The Beautiful Truths God Had to Bring Me to the Amazon Jungle to Remind Me Of

This is the letter I wrote to my supporters upon my return from Peru. It was an experience of a lifetime (as you will soon read). Therefore, I wanted to share my experience with all of you out there. Enjoy!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As you have probably heard (or at the very least are now becoming aware), I am back from Puerto Maldonado, Peru. It was the trip of a lifetime to say the very least. It challenged me in ways I didn’t anticipate and I loved it. And I think God knew I needed that. As I was walking back from the informational meeting about Peru back in September, I was met with a poster that had just appeared that day. It said this: a ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. God really took me out the harbor on this one. Wow! Even on the trip I was contemplating what I was going to say to you all when I returned and even as I type I am not entirely sure everything God is trying to teach me and show me through the trip. There are a few things I am absolutely sure about though. One is that I will never forget Peru, the people I went with, the people I met there, or the lessons God taught me. Another is that none of it would have been possible if God hadn’t provided and I firmly believe you all were a grand part of that. That is obviously evident by your financial support (which provided everything I needed for this trip and more!) and your prayers which are evidenced by the results of our trip. We safely traveled 4,000 miles, drove from the Twin Cities to Chicago, took 9 flights, slept in an airport twice, and spent 8 days in the jungle without getting eaten or bitten by anything deadly. So thank you for your support through financial giving and all your prayer.

There are so many things I wish to tell you about the trip but first – the basics. We left on Thursday March 3rd at 3 a.m. We drove to Chicago then flew to El Salvador. From El Salvador we flew to Lima, Peru. After a nice stay on the airport floor, we flew to Cusco and then to our final destination, Puerto Maldonado. The group was small – it was just 4 of us. We spent 8 days serving with El Arca children’s home on a farm in the Amazon jungle. We spent time with the family (especially the kids – man, will I never forget them) and served them by helping wherever needed (making meals, cleaning, painting, fixing the road, etc.) After our time was up, we started our long journey back home. We had a fun night in Lima during our 12 hour layover which was just what we needed after being in the middle of the jungle with no contact with the outside world for over a week. We arrived back home Sunday, March 13th in the evening.

Our trip was filled with so many new adventures and new things for me. I left the continent for the first time. I went to the jungle for the first time. I flew by myself for the first time (from Chicago to Minneapolis). I slept in an airport for the first time (and the second time we were awoken by a woman who was poking us to get us up so she could wash the floor we were sleeping on!). I rode in a taxi for the first time (with a crazy driver in a traffic jam – seatbelt is highly recommended for that ride). I ate octopus and ceviche for the first time. I spilled human waste on myself for the first (and I hope the last) time. I made eggplant lasagna for the first time (that one was an adventure – it turns out it is even more difficult to make lasagna in the jungle). I saw a rat run across the dining room for the first time. I saw spiders bigger than the palm of my hand for the first time. And I went a week without any contact with my parents for the first time. My trip was filled with a lot of firsts and I hope to continuing make such firsts for the rest of my life (except maybe ones like the whole spilling waste on myself thing).

Not only was it filled with a lot of exciting adventures and firsts but it was also filled with a lot of life lessons. One of the things I think God really wanted to remind me of on this trip is how constant He is. There are times in your life when you realize that in more dramatic ways. That first night in the jungle was one of those times for me. I was sitting there and I finally got it. Nothing is constant or guaranteed. Not the presence of friends or family, not your location, not your abilities, not your health, not your safety. Nothing is constant but the Creator of those things. Thankfully, that constant is all we truly need. Even if everything else were to fall away, we would still have all we needed because He is true, He is good, and He is loving. I realized that as I saw this family suffer. They left everything they knew in pursuit of starting this children’s home only to lose many of the kids years into their ministry as a result of the government trying to shut down orphanages. I can only imagine what it must be like for them right now as they choose which children they can keep and try to adopt and which they have to say goodbye to. I wrestled with this striking blow to the ministry of this family. How could God let this happen? I don’t know. My only prayer is that as a result more souls would be won for the kingdom as these children who are not able to stay are sent back to their families. Still, even as I wrestled with this. I noticed that the family wasn’t. Or at least that is what it seemed like. They went on praising God for His goodness and faithfulness. And suddenly I was struck on the head and reminded. God never promises prosperity. He promises His presence. Just like He never asks for fruitfulness, just faithfulness. And that is exactly what this family is doing. Trusting God and being faithful. I don’t know why some things happen but I do know this: God is good and He never lets anything be wasted. And so I want to be faithful. It is a lot easier to be faithful in the easier times of life but it will get harder. When I start my church someday, I hope the Lenz family and their perseverance will pop up in my head and I will be encouraged to continue to be faithful in the difficult season of church planting. As a result of this trip, I also want to get even closer to the Father. When I realized that He is the only true constant I realized that I need to have an even stronger relationship with Him than I already do. If He is my one and only then I need to spend even more time with Him and I want to because He is so so good.

It is still a little hard to believe. This time last week I was sleeping in the Lima, Peru airport after spending a week in the jungle. Now I am sitting in my dorm alone writing to all of you. This time two weeks ago I was almost to Puerto Maldonado with 3 people I barely knew and I came back with 2 sisters and a big brother (I guess traveling 4,000 miles to the jungle bonds people). So many things are uncertain. I don’t know if I will ever see any of those people I met in Peru again this side of heaven. I don’t know all the reasons God sent me to Peru yet. I don’t know where He will send me next (what is more outside my comfort zone than the Amazon jungle with 3 people I barely know?). But I do know this: God is true. God is good. God is loving. God is constant. And He provides. He provides in beautiful ways. He provides with finances, health, safety, and with marvelous family like you. Praise God.

Love, peace, and grace to you all,

Kallee

Prostitution, Parties, & Peru

Like I said in my last post, I feel as though God has been talking to me a lot on the subject of seeing the world. Like most human beings, I avoid discomfort and pain a little too much. When I hear about tragedy and the pain of others around the world I try to distance myself. I was challenged on this in chapel (at Northwestern) last spring. I downloaded a news app this spring to keep up with what is going on the world more. Still, I have been feeling lately like this is not nearly enough. It is not enough to check out the news app every once in a while and see what is going on through the eye's of an author. Lately, I have been feeling like God is calling me to see the world for myself. With this constant nudging came the repetition of a quote by one of my heroes. This hero of mine chose to see the world and face it. That is why William Wilberforce is one of the people I admire the most. The quote that continually repeated itself was this: "you may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know." I feel like God doesn't want me to able to say 'I did not know'. I feel like God is calling me to know - to know the world as it truly is, not just the rose-colored glasses version. He wants me to see the world through His eyes. Now, this requires a great bit of discomfort and pain, which as I mentioned I am not particularly fond of. But God doesn't usually ask us to do easy things now, does He?

God gave me this call and then just like He usually does He plopped several opportunities to live out that call in front of me within a matter of a couple of weeks.

Right when I was feeling like seeing the world was something I needed to do I was asked to be a leader of a weekly ministry team called Seeds of Hope. Seeds is a new Northwestern ministry started by friends of mine and what we do is we go out into the cities and minister to real people with real stories right where they are. The past 3 Saturday nights I have gone out with them have been amazing. God has truly blessed our time and allowed us to impact people. But He has also shown me the world through it. The first week we went to the U of M... during homecoming. That was completely eye-opening for me. I had never seen anything like it in my life. I thought college parties in the movies were completely exaggerated but what I saw that night was just like all those movies. It hurt to see it. It hurt to see all those people ruining their lives when they thought they were truly living them. But at the end of the evening I knew that I was there that night because God wanted me to see it all and dare me to feel something about it rather than try to shut it out. It is easy to make Northwestern a bubble where you stay and get a Christian education with Christian friends and never leave the safety net. But that is not exactly what God wants from us. He calls us to train ourselves to impact the world for His sake, yes. He calls us to be in community with other believers, yes. But He also calls us to be in the world and that is something I think we are called to do now as students. We don't have to wait for God to use us. He wants us to go out now and reach out to people.

Another way I feel like God is helping me to see the world came through a piece of paper. It was almost like God legitimately sent me an invitation (except it was not actually addressed to me - although it might as well have been). Before I tell you about this piece of paper there is some background you need to know. I have been on 4 mission trips now. They have all been within the states and have all impacted me greatly. I had every intention of going on the last Revolution mission trip next summer. But I was trying to figure out how I could do that if I were able to intern somewhere like I intend to. I didn't know if it would be a possibility so I started thinking about other mission trip opportunities. If I were to be unavailable in the summer I would only have one other window of opportunity to go on a trip: spring break. Luckily Northwestern sends teams out to places all over the country during spring break. They often go to New Orleans so I started thinking about how great it would be to go back to the place where God decided I would leave part of my heart. But before they announced where they were going over spring break I ran into this piece of paper. It was announcing an informational meeting about a trip to Peru. And get this - the trip was not over the summer like all but one of the international trips UNW takes are. This trip was happening during spring break. Coincidence? Probably not. For about a year now I have been thinking about how I have seen the world through mission trips but how in America nothing is quite so extreme as it is everywhere else. I was thinking about how going on a mission trip overseas would be so different and I began to think that maybe it was about time I go on an international trip. Well, here God was giving me one. Still, being a human, I tried to make excuses. Like how I am not a person built for the jungle or the mountains or warm weather in general and how I don't exactly speak fluent Spanish along with other excuses. But I realized quickly they were very weak excuses and my prayers for clarity were resulting in answers of "yep, Kallee, Peru" and "yes, I am calling you to go see all kinds of things that will hurt you to see them but it's something I need you to do for me". So long story short I spent my day today renewing my passport and in less than five months I will be in South America.

A third way God is continuing to show me the world is through Streetlight, Northwestern's homeless ministry. Every week we get to meet people with stories very different from ours and it is amazing. It can be eye-opening too. But this year there has been an additional opportunity God has given us through Streetlight to see the world even more. This year we have been able to do street ministry. Now this isn't average street ministry This is Franklin and Chicago in South Minneapolis at 11:00 on a Friday night. It is not family friendly and the Dove foundation would not approve of that picture. In many ways it feels like the devil's playground. Everywhere on those streets he is altering people's minds in order to try to keep them from the Gospel. It can feel like no one on those streets is sober but that doesn't stop us. This last time we went out was especially eye-opening for me. James, a staff member of the Marie Sandvik Center, came with us and as a former walker of the streets he pointed things out to us we might never have seen before. He pointed out a drug dealer to us as well as an actual drug deal going down. While James was explaining some of these things to us we made light conversation with a woman passing by. We then watched her as she continued down the street and a car made a U turn. We watched the car pull into the parking lot of the strip mall and the woman walk over to the car. We saw them talk and then we watched the woman get in. Then James said "yeah, that just happened". So now I can add prostitution to my list of things I have seen but never want to see again.

God has been showing me the world these past few weeks. And I can't always say that I have loved what I have seen. In fact a lot of what I see makes me sick but I know it is what I need to see because in order to change the world we must know the world even if knowing the world breaks our hearts. It is okay that it does because when our hearts are broken that much we are forever changed. And when we are forever changed we are moved to action.