When we found out our ministry in China was more of research, connection making, and prayer walks, I thought it would be a really neat experience. We were going to get the opportunity to go to places that had never seen a missionary before. Talk to people who had never heard the gospel, and hopefully share it with them. We were even going to pray, worship, and serve God were it had never been done before. How cool is that?!
Now we have been in China for a week and half and it is a lot more difficult than I expected. My frustration continues to mount because no one speaks English. There is no way to convey the gospel message, much less convey what my team and I’s needs were. Every task was made so much more difficult. The isolation that makes the opportunities so unique also makes it really frustrating. It was even difficult to go on prayer walks and pray over the city because I was frustrated with everything else and felt like God’s presence wasn’t with us.
O how silly we can be.
There were two main reasons for my frustration. One, I wasn’t taking the opportunity my team had to grow together as a ministry opportunity. We have continually been told that our team is also part of our ministry as team leaders, and that if our team isn’t growing and bonding well than our ministry wouldn’t be as good either. Two, I was completely and utterly underestimating the power of prayer; how often do you do that too?
So our team started doing bible studies daily, listening to podcasts and then talking about them. We started being more vulnerable and sharing with each other so that we could become closer. The hard thing as a team leader is that it isn’t about greasing a machine and tightening some screws, its about loving and caring about each individual and desiring to the fullest extent to see them grow with Christ. Once I started to understand that it made everything so much easier!
As far is prayer is concerned, and even doubting God’s presence, I got the opportunity to have a great talk with a fellow team leader Christin. Just through conversation we started talking about the size of God and His scope. Part of the bible studies we were doing as a team were about God’s scope. I mean He is the alpha and the omega, He measures the universe with the spans of His hand, that is crazy! Not only that, but He is present at today, and present at yesterday, and present a year from now, He is already there. We as humans can’t even comprehend all of Him, not even close. After we talked about that for a while I was overwhelmed with the feelings of being blessed that our God that is so big and powerful would use me! How insignificant am I compared to His size, How little do I know, and yet He was using me to pray over these cities and to smile at these people. All I could feel was joy and humbleness.
Then later in the month I was reading Job and came upon the last couple chapters of Job, 38-41, when God responds to Job’s self-righteous complaining. Talk about EXTREMELY humbling. God puts Job in his place. I could write 20 pages about it, but I’ll just spare you and say take 5-10 minutes and go read the response. The crazy thing is that Job’s complaining, if you ask me, is somewhat merited. It just shows that no matter how bad thing get, God has a plan and His plan is ALWAYS better than ours. Trust Him.
