some thoughts...

As I'm sitting in my apartment waiting for the 3 hour documentary about Noam Chomsky and Manufacturing Consent I'm in the middle of watching for class tomorrow to buffer, I'm thinking about a lot of things.

Since I've been in Tennessee, I've never regretted it.  But that's not to say it hasn't been hard at times - for several reasons; missing family, people thinking I'm crazy, feeling outcasted from friends and a community I genuinely care about, and just leaving behind all that I had known to do something I didn't know much about, with people I barely knew, in a place I'd never been.  I'd find myself lost in crazy thoughts that were just no good: mulling over silly comments made by people, past experiences...I could go on.  And with learning more about God and gaining a clearer vision every day for my purpose and my dreams, I have been faced with truths about myself contrary to what I've always believed.  In the future, I will help oppressed women and children find healing, find a purpose, and find a voice.  However, I'm learning how impossible it is to help weak and broken people when I myself am weak and broken.  I've always been stubborn and independent, so facing these scars I never knew where there has been difficult.

BUT... although these moments happen from time to time, this past week, I've been filled with joy nearly all of the time.  I find myself at the oddest times simply stopping and thinking about how wonderfully blessed I am.  Looking at my apartment full of friends I've grown to deeply care about - all doing homework together, or looking around at our entire community dancing to African worship songs.

I'm learning what it feels like for people outside of my immediate family to love me unconditionally... and for my stubborn, independent self to believe I'm worthy of this love.  People inviting me over to their houses and cooking dinner for me; bringing me milkshakes for no reason; stopping to talk to me even with hours of homework to finish; paying for my gas; or just coming up to me to tell me they've been thinking about me or want to tell me how happy they are that I'm here.

With hours of homework left and my alarm set to go off in 3.5 hours, I've never been happier.  I miss people at home a lot, but it's always such a wonderful thing to hear from them.  Today, my step mom texted me to tell me how much she missed me and loved me and my mom texted telling me her and my grandma want to come down in a couple weekends.  And I still have a voicemail saved on my phone from a call I got from my precious Marigrace... that I will listen to every once in a while just to hear her precious little voice. :) I also have a voicemail on my phone from my aunt.... who I will be calling back tomorrow!

My heart is so full, sometimes I think it could  burst :)

I should go to bed now.  I'm feeling the loopy-ness that comes with lack of sleep.

A Summer of Change

My life has been a whirlwind for probably about a year now, but since May, I feel like I've barely had time to catch a breath.  I graduated on May 27th, and the month leading up to it was chaotic.  At the beginning of the month, my papa took a turn for the worst, when on Mother's Day, he told his daughter, my mom, he was tired of being sick and was ready to go.  He had been sick for a while, but the death of a loved one is something that always catches you off guard.  With two more weeks left of school, I had two speeches to write, 5 finals to study for, and a convocation to plan, track tournaments to run in, and money to raise for two summer mission trips.  In between all of that, I was spending any spare moment at my grandma's house; helping my grandma and mom make my grandpa as comfortable as possible, being there for both of them, and savoring my last moments with that fantastic man.  

With a week and a half left of school, I was running around frantic trying to plan a convocation for my school about the heartbreaking reality of sex trafficking across the world and the treatment of men towards women, as well as writing a speech for Baccalaureate and for graduation.  The convocation was a week before graduation.  On that Friday, I was going non stop.  I did two different sessions of the program, then took 8th graders on tours of the high school.  As I was walking back to the school, ready to sit down and catch my breath, I spotted my step dad walking out of the school.  At first, I thought it was odd, but it didn't take me long for it all to click and I started walking faster.  But not too fast; I didn't want to hear what he was going to say.  

That next week was my last week of school.  I finished out my track season at the regional meet on Tuesday with my 4x1 girls and beloved coaches: Garry Anderson, Bob Whitlow, and Laura McMasters.  Having run on a pulled hamstring for over half of the season, my last run was a bittersweet (and painful) one.  The next day, we held a memorial service for my grandfather.  

That Sunday, I was giving a speech at Baccalaureate as the FCA president, and the next Friday, I was giving a speech to my class as the Valedictorian.  After a crazy month and a bittersweet end to that chapter of my life, I finally had time to breath.   

I spent the last week of June in El Salvador.  At the end of the week, I was expecting to come back home to finish my summer in India and then begin setting myself up for success in this world at Grace College.  For the first 6 days of that week, this was still my expectation. 

While in El Salvador, our main task was to build a house for missionary families who will be moving there permanently within a year or two.  I learned what a plum-bob was and used it often, as I was given the crucial job of building the leads of the walls.  (I was contacted when they began filling the walls with concrete the following week that they were very straight.J)

However, I quickly learned that this task wasn’t why I was in El Salvador.  I wasn’t there to build a house for missionary families; I was there to be exposed to a violent and devastating world that most of us have become numb to.  In the village of Sitio Nuevo, I saw widows and single mothers caring for their malnourished children because their husbands either died in the war or took off to find work in America.  In a squatter community called Milagro De Dios, I visited families who had over 12 people living in single-room tin shacks that were constantly under the threat of a bull-dozer, so that the government could build bus stations or parking lots. 

As I took in the harsh reality these people live in every day, I began to draw inward and shut down.  I was torn and tried to reject the feelings building up inside, because I knew they would mean change.  After several conversations with the facilitators of the trip as well as hours spent in prayer, wrestling with God over what he was asking me to do, I finally realized this was the purpose I had been searching for.  When I did come home, it didn’t take me long to notice I had left a huge piece of myself in El Salvador. 

On the plane ride home, I read the entire book of Matthew in an effort to find encouragement and guidance in His Word.  The night I returned, I stayed up until 4 am trying to process all that I had seen and the decision I was getting ready to make.  I applied to the Institute for Global Outreach Developments International the very next day. 

Although the decision seemed to be completely out of character, I was confident because I knew I was obeying the LORD.  It seemed as if God was screaming at me, but I knew it was only because, for the first time, I was willing to hear his voice.  I was terrified at this decision I was making, but I could feel God’s presence and was encouraged by the words he spoke to me. 

In Matthew 16:26 Jesus says, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life.”  I was on the wide, but “secure” path to “success” by going to Grace for a pre-law degree.  My sister said to me, “I mean, you’re Brittany Girton, you could be a millionaire if you wanted to,” and I was well on my way to “gaining the whole world” and living “the dream”.  But, I would be forced to forfeit my life.  Right before this in verse 25, Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  This life God was calling me to, was the life I had been praying for.  This life would bring me purpose and fulfillment.  This life, no matter how risky, would bring me close to the LORD as I would be following the footsteps of a righteous and sinless man who brought hope, rest, healing, and love to the suffering, poor, and oppressed. 

It’s a theme throughout the Hebrew Scriptures that God calls people out of their family, culture, and nation to follow him in being a people who will bring light to the world, and I was being called out.  I could feel the pain associated with leaving behind my family.  I could feel the uncertainty of leaving all that I knew and embarking on a much narrower path.  I could feel the intimidation of the inevitable failure that I would face in trying to be a light to this dark world.  But although this decision is hard for my family to accept, and has forced me to let go of many hopes I was holding onto, I couldn’t ignore God’s voice.

About two and a half weeks after returning home from El Salvador, I got on a plane to go to the other side of the world.  In the crowded and dirty country of India, I spent the next 3 weeks traveling all across northern India—from the Pakistan border in Amritsar, Punjab, to Sundarban in West Bengal, and everywhere in between—Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Calcutta, Patna, and more.  I visited the tombs of Mother Teresa and Gandhi, went on a boat ride on the Ganges, slept on crowded trains the majority of the trip, visited the Sikh Golden Temple, and went into the oldest temple in Varanasi, the Hindi Golden Temple. 

But the people I saw and the conditions they were in are the images that are forever burned in my mind.  Words cannot describe the poverty and lack of life.  I saw a mother fanning her baby who had no eyes; I saw a man so crippled his entire body was folded under himself as he rolled around on this square piece of board with wheels, begging for money; I saw women squat right in front of me to use the bathroom on the floor; I saw a baby and her 4 year old brother lying naked in their own feces on the train station floor; I saw boys who reeked of glue begging for money; I saw naked, grown men lying on the train station floors, unsure whether they were alive or not.  I saw deformities everywhere I looked so extreme some looked like monsters.  I saw people act in a way that was almost animalistic.  Everywhere I looked I saw death, brokenness, and darkness.  I didn’t know how to deal with it, but there was no escape from it.

On the plane ride home, I wrote a letter to my future self.  I told myself I had seen poverty, pain, and suffering that I simply couldn’t shut my eyes to.  My future and my heart belonged to those people—the voiceless people everywhere in the world who are crying for help and just need someone to hear them.  My sister is being trafficked in Calcutta.  My brother is a rickshaw driver with no home, a bed that is a rickshaw seat, and food that comes from digging through the trash piled on the side of the road.  I wrote that my home just got bigger.  My family just got a lot bigger. 

Throughout my college-searching process of deciding which college to go to, what major to major in, and what career to pursue, I became increasingly disheartened.  I was frustrated with the feeling that there had to be something more.  I didn’t want to get stuck in debt I couldn’t pay, a career I had to fight to climb to the top of, and a system that I found no fulfillment, reason, truth, or hope in.  I didn’t want to get stuck in a daily routine of living for myself to pursue the dream, while being ignorant to the rest of the world; I wanted to really live. 

To help the mother in El Salvador feed her starving and uneducated children; to help educate the people in the slums of India so that their children have a hope of living; to help the widow find peace and rest in a place she can call home rather than the sidewalk covered in waste; to advocate for land rights against corporations who want to come in and take away the land and all its precious resources, while taking advantage of the poor to do the work; to advocate for girls around the world who become victims of man’s lustful and violent desires; to help educate women in child birth so that giving birth and raising children is not such a terrifying thing, but the blessing God gives us. 

To show the world that unless we stop going to war over oil, watering the ground with the blood of people easily taken advantage of, and doing anything we can to have all that we want, destruction is inevitable.  To show the world that it’s our fault the rain that falls is acid and destroys vegetation rather than giving it life; that it’s our fault so many die from earthquakes in Haiti; that it’s our fault our world is plagued with disease like cancer, or that children are born with deformities and disabilities.  To show the world that it is our responsibility to take care of our brothers, and our brothers include the rickshaw driver in India, the slave girl in the Philippines, and the widow in El Salvador.  To show the world that children are the blessing, and the only way we will survive is if we see the value in human life and stop participating in activities that dehumanize, destroy, and kill this life.

               Mostly, however, I want to show the world that there is hope.  That with belief and faith in the LORD, because of the promise he made to us, we can change—only if we are a people who abides by his law, has hope, and shares the same vision and the same desires for the world as him.  We have a God who helps and by knowing him, trusting him, and obeying him, our children will grow up in a world where people take care of one another.  They will grow up knowing the LORD, not because they attend church on Sunday, say their nightly prayers, go on yearly short-term mission trips, and believe Jesus died on the cross.  Rather, they know the LORD because they demonstrate the love God has for us in their relationships with each other.  They know the LORD because they believe Jesus is the example, not the exception and understand that God can’t control the violent desires and destructiveness of man.  They know they LORD because they understand he desperately needs us to reach out to the poor and marginalized; to live like Jesus and be our brother’s keeper.   

 

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Micah 6:8