Squad Leader Log
September 14, 2015
Boldness. Adventure. A Warrior Spirit. These are things I asked God for before leaving to squad lead. These are things I saw in other men and women who have gone before me, that I wanted God to grow more in me this next five months. I believe these attributes can make a good leader a great leader, so I asked Him to bless me with them. He quickly answered my prayer by sending me into a situation where I would have to rely on Him and only Him.
This month V Squad is spending our first Month in China. After some very long travel days one of the teams (Team High-Lo) and I have made it to our ministry location in a small Tibetan Buddhist city In the mountains of western China. Our mandate for most of the month is to go out into this city and build relationships with whoever God leads us to. This is my favorite type of ministry. It’s simple. Ask the Lord, then go where He leads. Each of us carries the kingdom of God inside of us. Now we are blessed with the opportunity to share the kingdom with everyone from Buddhist monks to backpackers and tourists. This part of our ministry is going to be awesome when we get rolling in a couple of days. Our first couple of days here look a little different and a little more adventurous though.
Our host asked us to start out our month by helping him finish a literature distribution project he has been working on. He and his team have spent the last year tract bombing all of the villages in a strategic Muslim region of western China and he asked us to help him finish up the last few villages before he leaves to go back to America for a sabbatical. Tract bombing involves placing gospel tracts on every doorstep in the village under the cover of night. Spreading Christian literature is highly illegal in China due to their communist government, so naturally we are excited (and a little scared) about this covert mission.
We are working with a group of four men, all Alumni World Racers, who are on a six month trip with Adventures in Missions called Kingdom Journeys. (See the bottom of this post for their blog addresses where you can find out the details of their trip and follow their journey.) Last night was the first of the two tract bombing runs we will do. There were three from their team and six from our team along with our host. We had three villages to cover in a small window of time from midnight to 5:00 am. We dressed in our darkest clothes and split between two cars. Each carload of five was assigned a separate village at either end of this row of villages and was to work our way to the middle village, which was the largest.
It was a solid plan and we were as prepared as we could be. We were all dressed like we were preparing for a bank heist. We even had getaway drivers. We had spent a day preparing the tracts. We knew the rules…There are four simple rules. The first rule is don’t be seen. The second rule is, if you are seen, blend in. The third rule is, if you are noticed, don’t get caught. The fourth and final rule is, if you get caught, don’t snitch on anyone. (Don’t worry mom. If they catch you, the worst they do is revoke your visa, not send you to prison.) It is all very similar to the way I used to commit crimes back home before I was saved by God’s grace. I guess He really does turn every aspect of our broken pasts for His glory.
We prayed and split our separate ways. The car I was in went to our first village and covered it in literature pretty quickly. We thought we had gotten through it unseen, but as we drove away we saw a police car pulled up right where we had been a few minutes before. It was a pretty close call.
The second town was a little more hectic. I was paired up with Luke, one of the Kingdom Journey guys. We got through with the first part of our section of town smoothly. We were on a roll. When we put tracts on our last doorstep at the back of the neighborhood, we took an alley that we thought would lead us back to the main road. We were wrong. The path took us up to the top of a ridge. It was the only path leading in or out of this ridge top farm field. When we realized this and started working our way back down, we saw flashlights moving around all over the neighborhood. We were stuck. We ended up having to climb down a bunch of small cliffs on this terraced farm to make it back to a dirt road that led back to into the neighborhood.
When we got back to the neighborhood we found two of my V Squad guys, Cameron and Marcus, who apparently were being chased by the guys with flashlights. We all had to flee back down the dirt road further into the mountains. We ended up sneaking through cornfields along a huge cliff until the only option we had was to climb/slide down this 30 foot cliff in the pitch dark. We finally made it down the mountain and back to a main road where we were able to meet up with the rest of our group. We finished spreading literature over the rest of the town and made it safely out. We got home early this morning and are now resting up to go out again tonight.
Through all of the chaos of last night I was surprised at how cool headed I was able to stay. Every thought in my head told me that I should be panicking, but I was completely at peace. Even when we were close to being caught and were lost in the mountains, we were able to take the time to drop tracts at every farmhouse we passed. We had been told earlier in the night that these villages and towns had literally never been exposed to the gospel, and God gave us all the strength and courage to continue with our mission.
I asked God for boldness, adventure, and a warrior spirit. He provided the adventure and put the boldness and warrior spirit to the test all in our first official night of ministry. I know that our ministry will not always consist of sneaking around breaking laws in a communist country in order to spread the word of God. I know that a lot of the time in my five months with V Squad will be routine and safe. My prayer though is that God will keep giving me these moments to lead my squad into the unknown so that we can all grow into the warriors that He intends for us to be. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. Love Y’all!!!
Kingdom Journeys Men:
Kyle Hyche
Luke Geldmacher
Pat Stiller
Bryan Corder
Kingdomjourneys.org
