Lesson 1

It’s funny, I felt an extremely strong calling to come on this trip even before my parents asked me if I wanted to go. However, this entire time, I have never felt more useless. It’s not the language barrier, I went to Mexico without speaking a bit of Spanish and I didn’t feel this useless. Don’t get me wrong, I am still being put to use. The culture is such that people in the villages will flock to see white people. If you are white, it is assumed that you are Christian and have a special connection with God. Pastor Kiran uses this to his advantage, gathering large crowds of people and sharing the Good News, in our case, the Christmas story. Since none of us speak Telegu, Kiran will translate the message that Kelly shares and the rest of us sit there and look pretty. Afterwards we shake everyone’s hand multiple times and share various greetings. Many of the people will ask us to pray for them by putting our hand on their head and bowing. We say a prayer and exchange another greeting and then move on to the next person.
This may seem pretty pointless, but the impact it has made is profound. The few who speak English will ask us about a previous team, inquiring after the individual members by name. The previous teams have done exactly what we have done, sharing a message, handing out some candy, praying… but they have had a tremendous impact and we know the people will respond the same way to us.
But all of this doesn’t answer the question of why God called me in particular. In fact, the first few days were extremely frustrating. Any person could do what I am doing. Literally any person, a walking breathing robot that looked like a white person could do my job. But I think I am beginning to figure out why God called me in particular. He is teaching me about ministry. The lessons have been swift and numerous.
The first lesson is of course about humility. I think pride in all of its forms will be a life-long lesson for me, since it seems to come up no matter what season I am in spiritually. In Ephesians Paul says that we should forgive each other’s faults and forgive those who offend us. Forgiveness is an act of tremendous humility. I have written in my Bible next to this verse that ‘Forgiveness isn’t about ignoring the offense, it is a release.’ For me this requires a tremendous amount of humility. I want to fix it. I want someone to say they were wrong, I want retribution! But Jesus’ blood covered all of that, and I need to humble myself enough to release it up to Him for redemption.
This whole trip has been a sort of object lesson about having faith in God’s provision. I have been able to see first had what happens when a believer throws themselves completely into service for God without leaving God room to work. When God radically changes your life, it is easy to want to do everything for Him, but in our pitiful human ways, we can try so hard to please God that we lose the whole point. God appointed Gideon as a judge and told him to rescue Israel from the Midionites. He then stripped away 99% of Gideon’s army and delivered the Midionite army into his hands in an awesome display of the power of His Spirit. Why did God have to strip away the vast majority of Gideon’s army? Wasn’t the point of the whole this to deliver Israel from her oppressors? The answer is no. God did want to deliver his people, but he also needed them to understand that He was their heavenly Father who loved to give them good gifts. God isn’t an indifferent taskmaster, sending us into a mine field and ordering us to get to the other side. All he wants from us is to say yes. When we try to do more and take God’s mission into our own hands, the results are stress and tears and pain. It is a lesson I began to learn about a year ago, but seeing the direct result has really made the message stick. Sorry if this seems a little vague. Some of this has been inspired by things that I don’t have the authority to put on the internet…
In conclusion, God didn’t bring me here to break my heart more. I can say with confidence that He has already accomplished that. But he brought me here so that I can be more effective in any future ministries.