Jericho

“I love to live on the brink of eternity.”  

David Brainerd 

“God, what are You doing in Bangkok?” 

We always did orientation week in Bangkok, because the buildings in Thailand weren’t bugged by the police.

I watched our slow descent through the airplane window. I imagined I could see the heat waves rolling over the city—such a bustling, humid place. No matter where my travels took me, I’d learned to listen to God while the plane was landing.  

I looked out the window again—this time with my spiritual eyes. I watched the traffic weave through every road and alleyway, through slums, businesses, palaces, and hotels. Slowly the roads became red ribbons, cords of redemption woven through every district, in through every doorway and out through every window, irreparably tangled with the city itself. 

Then, a still, small voice. 

“Everyone remembers the Battle of Jericho as the day the walls came down. But here’s what people never talk about: That was the day when I destroyed a system that kept a prostitute in bondage. I brought down the walls and she went free.” 

Suddenly every scarlet cord was alive with the promise of redemption. 

My team and I picked up fourteen Americans from the airport—all of them under the age of 25, all of them eager to be mentored through three months of missionary life. We covered more material that week than their jet-lagged minds could remember—from theology of missions to dress code to protocol for crossing into a closed country. They complained because they were hot and tired and constipated. But they were there, and they were saying yes to Jesus. 

A few days later, we crossed the border together into my beloved new home. 

I thought my heart might burst with hope during those early days in Southeast Asia. Sure, I couldn’t figure out how to turn on my stove, but I lived off raw pancake batter and the raw joy of following Jesus. I spent my days pouring into those fourteen wanna-be missionaries and my evenings motorbiking through the mountain roads, and I felt guilty for how thoroughly happy I was.  

I made friends–true friends–more quickly and easily than I thought I would. I wasn’t as close with my team as I expected, but I was almost never lonely. Between the locals and the expat community, my life brimmed with coffee dates, long conversations, and laughter that made my sides hurt.

I rented a little house on an unnamed road, if it could be called a road at all. The neighbors peered in the windows while I unpacked my two suitcases. It was clear they’d never had an American neighbor before. I bought dishes, planted flowers, and took in a stray kitten, and I had never been more at home in my life.  

That dusty little alleyway was a long way from Bangkok, but I thought often about the God who was always hanging scarlet cords out windows, always breaking open prisons, always surprising me with His redemption. And I was surprised–so very caught off guard by the joy He gave me as a new missionary. I suspected my happy song alone might bring down a few of those prison walls.