Saturday, June 14, 2008

im here.

I don’t sleep well on airplanes. I am sitting on the right side of the middle row of an Airbus A-330 600 flying 34,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. I am sitting next to a woman from Germany with two adopted children from Guatemala. She speaks English; not well but she still speaks it. I am sitting on the second story of a two-story airplane.

It has all kind of hit me at once. Preparing for an internship that was rather ambiguous in it’s description has looked like Michael praying that God will “prepare”, and “provide” him for what lies ahead, whatever it is that is lying ahead. When I say it all hit me at once what I mean is that I think God chose to wait until I was on the plane heading to Prague to give me a solid reason for why I raised bookoos of money to go to a foreign country to ” build relationships” with people and hopefully share the good news with them.

This morning at the World Harvest sending center all the full-time staffers gathered with the London and Prague interns and prayed over them before we left. They asked us to share specific prayer requests concerning the next two months.

---Hold on. The little Guatelmalan girl, Rosie, just laid her head on my shoulder and is ------snoring. Very adorable.

I have been struggling over the past two months to well, justify, me going overseas at this point in my life. I shared with the WHM staff that I not in a totally financial secure position and as a result really was having mixed feelings about my eligibility to raise support to do the Lord’s work when I could be working to solidify my fiscal standings. They were very understanding and encouraged me and prayed for me; that I would turn from fear and cling to faith, that I would really believe in the Lord’s provision and sovereignty. It’s hard, you know?

So I was sitting next to Rosie and we were watching “Horton Hears a Who” on our little T.V.’s that we have. As I was watching this movie, a rather shocking dichotomy was set before me. In this movie, Horton the elephant finds a speck of dust and hears a voice eminating from this speck. Upon further investigation, we find that this speck is actually the world upon which the Who’s of Whoville exist. There world was so small compared to Horton’s, yet he was inextricably drawn to protect them and make sure that they went on existing.

It is so easy for me to get caught up in my small world. I easily freak about monetary security and it is easy for me to forget the goodness of God when things are tight. The realization that hit me was this: I am going to where I am going to have my small world stretched to a completely unrecognizable, new size. So much of this internship is about the Lord using other people to teach me, as opposed using me to teach others. If I succeed in the latter it will be a miracle. Oh, and Im not saying that Horton is a Jesus symbol.

Rosie wants be to play her gameboy, so I am afraid I must indulge her. I’m not even in Prauge yet, but I’m going to do a top 5 list anyways (sorry will, it’s a good idea).

Top 5 things I have seen after leaving home.

1. The smiling face of Christopher Taylor and Grant Withington in the Chattanooga airport. Topher and I ended up making the entire trip to Philly together.

2. The 300 dollar travel voucher that Northwestern airlines gave me for overbooking my flight from Detroit to Philly. I was delayed an hour and a half, so the way I see it I got payed over 100 dollars an hour to take a refreshing afternoon nap in the Detroit airport.

3. The Elvis impersonator that sat directly in front of me on my first flight.

4. A German mother of four that was laughing uncontrollably with her children as they ALL exited one of the bathrooms downstairs in the plane. Those bathrooms are tiny.

5. Sienna’s face upon arriving in Chattanooga. What a good stay I had.

3 comments:

Sienna said...

you pulled me in so deep with this entry. i was there and i felt your enthrallment with it all and your discovery as you wrote. it was riveting. inspiring. exciting. it made me itch for more but so satisfied with what i got.

i loved this part and am really impressed and relieved that you've realized this so early on. this is one of the lessons i flew home from liberia with... and not to. you wrote it beautifully.

"I am going to where I am going to have my small world stretched to a completely unrecognizable, new size. So much of this internship is about the Lord using other people to teach me, as opposed using me to teach others."

sienner

Zay Smallman said...

Dude, this is not to discourage you, it is to encourage you. But it is going to be crazy. Coming over here has been nuts because I have never had the problem of "not have lots of friends" you know? Because everywhere I have been I have known people.

But this past 10 days has been really hard for me because I have had to learn not to rely on my buddies, but to rely on God. I am still struggling with this, [feeling really lonely and hopeless] but I trust that God will help me out.

SO I just wanted to say that so that if the same thing happens to you, which it might, you won't think it is at all abnormal. It is just God teaching us.

Would love to hear from you soon.
Zay

James M. Harrison said...

aight brah
good to see you back here