We are “pioneering” this month and it’s hard, slow work. We spend a lot of time walking through Baggot community attempting to strike up conversations and build relatioships. It sounds simple enough but these people don’t live on Easy Street, they live in Baggot and in Baggot there is no such thing as a sure plan or an easy answer.Our actual “ministry” is to help our contacts David and Isabel run church services Sunday morning and evening, conduct Wednesday night services, plan and run a “program” for the young women in the community on Tuesdays and Thursdays and to help out at an outreach at the waterpark for the Baggot kids on Friday nights. In between we have been doing work projects like cleaning out the shed and bathrooms behind the church.On paper that sounds really simple and straight forward… It isn’t.Getting anything to happen in Baggot is a struggle. For one thing most of the people in the community simply do not have any concept of the time or what day of the week it is. Almost everyone in the community suffers from an addiction to something and trivial things like the time of day pale in comparision. So you can plan until your blue in the face and “expect” people to just show up on time but chances are everyone will forget or will be “asleep” when you get there. You have to work really hard to get anything started.So much of what we’re doing this month is ridiculously hard work and at the beginning of the month I quite simply did not want to be here. I didn’t want to speak at church, I didn’t want to sing, I didn’t want to go door to door, I didn’t want to talk to drunk people or stop to pray for one more person sitting on a mattress in their front yard high as a bird.I, I, I… It was all about me. All about how much ‘I’ missed Cambodia, how “I” missed home or how frustrated “I” was with the ministry. I remember getting so frustrated after an evening service that I fought back tears the entire ride home. Thankfully my team called me out on my attitude and pointed out how selfish I was being.This trip is not about me. It’s not about how I feel, how much I’ve changed or what I’ve accomplished. This trip is quite simply about loving the people that God loves in order to bring God glory. In order for that to happen King “I” has to die.
I didn’t think that I was selfish but the truth is I push my own agenda a lot. I like to be in control. I like to know what’s happening and when. I like routine. I prefer to see results for my efforts. I like to be able to stand back, observe my work and say ‘well done’. I like to know what I have to work on. I want to pay attention to how I feel about a situation so that I can fix it.I was focused on me. I was not focused on bringing God’s Kingdom to Baggot.My team called me out, gave me some hard feedback and challenged me to focus on something much greater than myself. The truth is work there is slow, it is frustrating and there are lots of reasons to be discouraged by it. But does that mean that being there is a waste of time? Slow gradual change is still change. And yes, it is hard, exhausting work but where in the Bible does it tell us that our work will be easy?Our month of ministry here in Australia ends next Saturday… We will be leaving the seeds we’ve worked so hard to plant in God’s hands. It humbles and amazes me that even in my selfishness God is gracious to me. He has redeemed every moment ruled by my selfish ambition and turned it for his glory in spite of me.That said one thing remains very clear… King ‘I’ has to die.
