The week before last was my church’s student camp. I loved camp when I was a high schooler, but it is nothing compared to camp as a leader. I LOVE camp as a leader. I think I love it so much because, for a while, when I was doing the college thing and trying to find purpose, coming home to serve at camp and d-now weekends were the only things in my life that felt worthwhile. I know now that I felt that way because I was ignoring a call to ministry. Those two events out of the year were the only times I let myself live out my calling, and there was such a sense of belonging for me. I belong there–where the humidity is thick enough to swim in, in a circle of crying teenagers, and someone’s eyes finally light up when they GET IT–That’s where I belong, that’s when I come alive. I thought it was like this for everybody. This was just that “camp high” people talk about, I wouldn’t feel the same way if I did ministry full time–right? Gosh, was I wrong. Since graduating college and coming back to the town and ministry that raised me, I’ve found that the joy and belonging only get deeper when you serve the whole year round. I started serving as a community group leader on Sunday mornings, and then worked as a student ministry intern one summer, and those things that I had loved before, I suddenly loved SO MUCH MORE. The week before last, when I went up a mountain with these kids for camp, I got to see a harvest from years of faithful, daily, year-round ministry. A student I had led for years finally found abundant and beautiful life with Jesus. Another came and grabbed me before her baptism, and I cried into her hair, remembering the night she was saved. We saw walls fall and hands raise and hearts break and it was all the better for having taken the long way round. And by “we,” I mean this whole team of leaders that I’d grown and learned and served with. Even my very best friends in the world were with me. So when a student gave her life to Jesus, it was OUR student. And we held each other as we both held her and we gave God praise. So when the days were too long and the sleeps were too short, or the questions were too many and the answers too few, a bear hug was waiting for me. So they were always there. My people. My students. My home.
And I’m leaving them.
I thought that I would come away from camp pumped up and ready for the World Race. A year of intensive ministry and mission? BRING IT ON. But it didn’t work out that way. I came away from camp with a broken heart. Broken because I was leaving a place of belonging, and years of investment. Broken because I was leaving my family, both related and not, the people who build me up and call me out and keep me going. Broken because I genuinely love these students and this ministry and I don’t want to miss these incredible moments in their lives. I wept my heart out on that mountain and I sobbed words that were terrifying and true: “I don’t want to go.”
But praise God, this is not about what I want. It’s about answering a call, and stepping out in obedience. I don’t think I failed in admitting that sometimes, this is too much, and sometimes I don’t want it. Jesus himself wanted out. “Let this cup pass from me,” he said. Isn’t there anyone else, God? Isn’t there some other way to do this? Let this cup pass from me. I don’t want to go. But I will go. Of course I will go, how could I not?
The song says this better than I could:
If You gladly chose surrender so will I
I can see Your heart
Eight billion different ways
Every precious one
A child You died to save
If You gave Your life to love them so will I
If the wind goes where You send it so will I
And that’s all there is to it, isn’t it? I am so ready to go wherever God sends me. I am so excited to be a part of what He’s doing. I can’t WAIT to meet the fellow racers who will soon be my family, too. For every student and every story I’m leaving behind, I know that there are billions of people all over the world with stories of their own. I will still see walls fall, and hands raise, and hearts break, and it will be all the sweeter for knowing that God brought me all the way across the world to witness it. If he gave his life to love the kids in Cumming, Georgia, then he also gave his life to love the kids in Kathmandu, Nepal. And if he gave his life to love them, so will I.
If you’re reading this, and you are a part of First Redeemer’s student ministry, as a leader, or as a student, know that I love you so very much. Because it was with you that I first acknowledged my call to ministry. It was through you that God gave me the tools I’ll need to make a difference. It was because of you that I ever applied to this thing. And it is on your support and prayers that I go. Y’all mean the world to me. Literally, if it was all up to me, I’d give up going to the rest of the world so I could stay and do church with all of you. I love you very much, but now I’m crying so that’s enough of that.
Now, I’ve recovered from a week of no sleep and less food, and I’m ready to jump back into preparations. Fundraising is going well, but there is still such a long way to go! While I love fundraisers and had a very successful one just last month, I also know that clever fundraisers are not the answer to so large a goal as $19,000. I will only get to that number if God’s people search their hearts and open their hands and make direct donations. I know I am asking so much–that you hand money over to me? Who even am I to ask such a thing? But that’s just it. It’s not for me, and I’m not the one asking. Will you consider being part of the work of the Lord? That’s the real question. Donations to Adventures in Missions to help me and others travel as missionaries around the world can be made right here on this page. Just click the donate button above!
He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”
Matthew 26:39
