Privileged

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands
One Nation under God
Indivisible
with liberty and justice for all.

How many times have I stood in a classroom
hand over heart
repeating these words

How many baseball games
have begun with these words
spoken before the first hit
ball against bat, American pride.

The past few weeks have been eye opening for me.

I was thinking today about how many times I have said the pledge of allegiance

Monotone
Monotonous
Going through the motions

I was thinking today about how I will never just repeat the words again
without feeling an incredible pride
an overwhelming security
of the blessing of being born an American.

The past few weeks have been eye opening for me.

I was in a car that was pulled over by corrupt police officer
Being pulled over in Peru is interesting
The policeman called us out on a loud speaker “black SUV, pull over”
and so we did. He came to the car and asked for documents and then he took the documents, got into his car, and told us that we had to follow him to the police station.
On the way there, we had no idea where we were going and we were offering up quick prayers
God, keep us safe, give us favor.
We watched the police officers jump out of their car and snatch two young guys off of the street
shouting at them to get in the car
we just kept following.
Finally we arrived at the police station in Peru and my friend who was driving went inside with the officer, leaving the rest of us in the car.
We waited and prayed and after a few minutes we watched the police come back outside, take the drugs from the two young guys, and let them go. Then, he sped of in his car, leaving us there clueless.
When my friend finally came outside, he told us how the police had bribed him and asked him for money, but that he had refused and so they wrote him a bogus ticket.
Injustice.

Two nights ago I was supposed to leave the country.
We had to go to Peruvian Immigrations to get “permission” from Chris so that I could travel alone with the baby.
The guy at the help window at immigration told us that we could just fly on her American passport and didn’t need the permission form.
At the airport, they said that wasn’t true.
We followed someone to a back room for special cases and they told us that there was no possible way that I could leave the country with Jubilee, without Chris.
We were stuck.
No one wanted to help us. There were no signs or instructions telling us what to do. The only thing you can do, really, is walk through a crowded room asking people for directions and instructions, and usually each one of them says something different.
Fortunately we had the money to pay the fine to change our airline ticket to a different date when we could all three travel together.
But I can’t help but think about all of the people who don’t have the money, who would be trapped in a foreign country.

Here, when you see a police officer, it strikes fear into your heart instead of giving you a feeling of peace and safety. I think about being at home and how everyone knows that dialing 911 will bring the police to your location in a matter of minutes. There is so much security in that. In Peru, and so many other third world countries, people avoid the police because they abuse their privileges. Here, there is no security, no feeling of peace. There is only fear.

Love/hate relationship. That is how I feel right now. I hate the laws, the corrupt government, the injustice. But I love the people. I love the girl who helped me at the airport and comforted me when I broke down in tears. I love the people at the store by my house who sell us eggs in the mornings and have become our friends.  I love my friend, Bella, who came over to my house and taught me to cook Peruvian food. I love my church family who stood around us in a circle last night praying for favor as we travel home for three months.

Sometimes being a missionary is hard. Living in such a culture of injustice after growing up in the United States is hard. Sometimes I am frustrated and sometimes the tears come all at once. But then I remember what God spoke to me a few years ago. I was praying and asking God why I was born in the United States and there were so many people who were born into hopeless situations every day. It could have just as easily been me, I told Him. He told me that I was born into privilege so that I could use that privilege to make a difference. And so even on the hardest days, it gives me even more drive and motivation to stay and make a difference. What I have experienced in the past few weeks is just a small taste of what these people have experienced for their entire lives.

I am proud to be an American. I love the United States. I am flying home to the states tonight and I will probably kiss the ground when we get there.

But I will come back here. I will shine the light that God has given me and I will make a difference.
Because I was born privileged.