And Kelsey sang

It was hot… I am talking about the kind of hot that motivates you to share the gospel from the sheer horror of knowing that Hell is real and worse than the current environment you find yourself in. And I forgot my deodorant… The wet stickiness under my armpits reminded me of those days in middle school when I first started wearing deodorant. I’m sure you remember your first wearing deodorant days and the unmistakable regret that welled inside you on those days you realized you forgot to apply that sweat protector. I painfully reminisced of how I would fake sick just to go home because of my impending smell. Now being a veteran deodorant wearer, I couldn’t remember the last time I forgot my deodorant and it seemed paradoxically fitting that here I was in a village in a mountain in Mexico on the seemingly hottest day without my Mitchumen antiperspirant. Not only was I reeking of body odor, but also my body was tired and achy from the work that I had been doing in the kitchen the previous week. My mind was tired from teaching 10 classes and translating; I was at the point of speaking English but with Spanish grammar. Let’s just say that “She is a girl pretty” sounds strange. My feet were swollen and reminding me of that ever familiar dulling pain. I was sitting on a wooden pew in the middle of seven Mexican children who chattered away in their Indian dialect when I glanced up at the ceiling and admitted “Father, I am tired. I don’t think I have anything left to give.” I was at the end of myself. But something happened. Something made me come alive and conquer my physical exhaustion and mental tiredness. All I can say is that Kelsey sang. Yes, Kelsey sang. Man, did she ever sing. I have never met anyone quite like her who was so musically talented and so consecrated to God at the same time. And that is all it took. She played her guitar and sang. Suddenly the heat within the church transitioned from something unbearably uncomfortable to the warmth and protection of a winter coat in a storm. The sweat on my face turned into tears making their way down the curves of my cheeks. The disarray of words and grammatical rules of two languages that were mixed in an alphabet soup in my mind formed words in comprehensible ways. Peace and strength resonated within my body to the notes that eloquently and unashamedly flowed from Kelsey’s mouth. And I joined her as we sang praises to our King in this little church in some village in a mountain in Mexico.

And then the little girl, who had been sitting in my lap since we started the VBS, looked up at me with those beautiful mesmerizing brown eyes and every inconvenience, sore muscle, and discouraged thought disappeared as she tugged and pulled on the loose strands that had fallen on my face. I inclined my head, giving her little fingers the advantage to my rebellious strands of hair. In this moment in some village in a mountain in Mexico, God spoke straight to my heart and evoked within me His love for humanity. The people that we coin as “the lost” became more than terminology or some abstract concept that we Christians throw around at Bible studies or mission conferences and going to the nations became more than a command. It became a little five year girl. Lost now had a name; it was Arelia. Lost had a smell and it was a mixture of dirt, sweat, and tortillas. Lost had a soft curious touch. The nations had a heartbeat and I could feel it rhythmically pulsate against my chest. Lost liked blueberry lollypops and in fact her tongue and lips were stained blue. So many times we think of Jesus’ command to share our faith as some kind of burden. Let me disagree with you completely. To forsake the so called American Dream, to give up your comfortable lifestyle of instant macaroni and cheese, to leave your family and everything you have ever known is hard and challenging but something happened in my heart as I gazed through those little fingers that were playing with my hair to those precious brown eyes…. In those eyes I found the purpose of my life… I was born to tell Lost that Jesus loves her… And whispering these three small words “Jésus te ama” in Arelia’s ear made everything I left behind in the land of hamburgers and movie stars no sacrifice at all. To share your faith is no burden at all but a privilege, great joy, and something I take very seriously. I know everyone reading this blog has a little Arelia in your life. You don’t have to go to a foreign country to find her. She might look different, talk different, act different, than my Lost but I bet if you look close enough you can find that same hunger and curiosity in your Arelia’s eyes that I saw. What is stopping you from whispering those same three little words in her ear? What is blocking you from being synced with the compassion God has for humankind? ... And Kelsey sang. It wasn’t her amazing voice, skillful hands, or the words of the song that awakened my spirit but it was the power behind the song; moreover, it was the God of the song. I know life is hard and your environment might not be conducive but I pray that your spirit would hear Kelsey’s song and first that you would rejoice in Our Maker and then that you would look at the little girl on your lap with Jesus’ eyes. Do you hear the music? Have you looked around? Believe me, lost is not some religious term. Lost has a name, a smell, a heartbeat….