Frustration. Anger. Exhaustion. Misunderstanding. Betrayal.
Sometimes (oftentimes) things on the Race (and in life) are not what you expect. You think life is going to provide adventure, you think ministry is going to involve saving dozens of souls, seeing miraculous healings, maybe even a few demons cast out of people. You think that as you go to these other nations ministry will be miraculously different and God will magically move differently. You think that miracles are things of 3rd world nations who don’t have hospitals or western medicine and have to rely on God to be made well. You think that all these things will give you a giant notebook full of stories, adventures, sick people made well, hundreds turning their lives around and accepting Christ. I mean, that’s what happens when you go on a mission trip, especially for 11 months, right?
WRONG!
Ministry on the Race can be those things, but oftentimes it is doing more “mundane” tasks that allow an established ministry to do their ministry even better. This month my team has yet to see any true miracles, we haven’t seen people come out of the depths of sin to find Christ, we haven’t done a lot of interpersonal ministry. BUT, what we have done might have even more impact than those things. We have done some interpersonal ministry, working with street kids who spent a weekend with us where we are staying and we frequently go to the community to play basketball, play with kids, maybe even lead some dance classes, we are making a difference in lives. But our real difference, which we fail to realize, is in the work we are doing at the ministry site. We have made chicken cages out of bamboo for chickens to lay eggs in, we have dug a big fish pond that will hold over 100 fish at a time that will feed the staff at the ministry and the street kids who they bring to the ministry a couple times a month for weekend retreats to give them food, a shower, a “detox” session of sorts, lots of love and lots of Jesus. We are presently working on building chicken coups that will hold chickens to raise for eating, in the words of Mike, the man in charge of the ministry, “we can take the chickens from hatched to the table in 45 days”. This work isn’t glamorous. It likely wouldn’t be on a movie or someone’s promotion video; it is the labor that gets overlooked.
BUT, God doesn’t overlook it. God sees the work being done and rejoices in this service for the Kingdom. The struggle is getting us to see it, getting those working on these things to see the impact that is being made. Lately I have noticed a lack of passion from my teammates in regards to ministry this month and I have even been lacking passion as well because it is hard work and work that often doesn’t make the “good stories” to share with people back home. Quite honestly, I’ve also been doing things I wouldn’t normally do. I designed the chicken coups and have been heading up other projects that I have zero experience in and no business leading, but God has given me just enough skills and a lot of passion for this ministry and serving them as they need that I pursue these tasks diligently for His glory. It’s even something where I don’t know where I picked up the skills I’m using… I’m like, maybe I saw this person doing it or I did it while doing this project, but there’s almost no place In my life where I’m like, yeah, i picked up the skills to draw out charts of dimensions for a chicken coup or a Prayer Hut and then to actually oversee the building of those projects with bamboo which is crooked, warped, and catywompus… a far cry from straight 2x4s and other straight building materials you would use In the states. In the Philippines it’s more like measure three times, cut once, remeasure a few more times cut once more, and then remeasure all 4 sides just for good measure and then make a few final cuts. True building plans don’t really exist when building chicken coups on the side of a hill with warped, crooked bamboo with corner solid wood pieces that are branches from fallen trees (aka not straight at all!!). This is where God is truly faithful, through the frustration of remeasuring, pieces not fitting as they should and people not always understanding the project or the end goal but rather just clamoring for something to do God has shown immense patience in me and given me immense patience with myself, crooked bamboo, and others. It’s been even more interesting in light of sharing my testimony with my team and debriefing the first frustrating day of building the chicken coups. I am such a perfectionst and perfection does not, and will not, exist in this situation since nothing is straight. You can do your best, but in the end it will not be perfect. What matters is that the job is done and done well.
I think that is exactly how it is in life. God calls us to be holy (or perfect depending on your translation) as He is holy. But when you are in everyday life you are not living perfectly. There are times you will wish you had done something differently or better, but God does not demand perfection. What God demands is faithfulness. What will God say in the end days… well done my good and perfect servant? Well done my good and holy servant? No, He will say, well done my good and faithful servant. It is about faithfulness to God and to the ministry and life that God has for us.
What is sometimes even harder is focusing on your team and loving them well… at least for me. It is easy for me to overlook those closest to me. It is easy to just go through the motions of relationship since I’m living with the same people every day. It can be easy to stop intentionally caring about them because there is always tomorrow. But tomorrow is limited. Eventually your “tomorrows” with these people will run out. It’s not glamorous and it often won’t make your cool “adventure” stories, but these are relationships that can last a lifetime and you get to make them on the Race.
And arguably the most mundane task of all on the Race is loving your host and ministry contact well. It is easy to overlook them. You care about them, but usually you just look to them to tell you the ministry you are doing each day. It can be very easy to not love them well, to be disrespectful to them, not intentionally, but in the small things, like leaving your stuff out, not cleaning up after yourself, not taking care of things well. It can be so easy to become single-mindedly focused on the ministry for the month and forget that “life is ministry” and “ministry is life”. What you do in the everyday is just as much ministry as “ministry” is, as loving street kids, building chicken coups, digging fish ponds, etc. It is so important to love your ministry contact well when on the Race because there will likely be future Race teams coming in who’s relationship with this contact will be impacted by how you treated the contact previously. Not to mention that it is just important to love your contact well because they are a person too!
In lieu of all of this, Phil. 2:1-23 has really stuck out to me and I have been frequently reading it to start my mornings… here are a few verses from it, but I encourage you to read the whole thing… “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others… Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world… I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon… I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ…
