the rambling missionary

by erika haveman

“Just because you go doesn’t mean you leave.”

Those words have stuck with me ever since I first heard them 7 years ago.  They were words that lingered in the back of my mind last fall as I longed to know the presence of Jesus again – but praying, reading my Bible, journaling, Sunday morning fellowship all felt empty, lacking the presence of God.  I started to realize – once again – that my life with Jesus was caught up in doing things for Him.  I was only as good as my own outcome: the production of Bible teaching missionaries.  I realize that makes it sound like I work on some assembly line that outputs fresh missionaries.  I’ve been watching Clone Wars and I’m struck by how similarly I had been viewing my work as a missionary to that of the Kaminoans (the Clone producers): just getting youth educated enough to be tossed into the spiritual battle for lost souls.  Obviously that thinking is wrong but when you’re caught in thinking that living for Jesus is synonymous with producing results then you’ll get caught in wrong thinking, too.  Or maybe you won’t.  I may be the only guilty one and so be it if that’s the case.

This process of believing I was only as good as what I do led me deeper into believing I wasn’t good enough.  With all that in mind it was no wonder I had no energy left to do things for Jesus.  Yet I knew I needed some kind of lifeline for my soul if I was to see Jesus pull me from the depths of my own mess from the depths of my own humanity into the depths of His humanity.

In the early winter of 2019 I was getting tired of attending the church I had called home my whole life as week after week I’d encounter the question, “Have you got your visa yet?”  As this was the question at the root of so many of the troubles I found my life centred around I decided I would stop attending the church.  I knew people meant well, that they asked out of support, investment and care – but there questions triggered me every week.

One supporter couple that I’ve long connected with and appreciated for their insight, hot meals, good wine and stimulating conversation is an Anglican Pastor, who performed my parents wedding ceremony, and his wife.  I actually think he’s an Anglican Father, but I just call him by his first name and it still feels weird to call him Father anything.  They’re the kind of couple, though, that has no expectations for you.  They just want to hear your heart, opinions, hopes, dreams.  No pressure to perform, just be.  I knew cutting out church attendance altogether probably wasn’t wise, so I considered attending their church.  I also realized that if I was to attend the Anglican service I wouldn’t have to put forth effort – the services are primarily read so all I’d have to do is follow along.  I would never say its a consumeristic denomination but rather one that allows for engagement in a way I thought boring while I was growing up.  I began attending the Anglican service with the determination that I had to give something to the Lord, and that something – the singular thing I had energy for – was to start my week at the table of the Lord, breaking my fast with communion.  The one intentional thing I felt I had capacity for was to partake of the wine to represent His blood and the bread to represent His body.  I needed Jesus to consume me and I thought consuming the meal He created to bring me into deeper awareness of His existence would prove to be beneficial.

I quickly learned to love that little Anglican church.  Everything about it.  The overly filled coat rack on the right after entering the solid, white painted double doors.  I have never been one to hang up my coat on a church coat rack, but for some reason it’s part of the process of submission I needed to go through.  The winding little hallway and the ushers waiting to offer me the Book of Common Prayer – if we were using it that morning – and the bulletin, which included in it the readings for the morning.  The first couple of Sunday’s the elderly ushers eyed me with curiosity, not entirely sure who I was.  Word got around, though, that I was Karen’s daughter – my mom had attended the church in her 20s and, as previously hinted at, married my dad in the same church.  In fact in the days leading up to their wedding ceremony the church had been repainted.  Someone had chosen blue – the same shade of blue of my mother’s eyes, and the joke still stands they painted the walls blue to match her eyes for her wedding day.  There was barely a Sunday that went by that I didn’t hear that story, and the eyes of the ushers shifted from curiosity to welcome greeting after a few weeks of my consistent presence.  The plush red carpet that blankets the small sanctuary lends itself to a dusty, comforting smell reminiscent of the kind of church that has stood for decades.  In fact St. Paul’s has stood since 1862.  I love the history, the tradition, the kindness, and I wish the walls could talk and tell me of all the troubles and joys its witnessed.

That church became the spiritual lifeline to God I had been searching for.  I was outputting in a physical way and connecting in a spiritual way – albeit slowly but steadily.  I was still lacking the ability to connect with my emotions but that piece will come later in the story.

I look now at a year ago and I wonder what I would have done had it not been for encountering God on a weekly basis in that building.  Of course it’s quite ridiculous to say “what would I have done?” because if nothing else God is sovereign and of course I won’t ever end up in a place where He has not already seen me go, and wherever I go He is already there; wherever I submit He is holding my head up, keeping His kind and gracious eyes on me.

And I began to be.  I stopped trying so hard to do.  I started to become aware of my existence at His feet, and His words were renewing me: just because you go doesn’t mean you leave.