I am definitely a planner. I love to have things prepared before I feel confident that I can do it. If I am going to make a phone call I’ll rehearse what I’m going to say multiple times. Even then it causes me anxiety because I can’t predict how the conversation is going to go. I try to avoid phone calls as much as possible. It’s ironic that the only place I’ve worked in is in the customer service department of FPL, where I spoke to hundreds of strangers every week on the phone. The only reason I was able to do it was because I had scripts and process maps to follow.
If I’m going to a place for any type of event, I need to know what time I am supposed to arrive, what I need to bring, what day of the week it is, and as I walk up to the door my thought process is like, “It was on Friday, right? At 7pm? It is Friday right now, isn’t it? Friday the tenth? Was it Friday the 17th? There is actually an event happening right now, isn’t there? Is my name really Jessica? Do I even exist? (Ok that’s an exaggeration haha)” And so on and so forth.
I absolutely hate when things do not go according to plan. When we don’t leave when we are supposed to. When last minute someone changes what we are going to do. When I expected things to go one way and they go another way.
So this all leads me to my ministry in Togo last month. My team stayed with two other teams, Radiance and Rapha. Our ministry was mainly teaching and preaching throughout many different churches in the area. Since we knew that we are all going to be taking turns preaching in churches or teaching in Bible school, we tried to prepare as much as possible. But whatever plans we had changed daily.
If we were supposed to be picked up at 6, we would get picked up at 6:45. I signed up to teach children’s ministry and the night before found out I needed to preach a sermon to adults instead. If we were supposed to take a boat to a village, we would drive there. If we were going to the village on Tuesday and Wednesday morning and church in the evening, then we would only end up going on Tuesday and only three people going to church on Wednesday evening.
Normally, this is the type of stuff that would bother me a lot. And in Côte D’Ivoire and Ghana we had pretty consistent schedules, so I hadn’t really experienced this on the Race yet. But I had to quickly let go of getting bothered whenever plans changed. Yes I made sure that I was prepared, but I would also hold on to things loosely. And sometimes, this was how God moved on our team. It happened multiple times that we had all agreed that so and so was going to preach that night, and then when we arrived another teammate felt that God wanted them to speak instead.
I don’t know if it’s easier to let go of my expectations because I am on the Race and life looks differently than back home. But I hope to be able to take this mentality back and make plans but to hold them loosely and not take it so hard when things don’t go the way I expected.
Fundraising update: as of today I am exactly 7,000 away from being fully funded! My fundraising deadline is actually at the end of this month, on April 30. I know it’s a lot to have to raise in such a short period of time, but you would consider giving and helping me stay on the field for the next seven months? Or even to consider sharing this with others that you think may be able to support me. To my current supporters, thank you so much! I wouldn’t be here in month 4 without you all!
Jessica
