Colombia Trip - Day 1

11/3
10:15am
We arrived at the airport this morning in Chicago. Made it to the “self-service” check-in, which is a phenomenal invention for the impatient movement of modern-day America. Irony whipped its tail at us as the boarding pass printer couldn’t spit out our stubs quick enough. There are probably no more arrogant American terms than “self-service”. However, the unplanned stop provided for conversation with those around us. We were able to exhibit patience with Kimberly, the desk worker. And a lady pegged us as doing missions work. We didn’t have any special “Jesus words” that were being shared together. Apparently three touristy looking men carrying drum heads and laptops screams mission work. Security was uneventful, and we are still waiting to take off.

All the while I am feeling like I have spent every flying opportunity that I have trying to figure out what it means to be Jesus in these situations. Will people just know? Should I talk to the guy next to me? But, what if he’s using the entire armrest!?! I mean if I truly possess the spirit of Jesus incarnate in my body, shouldn’t that change the way I view the people around me. All talking, eating their Burrito Beach, or reading their magazines…shouldn’t they know that there is more to this? I mean, I am flying to Colombia to tell people about Jesus, what is wrong with Gate K5, don’t they deserve it too? Who am I to tell them though, I don’t understand it. I don’t get praying, or why Jesus did what he did or said what he said. And the Holy Spirit, I couldn’t even begin to explain what he does, or where he is. So what could I honestly bring? I am progressively realizing, though, that everyone of us has the same questions, but very few are actually willing to ask them. Instead of actually believing we convince ourselves that we believe, which is belief in an entirely lesser being, our own logic. Back to Gate K5 though, I am sure they have questions…how do I get them to ask? Do I ask first? Because here is the problem, Colombia comes and goes…but I find myself in a different Gate K5 everyday. I can be Jesus in Colombia, I mean I am white so I already stand out. I guess all I can consistently do is pray, with all of my ignorance in the topic itself. God, help me to be Jesus at Gate K5. The funny thing is, God doesn’t want anything else. In prayer I rely solely on Him. Anything else is lesser. Anything else is self-service.


4:25
We arrived in Miami. It was a fairly uneventful flight, aside from the woman that I caught after she tripped over my foot. We walked what seemed like across the country to reach our terminal, but lo and behold, we arrived. One more flight, 3 hours, and we will be in Colombia.

I have been thinking more about this whole “what about the Gate K5 people?” and I think that I am coming to a conclusion. Each individual’s spiritual influence has less to do with the people they reach, and more to do with how they handle the interactions provided to them. I mean if we are honest, tracts, 4 spiritual laws, and personal evangelism as we know it is unattractive and quite frankly repulsive to the average individual. And the bottom line is that no one person is going to revolutionize the world. Thought still processing…to be continued.

A guy named Michael came into my office a few weeks back searching for “genuine community”. He was 33 years old, long, slick black hair, and an untrimmed beard. He wore a faded, dirty v-neck t-shirt, and rustic, khaki corduroys. He had been kicked out of his apartment the week before and had broken off all ties with friends and family. To this day I don’t know if by genuine community he meant $20 for lunch, or a legitimate friendship, however it was the latter that I attempted to offer Him. We bumped into each other fairly regularly over the course of the next couple of weeks, all the while trying to establish the kind of trust he had dismissed as “nearly impossible to create quickly”. Frustration, impatience, anger…all emotions that were present every time that he showed up at the church. If he had been searching for genuine community, I didn’t show it to him.

6:00
Michael affected me that day. Immediately my ideologies of church had been turned upside-down. Some guy, came in from outside of the church and wanted to experience what people in the church should be experiencing. I’ve experienced the kind of community he was describing, but it wasn’t in the church. Everything in Michael’s life screamed “YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT”. And where should he find validation?

It is my opinion that I am important, I am validated because I am valued and loved by God. It is the relationship that I have with God that speaks meaning into my soul, that allows me to wake up, free of the hedonism that inflates the arrogance of our culture, and it allows me to rise above the “self-serving” ethos I find myself in. And, if I am providing the spirit of Jesus incarnate, the second person of the trinity, I too should share in the validation process of those that are around me, freeing them to experience my relationship with Jesus, possibly beginning one of their own, all the while being truly known and experienced by another human being. In so doing, one breaks the hedonistic rituals of our society.