Carrying A Tangible Hope

To properly convey what has been going on in the deepest, most hidden parts of my brain and heart over the past few weeks feels really hard. I’ve said this since I applied but it’s hard to explain how I got here. It’s difficult to translate what the Lords been doing in me over the years to prepare me for the simple ‘just saying yes’ part. But I’ll sit here on my electric blue couch trying to give you the answers to the infamous question of why, providing you with too many details and run-on sentences…

The colors of my soul have never felt so vibrant before. I’ve never felt so called, so urged and pursued, so certain and filled with confirmation throughout this process so far. I’ve said yes to packing up a small portion of home and living out of a backpack for nine months, camping for nights on end, submerging into unknown cultures – an eyes closed kind of commitment. blind faith. I’ll be leaving everything I’ve ever known for the past eighteen years and living in three separate countries within nine months alongside humans just like me, who are stepping into a full-surrender lifestyle. We’ll be creating an atmosphere of Jesus everywhere we go, partnering with local likeminded ministries throughout Eswatini, Thailand and Costa Rica where there’s a hunger for sustainability, hope and the gospel. The desperation is lingering to the lost, we’re standing in the gap and investing for complete life change.

All across the globe, there are communities lacking. We’ll be stepping into a handful of these communities by teaching English, lending each and any helping hand to orphanages, churches, schools and streets in the middle of these countries, working in neighborhoods that have been crippled by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, prayer-walking through the red-light district. Providing clean water, food, education, healthcare, discipleship and ministering to the less-fortunate. As I am preparing to gain insight and see firsthand the true poverty in each of the places I get to step foot in, I feel a weight on my shoulders that says I won’t ever understand. Who am I to walk into a community where its crippled by diseases and disasters my eyes can’t even begin to fathom? How could I possibly help? How could I possibly make their loads lighter? And that’s when the light makes its way into my chest and I feel that sizzling sensation that’s been fueling this dream for years now. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why tears fill my eyes and I get chills in place of heaviness.

Who am I to say I am unequipped when I have the very thing that’s a pressing demand?

hope.

I could never begin to understand what it’s like to be in the shoes of the abandoned widow or the orphan as a result of HIV/AIDS or fearing starvation/dehydration due to lack of resources. I’ll never understand the place of the underprivileged as I am a direct result of the opposite. So I don’t have much to offer, but what I do have to offer is hope.

a living hope. a tangible hope. a hope you can touch, with a name and a face. 

A hope that can come into the city or countryside and flip its lacking into wholeness and feed its hungry heart. I cannot let the God inside me not reach the hearts of the people waiting to hear what I have to tell them. I cannot withhold the piece of Him I embody from them. I may be the only way they’ll ever hear of His name. I may be the only way they know there’s more, there’s oh so much more.

It may seem crazy, honestly it seems crazy to me. But this feels like a search for purpose in the name of Jesus. This feels like a glimpse of heaven- or a desire to make it evident in areas where it’s never been heard before. In the name of Jesus the lands we touch will fall in love with His heart, I pray the hope and vision I hold will be enough to cover the multitudes. Jesus, be the source of every supply. This world is yours, repeat in me what you do in heaven. 

All my love,

Kayli