Tea and Treasure

I got up at 3:45am and warmed up a cup of tea only because I knew some people were doing the same thing half way across the world. 

Sleepiness was heavy on my eyes as I dipped the tea bag up and down and watched color seep out into the water. I was tempted to just get back in bed, but the warmth of the mug in my hands crept up my arms and beckoned me to wake up. I took a deep cleansing breath, and I dialed and called Africa. 

When Charlotte answered, her picture came through fuzzy and pixelated on my small cell phone screen, but I could see her white smile beaming in contrast to her dark skin. She bounced her four month old baby boy on her lap, who cooed as if he wanted to say hi to me, too. Rebeca must have quickly grabbed the phone from her because the screen turned blurry with motion and then her smile, too, popped out as she cradled her 2 month old - an orphan daughter that she is caring for - in her arms. 

In an instant, I totally forgot that it was an ungodly hour of the morning and that my eyes burned with fatigue. Instead, I was back in Africa with my team on a Tuesday morning for our weekly prayer meeting. 

We made small talk about health, family, activities, news, and such before sharing prayer requests and talking briefly about which passage they were studying this morning. We sang a song together, and worship literally transcended time and space. In that moment I didn’t feel so far away. 

After about an hour, we needed to hang up so they could continue their meeting. In the silence after we disconnected, my heart beat wildly and I knew there was no way I would ever go back to sleep. I stayed on my knees and prayed over the same prayer list they were praying over at that very moment, and I read the same passage in Matthew 7 that they were reading. 

The passage talks about being like good trees that bear good fruit, which comes from hearing God’s Word and putting it into practice, which is also like building a house upon a rock. The chapter flows from one thought right into the next, different images connecting one main theme: a life of obedience to God’s Word. This made a perfect prayer for me and my team - half a world apart yet united in mission as I do God’s work here and they do it there. May we be trees that bear good fruit, a house built upon the rock. I prayed for realness and authenticity and obedience to the Word of God. 

WhatsApp makes the world a little smaller, but the Spirit of the God of the Nations is what unites hearts across international borders. Long after we finished our conversation, hours after I had hung up, I was still thinking about their faces, their smiles, the laughter in their voices, the beauty in their song of praise, the two new babies bouncing on their laps. I could feel the heat of the morning sun, the smell of fresh baked bread that we break together over breakfast, the thankfulness of the week behind and the anticipation of the week ahead. The joy of just being together. 

Who am I to get to be a part of this? Sometimes I feel the weight of the suffering of some of the poorest people on the planet, and then I get to share the intense joy of seeing God work on their behalf. Then there is the amazing miracle of learning a new culture, being welcomed into it, and feeling loved by its people. I get to be an active member of a community of believers living on mission together in a totally remote and unknown part of the world. I also get to try to be a nurse and a missionary in a resource-limited environment where I often feel totally helpless, alone, and overwhelmed by poverty and need. Why did God choose me to bear all this suffering? To receive all this joy? To undergo all this change? To experience all this wonder? 

God has given me a treasure box of stories and experiences and relationships with the people who get me out of bed at 3:45. My big question today is this: How do I steward what God has entrusted to me - what he has allowed me to see and know and experience in Africa through relationships and life and suffering and overcoming? 

What do I do with all this? 

I give it right back to the One who gave it to me. I fall on my face and thank him with a worship-full heart. I share these stories and experiences with everyone I meet. And it changes the way I live. I want to be more relational, more missional, more generous, more prayerful, more openhanded, more hopeful. I trust God more. I am more of a spiritual warrior. I slow down, live in community, and find joy in suffering. I long for heaven. 

These gifts have been given to me through what my African brothers and sisters have taught me and modeled to me in their way of life. Because of how God has brought them into relationship with him, he is now bringing me into deeper relationship with him in the context of their culture. 

I was still thinking about that phone call when I went to bed that night, and it still made my heart feel like it would burst with joy. The crazy wonderful life God has given to me in Africa over the last three years, the stories I’ve lived, the way I’ve seen God act on behalf of his people, the relationships I’ve gained - the wonder and awe of it all spills over into joy, and I treasure these things in my heart. 

God has given each of us a life to live - a story to write - filled with twists and turns and conflict and risk and overcoming. It’s what makes a good story. God writes the plot and directs the scenes, but we are entrusted with the development of our character. This is what being a steward of our experiences is all about. Take the story God is writing for each of us, complete with all its unique relationships and struggles and unknowns, and let’s steward these experiences that have been entrusted to us. Remember that nothing is wasted and every element of the story is a gift, even though it may take time and faithfulness to reveal the buried treasures in some of the toughest moments. 

Let’s cradle the treasure box of these experiences called life and catch glimpses of the wonder and awe and joy of it all in something as simple as a 3:45 phone call.