After four months of walking by faith in India and Nepal with a few guys, I returned in May exhausted, sick and ready for some rest. It had been years since it seemed like I slowed down and I was hopeful that it was finally time. You really don't want to know the extent of how sick I was the past months with the parasites, worms and biweekly bloody-ish stools. The truth is that India had taken it's toll on all of us guys and while none of us would trade the lessons learned for anything, we were ready to come home.
The first times you head out on an overseas trip like this, there are plenty of emotions and your adrenaline is erupting. However, as time passes and experiences come and go, you start to view each major change in life with a little different perspective. So, when I received three calls the very next day after returning to the States from AIM about leading different trips, I chuckled. Almost everything within me just wanted to politely say "no, not this time but thank you."
I immediately understood a bit more of the price that I would be paying if I decided to go. I'm not just talking about the financial price even though that would have to be accounted from somewhere. I've been going more than I've been staying and it's a humbling thing to walk faithfully where He tells me and know that I won't be able to provide for myself through it always. That's the whisper to walk by my strength that I alluded to in the previous post. Regardless, I chose to pray about the options and see what God had to say about them.
The one that really stuck out as I started praying was the possibility of leading a team to Peru. Ironically, God had been whispering to me about it for months. In fact, I had a conversation with my mom before leaving to India that started out with me saying "Ma, I think I'm going to be going to Peru this year…" Then, as I was gearing up for coming back to the States I was sharing with my boys how I had no clue what I was going to be doing when I got back but that I thought it was something I hadn't considered yet…but that I thought that this was the year for me to go to Peru somehow…
Here I sat on the phone with AIM a day after returning to the States and when they told me about Peru, I asked them when they would need a response by…
"as soon as possible but ideally in the next couple days"
Really? I come home one day, get a call the next and essentially have to make a decision about leading a trip of 20 college guys and gals into the jungle the next day?
Needless to say it was a bit of a whirlwind first reaction but I was intrigued. SO , I had a conversation with God and here's a bit of a snippet of that:
"Well, what do you think? Peru?"
"Would you like to go?"
"I don't really know…I've got a bunch of mixed feelings…I really would like to go to Peru this year but I wasn't envisioning it happening this way. Do you want me to go or do you want me to stay here?"
"Well…You really can go or stay. I've put my favor on you either way and so you've got the freedom to do either."
"Yeah, I realize that I can do either but what would you rather me do?"
"Well, if you go to Peru I've got some really good blessings for you!"
…
That's really how the conversation started and this was how I decided to make another quick decision to leave on a journey that would transform the direction of my life yet again. I knew that many of the people closest to me both family and friends would probably scratch their heads, chuckle and have a variety of responses. Part of me desired to make sure people knew that I wasn't just avoiding growing up, responsibilities, looking for adventure or any other youthful desire that often drives young men. The reality is that I wasn't one bit surprised with both the consequences and costs that these months potentially could have in my life…
