Blind Faith

As my year of service in Malaysia comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my experience and how it relates to faith.  Thinking of leaving makes me think of how I got here, too.   Ever since I applied for the Young Adults in Global Mission program back in December 2008, I’ve had little more than a vague idea of what I was getting in to.  If you would have asked me then if I ever considered living in Southeast Asia or teaching English or knew where Kota Kinabalu was, I would have given you a blank stare.  Interviewing for country placements in April 2009, I never actually thought I would be assigned Malaysia; I speak Spanish and have lived in Colombia before, so wouldn’t Argentina be the obvious choice? But believing things like this happen for a reason, I accepted my Malaysia assignment. Coming to Malaysia, I had know idea where I’d be living, what I would be eating, who or how many children were at Jireh Home and what they expected me to do there.  I just had to hold my breath, close my eyes, plug my nose (if there was durian around) and jump in.  I had to believe that I would be given the support I needed because I knew I couldn’t swim this race by myself. (Just ask anyone in my college swimming class where I was nicknamed “Flips” because I always had to wear flippers to keep up).  Moving to a new country without your old friends or family forces you to have faith.  If I didn’t completely trust in the people working with me, even though I just met them, I would have freaked out.  You are thrown into a whole new world, creating more anxiety than anyone could handle without the belief that things are going to be ok.

Being so far away with limited communications and a polar opposite time zone, had made staying in touch difficult too.  I have had little contact with many of my friends from home and my extended family. So when I have had difficult times here, this has increased my feelings of isolation and loneliness.  Life has gone on without me in the US; and although sometimes things move very slowly in relaxed Sabah, everyone at home remains busy.  Sometimes I won’t have a conversation or email exchange with loved ones for months on end.  If it weren’t for faith, I could easily become self-pitying and feel forgotten.  But I know deep in my heart that my loved ones back home are thinking about and praying for me.  I have proof of that by the fact that I’m about to finish this race, buoyed by their support.  So even though someone I miss may not have a good chance to contact me for a while, I know I am in their thoughts as much as they are in mine; and our relationship will pick up right where it left off when I return.  I can feel the support (thank you!).

I’m a good Lutheran in that I always have many, many doubts about my faith.  I especially struggle with the question of why God doesn’t give us indisputable proof of his existence? It would answer so many questions, bring so many to Christianity, and end the debate once and for all.  Of course S/He gives us lots of small-scale evidence daily, but it would be hard to argue with Bertrand Russell using proof the daily miracle of flowers and dimples.  My YAGM experience has given me a strong analogy for the blind faith I need to have in God.  Even though God isn’t going to appear to me and make my face glow like Moses, and my college roommates aren’t going to send me a Hallmark greeting card every week, I still know that they care for me.  And even though the Holy Spirit may not make me spontaneously speak in tongues like the Apostles (I still had to learn Malay the old-fashioned way), and most people can’t afford to call long-distance to Malaysia, I know their thoughts and support are keeping me afloat.  In the same way, I need to trust in everybody I work with and God to get me through the day.  Every moment is a new experience and everyday a new adventure.  Without faith, I would be playing video games in my parents basement right now.  I have had to trust everyone this year from the head of the YAGM program, Heidi Torgerson, and down to the 12-year-old that calms me down after meeting a 6-foot monitor lizard on our jogging route, and all the way up to God.  Without their support and my faith in that support, I never would have finished this marathon.  Any successes I have had this year, or ever, are hardly my own doing but the result a phenomenally large, complex, and beautiful structure of humanity and divinity.  And in this rock, I have blind faith.

Advertisement