Expectations. This word gets thrown around quite frequently within AIM culture. To be clear the idea or goal is to not have expectations. We are asked to toss all expectations out of the window starting at training camp. I believe we all know this would be best and trust that AIM has its reasons for telling us to do this but until you experience a God Gut Punch you cannot truly understand the reasons why tossing out expectations is the only way to do the race, and even to do life. Let me tell you a story.
This is month seven of our race. First expectation: we would definitely get to do some sort of ministry revolving around the massive human trafficking problem that exists in Southeast Asia (this expectation was based off everything you hear about AIM’s contacts and ministries in Southeast Asia) and anything short of this would not feel at all fulfilling. Well, the first part of that expectation was blown up a couple of weeks into Cambodia when we found out none of our squad would be working with victims of trafficking in Thailand for the majority of the month. We were definitely disappointed as many girls on Z Squad looked forward to this ministry more than any other type. First God Gut Punch thrown.
Team Unwritten arrived in Chiang Mai a couple of weeks ago after several long bus rides out of Cambodia. We walked into the Youth With A Mission (YWAM) Hospitality House and let me just tell you it was like walking into a $4,000/week beach house in OBX. It was pristine. There were hot showers. There was a full-sized kitchen with every western amenity you could possibly imagine. There was a game area with a ping pong table and a X-Box. There were mattresses for everyone. There was high speed internet 24 hours a day. There was one South African woman living and working there who felt like our mom. One of the three teams traveling with us found out this is where they would be staying for the month while the rest of us traveled several hours north to serve in villages. Needless to say this was quite difficult for some to swallow. After seven months on the race I don’t care who you are…it is extremely difficult to not feel even the slightest bit jealous, especially when you have no idea where you are living. Second expectation: our living conditions are going to push us to the limits and really test our resolve because we are going to be living in a straight village. We will be lucky to get showers a few times each week.
I just kept reminding myself I did not come on the race to live in a vacation house with unlimited western amenities. I came on the race to truly experience other cultures and living conditions. When I began looking at it like that I quickly felt better about leaving Chiang Mai and heading out to ministry. I was also craving some serious time with only the other six members of my team. Up until this point we had other teams in our general vicinity so off days were often spent with other teams on Z Squad.
I should add that my team was struggling with some things, namely an invisible hurdle we just had not been able to overcome. No matter how hard we tried through vulnerable conversations and honest feedback we had not been able to take our team to a truly deep level. We were not sure if perhaps it was due to having unlimited distractions in both Nepal and Cambodia. We were in the capitals of both countries meaning restaurants, coffee shops, and internet were way beyond plentiful.
We arrived in Fang, a city in Chiang Mai province that is not too far from the Burma border. Our second expectation was destroyed as we drove into Fang. Second God Gut Punch thrown. It looked more like adorable small town U.S.A. than a Thai “village” (we still aren’t sure why the only information we could find on Fang made it seem so incredibly abandoned). It had grocery stores, 7/11’s were everywhere, small restaurants dotted the sidewalk-lined streets, and people smiled at you everywhere. Upon meeting our host for the month we were told he, his wife, and his daughter were leaving for a week of vacation a couple of days later and we would be staying with a friend of his where we would have to use tents. We were also told it was a children’s home. Third expectation: this is going to be extremely uncomfortable as we will be sleeping in tents, living with children (kids wake up early and very rarely differentiate between ministry time and off time), eating strange food we have no control over, and teaching English at a nearby school for four hours every morning. I was personally truly bummed to say goodbye to David, Gan, and Beulah (our ministry contact). David is American so that offers immediate comfort and Gan, his Thai wife, is truly incredible. I thought, “Okay God, what the heck do you have in store for us?” To be fair going into this month I asked the Lord for something challenging enough to bring my team together so now I was getting nervous He may actually answer my prayer.
We arrived at our home away from home away from home and discovered we were, indeed, sleeping in tents but it was not like we were in an open field away from a bathroom or kitchen. We were simply in an empty room and did not even have to use tents if we did not want to. We chose to use tents because the bugs can become a little ridiculous but we had full use of the kitchen and bathroom.
With all of the above mentioned here are the reasons this turned out to be the best week of my World Race:
-Enoch, his new wife Mai, his sister, and mother all took amazing care of us.
-the six kids who live with him became a bunch of little brothers and sisters to us and we would seek them out to play with them because they were such a joy to be around.
-the kids were already out of school so we got to do manual labor ministry which is not something I have really had the chance to do on the race up until now. We spent hours outdoors and it was glorious after months of evangelism, teaching English, and preaching.
-Enoch and Mai took us to do things like swim and hike in the national park but they also gave us ample down time to rest and regroup.
-Mai’s cousin, Pen, came and stayed with us for a couple of days. He is a professional chef so you can only imagine how well we ate.
-the days Pen was not around we still ate well because Enoch, Mai, and Enoch’s sister are incredible cooks as are all of the women up here in northern Thailand apparently because everywhere we would go do ministry someone would feed us lunch and we never ate a bad meal.
-we rode in the back of a pickup truck everywhere we went. We played music, sang, danced, laughed, and imagined we were back home in the South. We are in rural Thailand and, minus the palm trees, it looks very similar to rural Virginia or Georgia. The scenery is absolutely stunning.
Third God Gut Punch thrown…and this time it was a TKO.
My team walked around with our jaws dropped to the ground the entire week. We could not get over how the Lord had not only blown away our expectations but used one week full of total joy to bring us to a new level as a team. We woke up every single day excited for ministry. We spent our days laughing constantly. We thoroughly enjoyed every experience, especially because we experienced it together. We all said how happy we were to not be in Chiang Mai. On our last night before moving back to the church the kids and most of the team cried. Despite only being with Enoch and his crew for one week we felt like we were leaving a month-long ministry. That is how quickly the Lord grew those relationships. He took these circumstances and, in the most unlikely way, used every situation to destroy our expectations. Our motto quickly became “No expectations.” I am pretty sure the Lord sat up there just chuckling to Himself at how incredibly short-sighted we were heading into Thailand. Remember how our first expectation was that we would have human trafficking ministry and anything different could not even compare? Yeah, well news flash. We were wrong. God seriously knew what He was doing and knew exactly what Team Unwritten needed. Looking back I can clearly see why we had not reached that deeper level; He was holding out until we could truly see His Hand at work. Without His interference there is no way this week would have unfolded so imperfectly perfect and there is no way Team Unwritten would have received it the way we did.
I can tell you to throw away all expectations but let’s be real, you won’t really do that. None of us do until the Lord shows you why you need to release those expectations. I learned my lesson during the week I anticipated would be one of the worst but ended up being the best of my race. When will you learn yours?
