A few days ago, I was talking to a friend of mine in another part of the United States and I began to realize the places I had gone and things I had done, people I had seen since the last time I saw him. He sells pizza. That’s what he was doing last time we talked. That’s all he’s planning on doing for now. (Until what happens?)
Since the last time I saw him, he said to me, “I have an apartment, a car, money, everything I need to live a comfortable life.” Then he said something I will never forget, he said, “I am living the American dream and I hate it.”
Today he continues to sell pizza. Not that that is not a glorious job or anything (I like pizza, someone has to sell it!), but he would be the first to tell you “that’s not what I was made for.” That’s not what God had in mind when He made him. That’s not the grandiose plan and purpose for which God created him.
This is not what he dreamed of doing all his life. It reminds me of a song that says, “This ain’t my American dream. I want to live and die for bigger things.”
If God has a greater plan for me than what I am doing now, then I want to hold fast to that. If there are people on the other side of the world or next door who will live in darkness unless I follow Christ in the path he treads for me and tell them about Him, then I will give the rest of my life to do that.
People used to ask me, “Cristina, what do you think you will do when you grow up? Will you be a missionary like your parents?” I used to say, “Well if I grow up and marry, I will do whatever my husband does.”
Now that I am “grown up” (I guess!) and after living in the USA for almost 2 years, I’ve come to the realization that my heart is with people of other countries. I could never live here for the rest of my life and be happy. I mean, how do you re-enter normal space after dancing with orphans and giving bags of rice to widows? How do you walk back into a Wal-Mart after seeing street kids with bloated stomachs begging for food? How can you ever go through the grocery store without picturing those Rwandese women carrying baskets of fruit or huge stalks of bananas on their heads? After my first trip overseas, I was 15 and went to England for a youth conference. I think it was that day that ruined me forever. Since then I have been to Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Germany, France, Italy, England, China, and Russia.
I remember standing in front of my clothes closet and thinking that I didn’t need half as many clothes as I had. I remember walking into a store and being overwhelmed with the abundance of items available compared to what you can purchase in Guatemala. The other part that’s difficult is trying to express to people back home what you’ve been through and how you’ve changed as a result of what you’ve seen. As I wax eloquent, telling stories about meeting persecuted widows, carrying orphaned babies who have hardly had contact with humans, or about seeing God move in people’s lives in such a real way, many of my friends can sometimes fail to grasp what I want to say. For them, life went on as normal here. For me, life was anything BUT normal. May God deliver us from comfort and ease, and grant us to continue to walk alongside the great men and women whom we have met there.
“Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves. When our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little. When we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord.” - Francis Drake
