Keep Moving, or Waste Away

Last year I completed a discipleship program through Serge Missionary Network, called Sonship. I decided to continue meeting with my mentor, Laura, while in Lithuania. Laura and her husband worked with Serge in Ireland.One of the facts I learned in the Sonship program is that going forward into another culture to speak forth and live out the gospel is like “throwing Miracle Grow on your sins.” I have found this to be true. I have seen more of my own sins in these past eight weeks, mostly warmed-over versions of old familiar ones, and some (seemingly) new ones.For example, when confronted with the fifteenth insurmountable problem in a day, I get angry and try to find (in my own mind) someone to blame: the stupid system, the incompetent people, weird cultural differences, the sloth of others. My frustration with the IT system or international banking or the genitive, accusative and locative tenses must be somebody else’s fault, because I’m doing my best. And yet, when I prayed about these things, I realized I had overestimated my ability to handle new situations. Some things really are too hard for me. In other cases, I must go through the process of learning. That is, trying out things to see if they work, asking for help, doing what I’m told, and practicing.I think that in living in the US, in a familiar world with familiar people, I had learned to keep myself out of what one of my students calls “the stretch zone.” He draws three concentric circles. The inner circle is the stagnant zone, where your mental “muscles” wither from lack of use; the outer one is the stress zone, where the challenges of life are overwhelming and begin to destroy you; and the one between them is the place where you are challenged, and grow.But if you keep yourself out of the stretch zone, you keep yourself from growing. Worse, you make yourself waste away.There's nothing for it. I must keep throwing myself into the new situations and doing my best, trying, making mistakes, looking like a fool, suffering loss. What if I take the wrong bus? What if I try to speak with a native speaker and say the wrong thing? What if I'm overcharged and don't realize it?But what if I get off the bus and ask for help? What if I try saying it correctly, and on the twenty-second time, finally succeed? What if someone gets a few more euros because I'm not savvy?Keep moving, or waste away.