Reload Love by Lenya Heitzig

Author:Lenya Heitzig
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736970365
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

7

The Long Trek

During the lead-up to our second trip to Burma, the trip when we would go on an impossible hike into the heart of the jungle, all the way to the village that serves as a base for the FBR mission, I became acutely aware, again, of the unlikely nature of God using someone like me to help children affected by terror. Who was I? What talents did I bring to the table? Why would God choose someone like me to accomplish this task?

“I’m more like Malibu Barbie than G.I. Jane,” I said to Jen and Murray while we were hiking one day, and the image stuck in my mind. “Why has God chosen me to meet these incredible people?”

Murray, Jen, and I departed on our second trip to Burma in December of 2014. We were pumped. We had done all that training, worked our tails off in the gym, climbed the Albuquerque mountains, and it was finally time to make it happen. We were going to hike into Burma. We’d have to carry our own backpacks—anything we needed for that ten days, we had to take with us on our own shoulders.

Tied to my pack, partially as a way to lighten up the trip and partially as motivation, was a Barbie doll. Wherever I went, she went. If I slept in the dirt, she slept in the dirt. Having the doll was a joke, but it also ended up being a reminder to me that no matter how out-of-place I felt, no matter what others might think of me being in the jungle, I was there for a reason. God had taken me there, exactly as I was, for a purpose.

We left for Burma with real hope. Our first trip to the Far East had at the beginning felt empty, or at least unfinished—none of the organizations we met fit into our specific vision of helping children impacted by terror. But then, at the end of the trip, we had met Dave Eubank, his family, and the Free Burma Rangers. Seeing what they did, hearing what they were up to, made us feel like we were getting closer. The Good Life Clubs they offered to children helped address their physical and spiritual needs. That was something we thought we’d like to be part of.

Were the Free Burma Rangers the right partner for us, for Reload Love? That’s what we were hiking all the way into the jungle to find out.

We landed in Chiang Mai again, and this time I was not wearing my golden shoes. A driver took us to where Dave lived when he was in that city, which is really a kind of wood-hewn hut—more sophisticated than a hut, but with that general sort of feel. Jen, Murray, and I spent the night there, trying to pump ourselves up for the long trek into the jungle the following day.

I stared at the Barbie doll tied to my backpack, sleeping on the floor beside me. I thought of all the training the three of us had done to get ready for the trip.

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