Tomorrow we are boarding the plane to Santa Cruz del Quiche in Guatemala, thus officially beginning our year’s ministry around the world.
One week ago I said goodbye to my family, friends, and church. I won’t be seeing them for a year.
What have we been doing in this week? We have been training and preparing as a squad, and learning about stories.
Our squad is not only the subject of a documentary (an intermediary through which the camera can see into the lives and places of others all over the world), but we are filming this documentary complete with equipment given us by Gray Media. Thus, we spent the last week in a crash course on videography, interviewing, and in general – how to film a documentary (taught by the awesome Rokks and Trey, above). We focused on what it meant to find a story, engage with a story, and be part of a story. Most importantly, God’s story. The people that we meet and the individual experiences and tales that they will tell us are only part of this greatest and never-ending story which is God’s. It is God’s story!
We learned the necessity of so many things when embarking on such a project – empathy, for example. We are going into this journey with our hearts open to everything that people will tell us, and hearts that (I pray) are able to look past our short-sightedness and feel their pain.
I’m not going to lie. It feels strange being behind a camera. There is a great deal of discernment that we are going to need. For example, while a camera can be a tool of engagement that easily invites people to open up who otherwise wouldn’t, to what extent does it impede our own ability to interact with an individual as we would were there no camera there? But to what huge extent will we be able to offer a greater blessing to people by sharing their stories with thousands? This will certainly make our World Race experience different than any other, and I hope that is in a good way. I hope that this gives us the opportunity to outreach to those back home by showing them the brokeness, both of the people we meet, and of ourselves, and yet the love, work and miracles that God has for us and does through us. The opportunity is incredibly exciting!
Check out this promo: http://vimeo.com/103036085
Currently, we are in a Holiday Inn in Atlanta (our last opportunity for ritzy living) doing further training before we leave. This includes safety training, such as “what do you do if you end up in the middle of a mob?”. The answer was pretty much, “don’t end up in the middle of a mob”. We are learning a lot of diplomatic things, such as “how do you avoid offending your host?” We are learning logistical things, such as “how do you manage to feed an entire team on the bare minimum of money?”. It’s a lot of fun.
So, we are here for the first time with all 7 squads launching in September. Tomorrow at 4 AM we go our separate ways to begin our missions.
So, to break it down, we are:
– Assisting ministries in all varieties of locations and populations
– Scouting for new ministries that AIM can partner with in the future
– Creating a documentary on the stories in other countries, and how this ultimately becomes a story about God
– Discipling and growing through our christian community and fellowship
– Reaching out, loving, and sharing Christ with every single person we meet
Incidentally, I have had a lot of people ask me if I expect to give or receive on this trip, and assure me that I will receive more through these experiences than I could ever give.
Our squad mentor, Carly, asked us why we were going on the World Race. I think we could all have lots of answers – looking for a greater understanding of cultures throughout the world, stepping out of our own comfort zone, seeking fellowship, evangelization, etc. However, Carly suggested that we had made the decision to go on this trip to enter into the “kingdom life”. I think that means living presently with God, constantly falling on Him, receiving His love and therefore desiring to love others the same, believing He can perform miracles through us and use us to further His kingdom. Essentially, kingdom living is remembering that God is the main character of our story.
My team. From left to right: Ryan, Ethan, me, Grace, Jenna, and Adam.
Please pray for our courage entering into this year-long journey, pray for our focus, pray for the documentary project and that it becomes a blessing to others, and pray for the people that we will meet and the ministry that we will work with in Guatemala (Agape in Action).
