My whole life I was the color yellow – raised from the bright sunshine and burnt orange dirt of the high Colorado desert and the rugged peaks of the West.
It was December of 2020 and I boarded a plane before dawn. I travelled for 36 hours and arrived. I moved almost exactly half-way across the world from my color yellow. My feet kissed an unknown land of orange and dense green. And I knew then, my heart had arrived at a newfound home. It was blue – a vast expanse of foreign and unfamiliar: the great Lake Victoria, the source of the river Nile, and a culture saturated in hospitality and community.
Nearly a year before I wrestled at the thought of any future – the vastness of the world, the variety of experience, and the deep longings and pulsing desires of my heart created a cavity where beauty would blossom.
On a cool February evening in the light of dusk, it was as if in a gentle whisper and by a sweet Mercy, I overheard the call: go love the little children of the world. And all along my heart had known where to go: Africa.
“The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting.” [1]
I’ve walked. 479 days and counting, in a reality far better than the plans I had ever imagined for myself. And not better with ease, but better with satisfaction. For truly the places that strip away the familiarities of life – these are the places I learned to lean deeper into the One by which I am fully known, wholly loved, and freely comforted.
I’ve trudged. 479 days and counting, through the stark contrast of the reality facing the majority world. It is a daily grief and aching sorrow that leaves a soul mangled and weary. And as I trudge, I recognized my rightful place – a vessel to be used; a well to overflow; a clay to be molded. And that God, mighty and gracious, raises beauty from ashes.[2]
My hands have held the hands of the dying ones. My eyes have witnessed the remnants of death. My body has caressed the sick and seizing babies. My soul has battled the spiritual warfare and the enemy who has laid hold of the little children.
My heart has rejoiced at new birth. My lips have praised the steadfastness of God’s grace. I have walked with intention and empathy – walked and not fainted as I held fast to a greater hope, a coming redemption, and eternal victory.
And it is them – the people I walk alongside, the resilient and courageous ones, that are the true catalysts by which the force of change emerges. They, too, are the potters clay, the rivers whose waters do not run dry, and the nourishment.
It was a gentle whisper that nudged me to pick up the phone and answer the call to Uganda. And it has been God who has daily sustained, grown, pruned, and harvested His good fruits. It is God who weaved, with His golden threads of grace, my life with the lives of others and has slowly transformed me to become a beautiful dye of yellow and blue – a hidden glow of evergreen. [3] Surely I know, I will never again be only yellow.
[1] Oswald Chambers. My Utmost for His Highest. March 19th. [2] See Isaiah 58 [3] In Amy Young’s book, Looming Transitions (pg 20), she explains her own experience in cross-culture missions and the process of the mixing of cultures - yellow (her home country) and blue (her host country) and that over time she has become both yellow, blue, and some part green. She will never be wholly blue, and she will never again be fully yellow.
Published on More & Less Journal - a platform to unite in conversation and ignite hope. Check it out here - Journey Beyond Yellow.
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