We were in South Africa visiting our ministry team and on the way to a church outside Johannesburg where Phil,my husband, was scheduled to speak at a pastors conference....when we received a call from Emily, our World Racer, at 2:00 am her time. We were surprised and concerned to be hearing from her! Her first words were, "Dad, first of all, I'm fine." Best words we could have heard! Then she told us about how she had been robbed a few hours earlier and her laptop, external hard drive, and new camera were stolen during their team time when everyone was away. It was the first time she had lowered her guard, feeling a false sense of security since the apartment they were staying in was in a locked courtyard. Someone had access to a key, and they must have known what she owned and where they were staying. Thankfully, she was safe, and not physically assaulted. She was not even present. That was the main blessing. But she was shaken and felt violated and disappointed, even disillusioned, and sad that she had lost her month of pictures from Ecuador and documentation from there. She had recorded so many images and made videos...priceless and irreplaceable. She had grown so close to the people there and had learned so much from her time in the rain forest...it was a huge personal loss. She wanted to be strong for her team, because they were all paranoid about theft, and she didn't want to put fear in their hearts....but her emotions were strong, and she was struggling...it was lonely and difficult.
We were upset and felt so badly for her. As parents, we wanted to drop everything, run to her side, and fix it! But we knew there was nothing we could do for her at that time, and it was very hard if not impossible to comfort her so far away. So we listened and told her how thankful we were that she was okay, and that we would do everything possible to replace her lost items...and told her to try to get some sleep. And we prayed a LOT for her. It was really difficult. That night, I had a lot of trouble sleeping and wanted to be with Emily and make sure she was feeling safe. I needed to know that she was taken care of and I wanted to hold her and tell her everything would be all right like I did when she was a child....but all I could do is ask God to meet her in a special way and make His presence known to her stronger than she had experienced so far since she left home. I knew He would take care of her, but I didn't know just how okay she was until the next morning...when I awoke to read a blog she had written during the night. Here it is...
....A Sloppy Wet Kiss
Posted in Peru by Emily Tuttle on 3/17/2011
I love Christmastime for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorite things is wrapping presents. In my family I'm the present wrapper. I like to choose the perfect paper for each person's interests, neatly wrap the present with exactly three pieces of Scotch tape, and select an accompanying ribbon to tie a beautiful bow on top. One year I even bought plain, solid colored paper, wrapped all the presents, and then took gold and silver paint and painted pictures and patterns onto the paper so that I could design each present's appearance. I know...it sounds just the tiniest bit obsessive. Suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoy when things are nicely wrapped up in a neat, aesthetically-pleasing package with no loose ends.
The World Race is the exact opposite of that.
During our first meeting as a new team after the changes at debrief in Quito, our new leader, Jeremiah, asked each of us what the World Race is to us. Why did we come? Why did we leave our homes for eleven months? What are we hoping to gain, do, achieve, give, or take away from this? In light of recent events, my answer seems oddly fitting, and I think the time has come to share with you what the World Race is to me...
I had a lot of reasons for coming on the World Race. Most of them have to do with the fact that it's pretty much the coolest ministry idea I've ever heard of. If I could design a ministry that would be ideal for me and my life calling, it would look very similar. So I applied. But it wasn't until I was on the Race, in the Dominican Republic, that I realized exactly what I was participating in.
During our time in the DR, we frequently had corporate worship with the four teams living in the San Juan house. Bekah would play her guitar, and the song she always came back to was How He Loves. We sang it almost every time we had worship, and it has become a favorite of our squad. One night as we were singing, part of the lyrics jumped out in my mind, and I realized: This is the World Race.
Heaven meets earth like a sloppy, wet kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way
He loves us, oh how he loves us...
A sloppy, wet kiss.
It hit me...the World Race is that sloppy, wet kiss. There are many goals behind the Race, but more than anything it's about heaven meeting earth. It's about bringing heaven to earth and showing people that they can live inside the love of God, protected in the palm of his hand--not only after they die and go to heaven, but right now as well. It's about teaching people that miracles still happen, and that we still serve the same powerful God of the Bible. Through prayer, following the Holy Spirit, and living out our faith daily, World Racers seek to live in that intersection of supernatural and literal. We want to live inside of the sloppy, wet kiss, in the place where heaven meets earth, but what does that look like?
Basically, it looks exactly how it sounds...sloppy, messy, confusing, intense, amazing. It's like living inside of the spark that happens when two electrically charged things touch. We live in moments of divine appointment, moments of influence, moments of uncertainty, moments of impact.
Sometimes it's a million degrees and you're covered in mud, sweat, and countless bug bites. Sometimes kids are climbing all over you, slobbering on your shirt and blessing your already-hot body with their additional body heat. Sometimes, like I did last night, you get all your things stolen when thieves break into your apartment.
But at those same times, you remember that the mud you're hiking through is leading you to people who need to hear about God. You realize that you are getting to love his children, and thereby love him. You understand that things are things and that people matter more.
The World Race is all of this. Instead of a nicely wrapped package with a pretty bow on top, it's messy, but it's the means through which God is bringing his Kingdom to earth, and there's nowhere I'd rather be. My time at Wheaton College taught me to do everything For Christ and His Kingdom, and the World Race is certainly that. Even though right now I'm dirty, I don't exactly smell like rose petals, and I no longer own any of my valuables, I'm happy, because unlike most people on planet Earth, I'm doing my dream job. I'm living in the sloppy, wet kiss.
On earth as it is in heaven... (end of blog)
All I can say is that it was the biggest hug from God that I have received in long time...just what I needed to hear. It was a huge blessing for me and Phil as parents separated from our child who is experiencing stress and had gone through a very disturbing ordeal. Wow, we cried...and we knew she was going to be fine and had experienced the tender loving care of her Heavenly Father in a new way. It took this event to make us more aware that we were no longer her providers, her sufficiency, her comfort, her security....we couldn't be....we could only watch from afar and be witnesses of something truly special happening to our daughter. It didn't mean that she didn't still feel hurt and sad and afraid and violated, but her needs were being met by her teammates as they shared their laptops with her so she could stay connected and keep up her blogs, and they took extra pictures of her in ministry and with special people and in special places so she could have recorded memories later, and they prayed with her and encouraged her and gave her their support....it was the body of Christ at work which is a beautiful thing when it happens the way God intended...out of need and full of grace! Praise be to God!
