspiracies but it's no secret that we have an enemy, and I am afraid he is doing a wonderful job at keeping America distracted until it's too late. He is prowling around the world and he knows exactly what to do to keep us from focusing on the truth. Because there are so many different cultures he has many different methods of keeping us from the truth. For many people he keeps them suffering; he keeps them low to the ground and miserable so they feel like they have nothing to dwell on except their misery.

But for America he has something special. Far from keeping us low, he encourages us to be elevated, to keep seeking wealth and glory on this earth so that we forget how fleeting it is. He knows that deep down all humans crave something to worship so he pushes us to worship ourselves, or he raises up idols in the form of movie stars and singers to give us something to praise and look up to. He encourages us to deify mere humans and put expectations on them that they were never designed to fulfill, so that very quickly we turn our backs and demonize them when they inevitably fall short. He helps us to pacify ourselves so that we don't see the great need around us, and we especially don't feel the emptiness inside us. And if we ever start to feel the emptiness we don't have to go far to temporarily divert ourselves from our bad feelings.

I had an unsettling dream last night, and the idea it represented is what finally urged me to write this post. I want to describe it to you, if you will bear with me.

After a brief time of a typical dream for me (I was in the Dominican-I have dreamed about the Dominican every night since I have been in America) the scene suddenly switched and I found myself watching a group of people in a white room. Though I sometimes saw the dream through a first-person view, I was uncharacteristically absent as I watched the drama unfold. The dream followed a young Asian girl, probably about my age. She was in that group of people; I didn't recognize anyone, but I think they were from several different ethnic backgrounds, though all from the same country. This group was fighting the main establishment in their nation or maybe even their world, probably a government-type organization. They didn't trust it and wanted to destroy it. I wasn't sure why but it was never a question in the dream that this establishment was evil and needed to be taken down.

Everything was white: the rooms, the uniforms all the guards wore, even all the machines. It was a bit futuristic. I somehow knew that the group was fighting their way up and in, to the center of everything. It was there that the organization could be stopped once and for all. The group fought guards for a long time and by the time the final room was reached everyone in the group had been killed except for the girl I had been following. She stepped into the room and discovered the truth behind everything: the world was meaningless. There were just a bunch of normal people working behind the scenes and pulling the strings of the world like a puppet to keep everyone on earth distracted and content with the way things were. They mollified the people so that they would never ask questions, so that they would never realize that the world had no purpose. The girl left the room at a complete loss of what to do. Everything she had worked for, everything she had fought for, was now pointless. Her friends and comrades had died for nothing. She tried to find comfort in her only family member remaining, her brother, but the people kept them separate so that she would remain alone and therefore powerless.

I came awake a couple of times during the night and went back to sleep hoping to find a happier ending to this miserable dream, but none came. Each time I came back to the girl wandering aimlessly, trying to find any sense of meaning in her world, and finding none.

This dream is not prophetic, nor do I think it has some important meaning behind it. But what is important is that for a rare instance in my life, I woke up with the crushing and overwhelming feeling that the world was meaningless. It took me a while to recover from the dream, and that time of the girl's aimless wandering will haunt me for a long time. But as I finally came back to reality one of my first thoughts was that there are so many people in this world who feel that way every morning they wake up. They feel that life is meaningless, and that there is no point to the struggles of this world. No wonder we as a nation try to find satisfaction in every aspect of our physical lives, to try and create purpose for ourselves.

I have a friend who told me the story of how Jesus saved her life when she was fourteen years old. After having a difficult childhood and struggling through middle school, she decided that she needed to know the truth about whether or not a higher being actually existed. If he did, she would have something to live for; if not, she would end her life, because this world would be meaningless. After searching she found her answer, or rather he found her. And her life has never been the same.

I think a quest like that is very remarkable in a girl so young, but I thank God she went searching. She found her hope, and it's the hope America needs right now. It is my belief that we have an enemy, and he is very real. But it is also my belief that there is someone much more powerful than he, and that being is fighting for us right now. If you really quiet yourself and take a look around you, you can feel the fight happening for every person, for every nation. There is a battle raging, a battle between good and evil. Both sides want us, and we are surrendering to the wrong side. We need to wake up and join the fight, or we will be lost.

Do you know the last time I saw our country rally together in a real and urgent quest for truth? It was the question of the blue and black dress. If you don't know what I'm talking about ask the person next to you or search "white and gold" on the internet; the first seven articles will explain the great mystery to you in detail. Why did we all participate in that debate but we don't participate in conversations about worldwide issues? Why did we all argue about that dress when we don't argue about how to end sex trafficking in the world? Why did we all follow the dress drama more closely than we follow the events in most of our friends' lives? Why did we all find time to search for the true colors of that dress but most of us can't find time to wrestle with serious questions like "what is the purpose of this world?"

I'm not condemning entertainment, but I am observing that our entertainment has become our lives. There was nothing wrong with enjoying the debate about the white and gold dress but it is just another example of a fleeting distraction that we consumed; and once we had completely and totally consumed it we searched for another fleeting distraction to devour that would satisfy the monsters inside of us temporarily. Can you not see? Can you not see the power these distractions have over you? It frightens me to watch, and to feel it when it happens to me.

There was another part of my dream that I initially disregarded because at first it seemed out of place, like it didn't belong in the story. But now I think I can take it as a sort of symbol, a very sobering symbol. The group had almost made it to the final room when a slot machine appeared on one of the walls. I was subconsciously aware that the evil establishment had placed it there in hopes of distracting our group from reaching the center. It was all white and had science-fiction type technology, but it was clearly a slot machine. There was nobody around it but I walked over to it (this time I was seeing things through my own eyes, not that of the girl). For some time during the dream we gambled, and I won several times, every time I played in fact. The machine dished out my winnings and we played some more. There was a vague sense of urgency and danger that I felt, but I allowed myself, and the whole group, to become distracted from their task by the slot machine. I had been talking to a group of people about gambling the night before which is why I originally discounted that part of the dream, but now I think it is a clear example of what I am talking about: a single, fleeting distraction kept an entire group of people from completing a task that, only moments ago, was of life or death importance to them. What a strange and fearful power these distractions hold over us.

A little later on in the morning after I had woken up from my dream I opened my Bible to Revelation 3 and read the letter to the Church in Sardis. It was chillingly similar to the concerns I have about my country now:

"I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you." (verses 1-3)

you are dead...wake up...I have not found your deeds complete...remember what you have received and heard...

Our nation is decaying. We are dying, and we hardly feel it from all the things we feed ourselves to dull the reality around us. Wake up, because we are not finished yet. Wake up, because it's still not too late. It won't be too late until that last day comes, and it is coming. That is the day that the whole glorious truth will be revealed, where we will be awakened from our self-induced slumber and our eyes will be forced away from the passing amusements we have held onto so dearly and be forced to look upon the truth that we have so skillfully ignored. Our knees will bend and our heads will bow and the reality we have shielded ourselves from will come crushing into us and we will finally know; yes, we will finally know just how far we have fallen, just how low we have descended. That will be a terrible day indeed. Glorious and terrible.

Yet we have hope. All was never destined to be completely lost. Hope remains as long as at least one person in our nation continues to be daring enough to cling to that hope. 

"Yet you have a few people...who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy." (verse 4)

It is not too late. Wake up, and remember what has been told to you. You have been warned, America. Not by me, but by many who have come before me. We are, and always have been, without excuse. If you are asleep, if you are allowing the pleasures that America has to offer blind you from the realities of this world, wake up. Sometimes coming to America is like watching a person drift into a coma. He may be in a comfortable bed, he may be having a pleasant dream, but you know if you could just wake that person up to dwell in the real world, he would be so much better off. He would actually be living. That's what being alert and aware does to you: it gives you life, and life in abundance. Wake up, America.

Please, wake up.

An Introvert's Guide to Successful Furlough

I realize that "furlough" is a pretty old-school word in the missionary community. Call it "home assignment" or whatever the cool kids are saying these days. Basically what I'm talking about is when missionaries come back to their home country (or wherever they were sent out from) to visit with supporters, take care of any business that has come up, and just get the opportunity to enjoy a change of scenery for a while. Missionary life can be very taxing, so it's important to take some semblance of a break now and then.

Unfortunately missionary furlough many times ends up being even more exhausting than everyday missionary life. People line up at the door-or send text messages nowadays-to treat you to dinner and hear an update on your life. Churches invite you to come speak to their congregations and share your experiences. And if your sending country is the U.S. or another Western country, as soon as you step off the plane you are smacked in the face with a very large dose of material splendor and sensory overload. And the choices; oh the endless amount of choices you are faced with. The other day I stood in front of a touch screen at Sheetz for about 20 minutes trying to keep calm as I was bombarded with seemingly infinite choices for the breakfast sandwich I was trying to order (for those of you who don't know what Sheetz is, I do pity you. But seriously, it's overwhelming).

So people who are in the sending country who are about to welcome a weary missionary into their lives for a month or two-first of all know that we are so happy to see you and really do want to spend time with you and share what God is doing on the field. But you have to understand: coming to the U.S. after spending so much time in a developing country can sometimes make you feel like this:

It's probably too early in the day for a disturbing picture like that. I added the double chin because you have about a year's worth of cravings and food fantasies to make up for in about four weeks. It catches up to you. Here, let me make up for that shocking image with some cuteness, like my perfect little niece or a couple of sleeping puppies:

Ok, does everyone feel better? Let's crack on then.

The point of my blog today is to share my wisdom about leaving the mission field and reentering the "home" field for a little while. That is a hard process, especially when you're a severely introverted person (like me) who needs to crawl in a hole every now and then to function like a normal human being. What I have to say is not unique, and it's actually probably pretty sound advice for anyone who needs a break in their life. But I'm hoping that by the end missionaries will find at least a little nugget of advice to help them truly embrace this weird time of furlough, and that others will be able to understand what a missionary goes through when they come back to their home country after a long time somewhere else. 

And so without further ado, this is my guide to a restful and enjoyable furlough:

1. Crawl in a hole.  

I don't mean literally, unless you're into that sort of thing. Everybody's first instinct-missionary and non-missionary alike-is to hit the ground running and reconnect with absolutely everybody you have ever come into contact with before becoming a missionary. And while I'm sure Greg from the gas station where your car broke down that one time is probably a cool guy, you have to take some time to be alone, with yourself and also with God, and sort through any thoughts or feelings you may have. Or just to stay grounded and relax a little bit after a long travel day. In America finding time to crawl in a hole and disappear for a few hours is actually really difficult to do, so you have to make an effort. But it's worth it. And, for people like me, very necessary. Choosing to ignore this need will cause you to be less effective and also less enjoyable when you finally do get the chance to hang out with Greg from the gas station.

2. Be alone in public.

Even introverts get lonely and need to be with people every now and then. But that doesn't mean they actually have to talk to those people. In the Dominican I can't walk or drive anywhere without someone pointing out, or screaming and literally pointing, that I am in fact a young, white American woman passing through. While I appreciate their announcement (I ignore the rude gestures and words they sometimes use and pretend instead it's like a princess being announced into the ballroom), it's exhausting to always be noticed. I don't know why, but it's oddly comforting to walk into a public place, like Walmart or Starbucks, and have absolutely no one take notice of you. Being anonymous in a crowd is pretty relaxing, and you should try it sometime. Be with the human race without actually taking part in the human race. Go to Starbucks, or your favorite local cafe (go local business!), bite the bullet and have that thirty second interaction with the person at the register to place your order, and then go sit at a table with headphones in for the next five hours, and tell me you don't leave feeling refreshed.

3. Create a routine.

This is the absolute hardest thing to do. I have been in the States for exactly two weeks now (when did that happen??) and still haven't made a routine for myself. I alternate between days of waking up at 6:30 in the morning to go to a church or other engagement and days of rolling out of bed around 10, sitting on the couch with a bowl of Coco-Puffs and waiting for an acceptable hour to eat lunch. Even if you just set aside thirty minutes, the same thirty minutes, every day to spend some quiet time with God, it will give you something to hold on to during those hectic days. Believe it or not, humans crave order and patterns, so having at least a suggested routine for yourself will be beneficial. It might not seem important, but you have just been ripped from your normal life and plopped into a world that probably runs ten times faster than the one you're used to. Close your eyes, take a breath, and pencil in 7:30-8:00 P.M. as your quiet time. Or whenever.

4. Don't be afraid to say no.

Ok, I lied, This is the absolute hardest thing to do. Most likely there will be more people who want to see you than you can possibly fit in your already crazy schedule. Friends, family, and supporters will all fill up your time much more quickly than you think. And if you're an esteemed missionary and coveted public speaker like I am, church groups and congregations will be trying to book you months in advance. Or (a little closer to the truth) you had four Sundays to spend with supporting churches and a fifth one asked you to come last minute. 

Regardless of how it happened, you just have to be OK with saying no sometimes. It really is impossible to spend adequate time with everyone who wants to see you during furlough. You have to make choices, and you have to do what's best for you and your family. You could try to wake up at 5 in the morning and run around to different churches all day to say a 10-minute spiel at each one, but you will exhaust yourself and won't give your supporters a fair chance to talk with you. Say no. People will understand. And if they don't, who needs human approval anyway?

5. Be a little reckless.

I know I said it's good to have a routine, but you should also let yourself have some spontaneous time as well. One of the things I miss the most while on the mission field is having the freedom to do things on a whim. My independence and opportunities are much more limited than they were when I lived in the States. Even if I could find a way to get somewhere (which would probably be my daddy driving me-crazzzaayyy) where would I go? There is no movie theater, no mall, no hangout spot that is safe to be after dark. If you get a craving for a burger at 3 in the morning in the States you don't have to go far, and you don't have to depend on anyone else to get you there. If I crave a burger in the Dominican at 3 in the morning I'm out of luck because everything has been closed for five hours and there's not many places to get a decent burger anyway.

So take advantage of the first-world luxury around you! Embrace the fact that you have a break from normal life and can do less-than-perfectly responsible things. Have that drink at happy hour with your friends. Take a spur-of-the-moment day trip to a cool place. Stay up until dawn reading a book. Take an extra-long hot shower even though you don't need it because America is so clean and not dusty and you literally haven't sweat or produced body odor in three days which is a first in a long time but your hair is getting greasy so maybe that shower is actually necessary. Last night I threw caution to the wind and ate an entire chocolate Easter bunny by myself even though the nutrition label clearly said there were two servings. But that was after I ate one of those creme-filled Cadbury eggs and like 6 pancakes and a double cheeseburger meal from McDonald's so my stomach started to regret my reckless choices as the night wore on. I have a feeling I'm not improving your opinion of me right now. What's a couple extra pounds...or five, among friends? 

6. Treat Yo'self.

My final suggestion in this guide to successful furlough is to reward yourself for being great. As a missionary-and really any halfway decent person in general-you put others before yourself the majority of the time. Many days in the Dominican my nap will get interrupted by someone at the door, our dinner will get pushed back because someone needs something, or our day off will end at 9 in the morning with a phone call that sends us back down the mountain into town. So take this opportunity to splurge on yourself. Don't worry what other people think or want. Go to the store you love, pick something out, and treat yourself. And if you hesitate, find the nearest mirror, look at yourself, and say "Hey you-you deserve this." For me, treating myself looks like buying the Indiana Jones trilogy and more Chipotle burrito bowls than I care to admit. Yes, I am a nerd. And a pig. But hey-I deserve it. And so do you.

I miss my life and my friends in the Dominican like crazy, and it almost feels like I'm caught between two worlds. It almost feels like my life here in the States can't really exist while I'm living my life in the DR. Some days it seems crazy to me that the God I serve is the God of the DR as well as the U.S. But then I am blown away yet again at how big He is and what an honor it is to work for Him wherever I find myself. So I stay close to Him so I can at least partially wrap my head around things. And I follow this guide to make sure I have the best furlough I can have. 

Happy furlough, fellow missionaries.