So as I am packing, preparing, and praying for my trip I can’t help but wonder how the next 11 months of my life are going to be different. This is a topic I frequently find myself day-dreaming about and I try to picture what life is going to look like in each country… new customs, new social norms, new languages… and it is a line of questioning that I constantly get from others, especially my dad. They want to know the logistics and details of everything…so where are you going to sleep, what are you taking with you, how/when/where are you going to bathe, what exactly are you going to be doing there? And while they are very valid questions, my reply usually is, “I don’t know exactly…I’ll let you know when I get there.” The truth is no matter how much preparing, imagining or even research that I do, nothing can wholly get me ready for this journey I’m about to embark on…it’s kind of like being a teacher.
At training camp back in May, a speaker one night threw out some words and he asked each of us to write down some of our expectations about what those things will look like over the next year. There wasn’t anytime to think, you just had to respond…so I wrote:
FOOD – bland, rice & beans, fresh, local, strange
PLACES TO SLEEP – sticky, hot/humid, cramped, cold, hard, on my back
MINISTRY – evangelical, outreach, with the outcasts, talking to people on the street
SQUAD LEADERS – counselor, reality check, sanity
GOD – faithful, revealed, healer, provider
SELF – excited, optimistic, heart-broken, humbled, frustrated
It will be interesting to see how things turn out. I’m almost trying not to have too many expectations and just live in the moment…whatever will be will be…but I know that there are things I hope for and anticipate will happen. I’m a realist, so I don’t expect this to be a vacation or that I will be in a chipper mood every single day. In fact, I expect to be uncomfortable, miserable, suffering, and exhausted from time to time. I expect to be harassed and persecuted both physically and mentally…I know what Paul had to endure. I expect to be deceived, enticed, and tempted. I expect to fall on my face…sometimes because I need to humbled, sometimes because I need to ask for forgiveness, and sometimes because I am clumsy. I expect to find myself in situations I never imagined possible. I expect to stand firm in my faith while questioning the world. I expect to be speechless at times, but trust that God will give me the words. I expect some days to be intensely sad and I’ll want to run home, while others are amazingly euphoric and I’ll want to move there permanently. I expect to be shocked, dumb-founded, and stupefied. I expect to start seeing the world with a new perspective, through God’s eyes. I expect to see God’s grace, caring, compassion, mercy, faithfulness, and love. I expect to discover more of whom God is, who I am, and what’s really important in life. I expect to be changed forever. So what are you expecting in your life? Is it what you want? Or is there something more?
