Two Weeks!

Two Weeks!

In two weeks, all seven Wagoners, plus 8 other team members, will jump on a plane(s) for 2 U.S. flights, a pond-hopper to Frankfurt (*wave to the Lillas!*) and one more short flight into Belgrade, Serbia.

Total number of hours in the air is somewhere between 14-16, but due to time changes, we end up leaving in the morning in America and arriving the next morning in Serbia.

 

Preparations are really coming together, thank God for His provision and an amazing community that surrounds us. Our family is 80% of the way funded and the team is not too far behind.

If you’ve been waiting to contribute, now’s the time! 🙂 In just a few short weeks, we’ll be looking into the eyes of students and families and sharing your generosity and love with them, face to face!

 

 

It’s incredible to me the universality of the language of music and the language of love.

I just read a book by Bob Goff called Everybody, Always, which was a deep challenge to my conservationist introversion. But SO good.

Bob just breaks it down into the most profound and simple concepts ever: We are called to love Everybody, Always.

Not just the ones who are easy to love, not just those who are convenient to love, but everybody who crosses our path, regardless of their opinions or beliefs, their socio-economic standing or language, their practices or even how they treat us! Bob says he wants to stop simply “agreeing with Jesus” and start really doing what He says.

For Bob, that looks like bringing balloons to the airport to pick up a stranger, swapping places with his limo driver, bringing a walkie-talkie to a neighbor bed-ridden with cancer, and even putting Mickey Mouse ears on the Chief Justice of the Ugandan Supreme Court.

For me, that looks like hugging a little girl who’s mom has passed away, throwing a water balloon at a too-cool-for-school teenage boy, tying a bandana in the hair of a beautiful 15-year-old girl who doesn’t see her own perfection, and singing a Megan Trainer song to a group of usually stoic Serbian friends and getting them to jump around and clap their hands.

 

It means late-night conversations with an ex-pat who was wounded by the church and flashing big, dopey, American grins at the bar owner who has invited us to play and giving some faithful servants a much-deserved day off.

It means carrying the light of Love, Himself into some pretty dark places and inviting the Kingdom of Heaven to invade (spiritual) enemy territory, not by screaming from the street corners, but by simply being there.

I have overcomplicated so many things so many times, but in the past few weeks my eyes have been opened to the overwhelming gravity and the overwhelming simplicity of the task at hand.

 

Hopelessness, lovelessness, loneliness – these things are killers.

But there is a remedy. I know, because I have received it. And now we get to share it.

Stay with us for updates here on emilywagoner.com/blog and on Facebook!

Love you all ❤

Emily