Before Laura Kurtz‘s trip to Nicaragua, she didn’t know what to do with her life. After 56 days of living in community with her Passport team, she returned home with a vision.
When I signed up to go to Nicaragua, I was running. Running from reality, from growing up, from the future. My college graduation loomed large only a few weeks away, and I was spending entirely too much time wearing suits, shaking hands, and talking about where I saw myself. The trouble was, I didn’t see myself anywhere.
While I’m not too proud of my splendid display of cowardice in what basically amounted to packing a duffel bag and running away from home, I do take comfort in knowing I ran to the right place. I didn’t run to a third-world country, or an orphanage, or even into the arms of a smiling child; I ran to my Savior.
You see, my time in Nicaragua wasn’t about planting rice on the side of a volcano to help feed impoverished families or the packages of food we delivered or the dirt we shoveled or the number of times we made a child laugh. It was about learning to live in God.
Christians know how to live with God: you go to church, read your Bible, say your prayers, and maybe volunteer as an usher for good measure. Perhaps you donate to missions or give up Wednesday nights to work with the youth group. And yet, as I found out, you still might not be living in him.
Don’t misunderstand me; absolutely none of those things are bad or wrong. In fact, they’re all great. But compared to resting constantly in God, in fellowship with the body of Christ, they’re nothing.
In Nicaragua, my team and I lived in God and in community with believers. We gave freely of our possessions, shared in extreme happiness at the smallest of things, cried for each other’s pain, and exposed our utter and complete brokenness. And because of that, I have never felt closer to God.
During our 56 days together, we experienced the church as it was meant to be. We didn’t have small group or a Bible study. We couldn’t understand many of the sermons. Much of the time there wasn’t anything for us to do but sit in awe at the beauty God had placed around us. But we were more a church than any building I’ve ever been in.
What made us a church was how entirely God permeated every aspect of our beings: every conversation included his name, every song was in worship, every good thing came from him, to him went the praise, and every tear was caught in his hand.
I know what you’re thinking because for a while I was guilty of thinking it too: that’s awesome, but you can’t have that in normal life. You can’t just talk about the miracles God has done in the coffee shop or break into spontaneous worship in the grocery store. People would think you were crazy.
But are we not to become fools to the world in order that we might gain God’s wisdom? For “we have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ” (1 Cor 4:9-10).
It would be an awful lot easier for me to go back to Nicaragua. To dive into missions for the rest of my life would be the simplest way to regain that sense of living totally in God that I’m striving for. But if we spend our lives looking back at where we’ve been, we’ll never see where God has placed us today or recognize where he’s leading us.
So I refuse to take the easy way out. I refuse to change my location and choose instead to change myself. I choose to live like I am in Nicaragua, like I am with my team, like I am a part of the body of Christ wherever I go.
And may the world think me ever crazier because of it.
Whether you’re traveling around the world or staying close to home this year, you can learn to rest in God like Laura did. Want to experience life with a team of missionaries like Laura’s in Nicaragua? Apply for one of our summer Passport trips!
Photo credits: misssunshine23, kayladawnn, apenny4urthougts, daragyorko
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