Tender

Unzipping my tent, I climbed out as quietly as possible. I was surrounded by the tents of volunteers who had traveled from a collection of countries. They had come from places where there was running water, a hot shower, and an indoor toilet (never to be taken for granted). These were bankers, business owners, doctors, moms and dads, students, an array of souls who had traded their vacation times for these tents, this week, a hundred orphans or one. God had interrupted my life and told me to come here to Mongolia. But for these volunteers, it was a choice. Most of them had the means to vacation anywhere in the world, but instead, they chose to spend their time here with the orphans of our city. I was amazed by this decision. 

It was cool outside and quiet.
I didn't know the time, but the last I had looked at my phone, it was 11:45, and many of the volunteers were still singing and laughing inside the community building. Now only darkness. The entire camp slept. It had been a full day. My thoughts drifted to the joy the kids had experienced from all the love of the volunteers. By mid-week, the volunteers had settled into a routine, and everyone was starting to feel comfortable with the discomfort of communal outdoor living. They were getting so good at 'swimming in awkward' as I had taught them on orientation day. "When you jump into ice-cold water, it's horrible, isn't it?" I had asked. "And what's the urge right at that moment?” One volunteer had given the obvious answer, "To jump right on out!” I explained that when you stay in, force yourself to stay, go all the way under, and get fully immersed, it gets a little warmer. It often gets so much warmer you don't want to get out. I had finished the orientation with a challenge to all of them, "Will you swim in awkward this week? Stay in when it doesn't feel comfortable.... stay in and swim around and see what God will do." 

The kids know the volunteers are coming. They look forward to it. Year after year, the volunteers return. More often, the same ones come back again and again. A family develops without any of us meaning for it to happen. The night before summer camp, the anticipation runs high for the children. Will their person be among the sea of volunteers descending on the camp tomorrow? Just as the volunteers have their favorite kids, the kids also have their favorite volunteers, and they wait with fingers crossed for them to emerge from the bus. You can imagine the tears when their hopes are not met with reality and the sheer joy when they are. Regardless, the volunteers that show up are all in. Perhaps they were negotiating a multimillion-dollar deal the day before they landed in Mongolia, but while they are at the camp, it's all for the kids. They become kids themselves. Their presence changes the atmosphere of the camp. They give every ounce of their heart and soul, and because of it, the children are transformed, year after year, from children without families to children who have families all over the globe. 

Lost in my task list for the next day, I followed the path back to the tents, but then something caught my heart, caught it hard, caught it strong. The tents all lined up in silence, cradled by the most beautiful breathtaking starry night I'd ever seen. The milky way brightly sprawled out in a swirl that I could reach up and touch in my captured imagination. I  stood small and nearly swallowed by God's awe-inspiring handiwork. A fiercely tender and merciful God had made that. Fierce enough to break through heaven and hell to get us. Tender enough to come down for us, to be all in as if we were all that mattered.  

Looking at the tents lined up like painted pictures under the starry sky that took my breath away, I thought of the act of service, the bending down to come near the orphan, the joy in it. So much like Jesus. So much like Jesus that it had to be, Jesus. I felt the fierce and tender mercy of God in the presence of our sleeping volunteers that night. I felt it as powerful as I felt that night sky. I felt it as if God were right near me because He was in all of them.