I work in hard places.

Sometimes the thing that is hard is the environment – the housing, the food, the logistics, the language. I cut my aid worker teeth in South Sudan where for two years I lived in a tent, nightly battling families of mice and frequently stepping on lizards or frogs which had hid under the canvas and then stunk up the place for weeks. A place where food was air dropped from the sky and the planes that attempted to touch down were ever piling up on our runways after crash landing.

Now I live in a nice house in a big city that happens to be not very far from some really terrible people who are doing horrible things to people who don’t deserve it.  It becomes difficult to process the stories that you hear, the look of desperation on parents’ faces, the requests for things you can’t give to people who have nothing.

Even though I work in hard places, not everything is hard. I am way too selfish and lazy for that. There are perks, great ones, starting with mandatory R&R. And the worse the location, the more frequently you get it. Thank goodness for whoever invented this policy! Let’s be honest, I would probably quit if my company suddenly said I couldn’t go on holiday every three months.

Then there’s the built in glam factor. A couple of days ago I was sitting on the beach in Sri Lanka talking to the German girl next to me. When she asked what I do I handed her a copy of the magazine I was reading and pointed to an article. “I manage this camp for displaced people. Angelina Jolie recently came to visit.” Even I was impressed with myself. Of course the article wasn’t about me and I haven’t even really started work in that particular location and I wasn’t in the camp when the star came to visit. But it was partly true and made me feel better about myself. Those fashion magazines usually just make me feel fat.

The truth is most of the time I sit at a computer and do the same kind of office work as everyone else. Manage budgets, buy stuff, go to meetings. I try to live as normal a life as possible. Drink coffee, go to work, hang out with friends. It just so happens that I find it easier to make friends overseas than I do at home. Which is probably another reason I do this work.

What I am trying to say is that I am not what you think. I am not a hero. Or a missionary. I know that can be confusing for people. Growing up I thought everyone who was a Christian and worked overseas was a missionary. I even went to missionary school. But a couple of heartbreaks and existential crises later, I realized I was way too cynical to keep that up. Which is perfect for being an aid worker.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love Jesus and I love the work I do. I think the work is important and absolutely necessary. But many people do it. Atheists even. We all have similar and different motivations. Mostly because we want to help people. We believe in justice and righting wrongs. But we also do it for the same reasons others teach or work in graphic design. Because we’re good at it. Because it excites us. Because we like to travel. Because it fell in our laps when we were googling internships after graduation.

That doesn’t mean that I divorce my faith from my work. I am challenged by C.S. Lewis who wrote, “The world doesn’t need more Christian writers. It needs more great writers who are Christian.” I want to be a great aid worker who is a Christian. An expert even, if I can keep it up long enough. Right now I’m still a novice. Three years in and I am still living the mantra, “Fake it ’til you make it.”

Even though I’m not a missionary, I still love talking about Jesus with my coworkers. It’s just that my goal isn’t to work him into every conversation or start a Bible study in my home. The truth is I don’t have all the answers anymore. I have learned so much from my Muslim, agnostic, and atheist friends. More than they have learned from me, probably.

Even though I’m not what you think I am, will you still have me?

I am going to try to write about the things I am learning and seeing on a regular basis. I can’t make any promises but I’ll try to keep it interesting and real. Let’s explore the hard places together. You in?