This is now my 17th month on the field. It is a lot of time to be away from home, and some days are easier than others and sometimes certain seasons are really hard. This entire last month I have wrestled with the Lord about whether or not I really wanted to say yes to this life. Is it really worth it to miss all the good things at home? Is it really worth it to miss my family so much? I used to want to run when the hard things happened but now the Lord has healed my heart to a place where I want to dive into the hard things, especially with people I love the most.
So when a season comes where my family is struggling and I finally know how to comfort, is it still worth it to me to be on the field where I believe God has called me to be? As I wrestled with these questions, I didn’t want to just say yes, I wanted to truly count the cost and mean it with every fiber of my being (Luke 14:25-33). So when hard things come up again, I don’t question my yes, but just lean further into trusting the Lord and where He has me.
This last month was one of those seasons, where nothing looked like what I expected. Where I questioned every day whether saying yes to this trip was the right decision.
When we first arrived in Romania, we were almost immediately put in quarantine. Covid proceeded to spread throughout the house, despite our best efforts and eventually made its way to me… again. As I battled with extreme fatigue and difficulty breathing, our environment constantly changed as we tried to keep the sick ones together and the healthy ones safe. I felt displaced and too tired to want to pour into those around me.
Then, I receive the news that our family cabin has burned down in the recent California fires. This place has been in my family for about 60 years and also has recently been a home for me and my parents. It has been a place of refuge for my whole family at any point in our lives. It is the place I expected to go back to after these 3 months on the field for the holidays. It is the place that feels serene, safe, and secure. If all else fails, we at least had the cabin. Now even that is gone.
In a season where God has already been stripping back all of what I was holding onto, this felt like the final string was cut.
For the same fire that, when contained, lit and warmed the sweetest memories of my childhood, is the very same power that, when set loose, destroyed our place of refuge.
I have never had a time that I so badly wanted to go home. So I wrestled a lot, I wrestled to understand the reality of what was lost, while also trying to lead the people around me to whom I had already given my commitment.
Through more events of heartbreak that happened in this time, all of the securities I had created in my identity, my family, and my surroundings were shaken. I knew this season would be hard when the Lord told me He was going to teach me about dependency, but I had no idea what it would entail.
But even when we get burned, He will always bring beauty from ashes.
Read on to part 2 for the redemption…
Jordan, you were brave to write this blog. Vulnerability can be hard at times- yet it shows here the challenges that missionaries go through on the field. To me, the suffering and the fire change missions from a romanticized adventure around the world to a wholly dependant lifestyle where we are at the end of ourselves and look only towards God to move. As someone who witnessed all this play out, I could see it as a pouring out of yourself as you dedicate your life to bringing hope to those who have none. It’s painful. We love those things back home. A sharp word entered my mind in Albania as the stripping away took place in my life as well- Disintegration. Disintegration of what was there- what used to be there. Yet in the midst of that, God steps in. And He sees us and His servants who suffer for His name. Who have left so much behind for the Gospel- travelling around the world and away from what is known. And He brings peace- even to the broken hearted. Encouraged to see you walk through the hard moments- and to face them together with the Lord. Praying for you and your family as you all chart a path forward from this.