Intentionally Missionalنموونە

Love Is...

Just three months into our mission location and Cambodia has proven to be quite different and more difficult than I had thought or imagined it would be. Yet, because of what Jesus has done on the cross for my husband and me, we are unable to contain or restrain ourselves from sharing the gift of salvation to people who need to hear, know and receive the gospel.

For us, Love is:

• Going across the ocean to a foreign country and leaving your loved ones behind

• Missing family and the familiar but looking toward those whom we’re called to love

• Not demanding our rights–even if it’s our “right of way” at a traffic intersection

• Humbling ourselves to the point of ridicule, embarrassment and prejudice

• Trying to understand people, not making them understand us

• Not asking, “why don’t they see our sacrifice”?

• Reaching out even when no one takes our hand

• Working hard to learn their heart language and culture (because you want to enter their world to share the true love from the Lover of their Soul even if they reject it)

• Going out to the terrifying chaos known as “Asian traffic” and risking our very lives just to get groceries for our family

• Sticking around despite parts of our body screaming to go back to our comfortable, orderly, clean, structured home

• Quietly and patiently caring for our sick children while our own body is weary

• Withholding curses toward a security person who was supposed to help us back out of a shop into non-stop traffic

• Stopping ourselves from referring to Cambodians as “them” because we’re seeking to be “falling in love with” them.

Love is…difficult if we are going to love with our own strength. But if we know where the source of love comes from, it is liberating.

Love is…from the one true God who is “love” in essence and is the only one who can help you love with his perfect sacrificial love.