insanity.

And then weeks went by without a word.

The past weeks have gone quickly, but have been so good. There have been so many hours spent with family, a few hours with friends, and even fewer hours resting in an exceptionally soft bed.

And now we’re flying out tomorrow.

Erwin McManus once related in a lecture, “I am on the board of a seminary where they have a psychiatric wing, and they wanted to send psychologists around the world to work with missionaries.  They were coming in telling us how they were going to spend millions of dollars to bring mental health to all of our missionaries. And I couldn’t hold in; I said, ‘No! Don’t do it! We don’t need healthy missionaries. We need missionaries who are delusional, who are out of their minds, who are insane.  There are two of them among ten million and they think they can change that whole city. You make them normal, healthy, sane and they’re going home to Kansas tomorrow.’”

Let me first say that I don’t particularly like being considered “missionaries” to Thailand. This seems to glorify the fact that we are simply living in a different country, but living life in much the same way. Yes, it has been wonderful to be among family; to have coffee with friends.  It was fun to understand conversations, read signs, and have salad. America is so soft: comfortable couches, cloud-like beds, painted walls, carpeting under your feet, cozy sweaters, warm fires. But the reality of it is, even when we lived here, we still lived in the Asian district of town; I still spent alot of my time with people I couldn’t communicate with; I was still served questionable dishes on multiple occasions. God has given us a love for the Karen and Burmese that transcends beyond the group living across the street in Mae Sot.

Even so, I have found great comfort in this quote.

Perhaps because insanity seems closer than I’d prefer as I plan to get on a plane to return to a place that I know is uncomfortable; where we are much more isolated; where our sisters are miles and miles away from us.

Perhaps because I know I need to remain insane enough to believe that we are part of something that makes this worth it; that all things left behind are somehow justified in the hope of playing one small part in God’s plan. I know that there is a level of insanity to believing that playing Go Fish with our neighbor children is somehow communicating Christ.

Here’s to insanity.