Amy Medina

So I don’t know about you, but these days, I’m afraid to read the news.

Talk about a downer.

If you’ve read this blog for very long, you know that I grew up in Liberia.  A few weeks ago, you might have never heard of the place.  Now, everybody knows about it.

In fact, I grew up on the ELWA compound, home of ELWA Hospital–where Dr. Brantly and Nancy Writebol were serving when they contracted Ebola.  My dad, in fact, was chief pharmacist and then hospital administrator at the very same hospital in the 80’s.

So you could say that this whole Ebola tragedy–even before the doctors got sick–has been hitting me straight in the heart.

And then there’s the Iraqi Christians.  

Whew.  Talk about breaking our collective American Christian hearts.  Right?  Right?  Totally.

I’ve felt a dark cloud over my head the past few days.  I had a nightmare about being stabbed and I’m sure it’s because I’ve spent so much timing thinking about this.  

And we pray.  And pray and pray and beg God to intervene.  Praying is good and necessary and I firmly believe it is the best work we can do on behalf of these people.  

But today I went to this link, which gives examples of organizations who are working in Iraq and need funds. 

I’ve been thinking about how God has called us Americans to other work besides only prayer:  the work of sacrificial giving.  

After all, we are, in fact, the richest people in the world.  And by “we,” I mean anyone reading this.  If you are rich enough to own a computer, and you read English, you qualify.  

As in, we’re princes and princesses.  Aristocracy of the world.  If you don’t believe me, click hereand enter your salary.  Please–it will give you the shock of your day.

Hey, I know that America is in some difficult financial times.  I get that.  Even this week, we came to the hard realization that we most likely will need a new transmission in our car.  Ugh.  I “get” difficult financial times.

But really?  Do I get “difficult” as in “run for your life to the mountains with only the clothes on your back, leaving behind the body of your daughter?”  Do I get “contracting a disease that gives you a 90% chance of dying a slow, painful death where your insides turn to mush?”  

I’ll take the “problem” of a bad transmission, thank you very much.

This is the truth of it, friends.  It’s easy to post the Nazarene symbol on Facebook.  It’s easy to share news articles, and it’s even easy to pray because it doesn’t cost us much.  

But what I am asking myself today:  Do I care enough that it will affect my checking account?  Am I willing to sacrifice?  

Yes, it all makes me really sad and angry.  But do I really, truly care?  

I knew by writing this post that I would be required to include myself in this same category.  I was kind of afraid to write it, for that reason.  

But we must, must, must consider this question.  Did God make us rich because He loves us more?  Did He make us rich because we deserve happy lives?  Or did He give us what we have so that we can use it for His kingdom?  

What will I say when I stand before Him, accountable for everything He entrusted to me?   “Well, God, I posted the Nazarene symbol on Facebook.  I even shed a few tears on their behalf.”  

Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.

To whom much has been given, much will be required.

This the linkof Iraqi organizations, and this is one place where you can donate to help Ebola prevention and its victims.

It’s the same, but not the same.

In many ways, nothing has changed.  My brain has made the switch to Tanzania.  Habits and routines that I completely forgot about have come back to me.  A few weeks ago, I couldn’t even fathom living in Tanzania again.  Now, it is effortless.  Well, as much as living in a third-world country can be effortless.

It’s like muscle memory, my friend Alyssa said to me.

Yes.  I know what to do here.  And it helps that I am in the same house in the same neighborhood in the same city.

Yet.

Everything has changed.

I am still living less than half a mile away from HOPAC.  My children will be attending there in less than two weeks.

But it is not my life anymore.

My muscle memory sees the new teachers arriving and I start thinking about when I should have them over.  By instinct, I start making plans for the new school year.  Shouldn’t we be creating the theme for the year right now?  Shouldn’t we be getting Gil’s classroom ready?  Shouldn’t we be attending the in-services?

But no.  No, I tell myself.  That is not your life anymore.

Oh, I will still be around.  I’m going to be on the board and I will join the parent association and I will volunteer in my kids’ classes.

But I will be a parent.  Not a staff member.  Not involved in the intricate details.  It won’t be my life.

And that’s hard for me; hard to give it up because it was my life for 10 years.  And I loved that life.  And I love that school.

Truthfully, I’m excited about my new life, too.  Instead of reading books and discussing Christian school culture, Gil and I are reading books and discussing Tanzanian culture.  Soon, he will be setting up a new office and preparing a new classroom in a completely different kind of school.  It’s a complete shift in mindset.  My daily routines will look very different from before.

But I don’t have muscle memory for it.  It feels awkward and uncomfortable and new and I have no idea what I am doing.

I think back to those first years at HOPAC when I felt the same way.  So I know that the same thing will happen this time around, that my new life and ministry will settle in and become the new normal.

And in this period of in between, I will remind myself that He is good and faithful and He has called us to this new thing.  And that He delights in weakness because He is strong.  This–these truths–have become the real muscle memory for me.  They will not change.