Upon My Return Home

My summer mission trip to Italy could possibly be one of the most discouraging mission trips I have been on. Italy doesn’t really strike you as a really difficult place to do ministry-and it wasn’t-but all the emotional drama and trauma going on between ministry opportunities wore on me terribly. Without going into a lot of detail, suffice it to say that as a team, we did not feel welcome or that our ministry to kids was worth any huge amount of time. In addition to that, throw four single girls and a handful of single soldiers into close quarters and stand back and laugh. Yes, there was that problem too.

And, to be completely honest, I handled none of these things in a way befitting a beautiful woman of God. I complained, I developed attitudes of discontent, I hurt others with my words. I slowly, but surely, slipped further and further away from the beautiful relationship I had had with my God. But I think that the most difficult thing for me was that I did not feel that my prayer for the summer had been realized.

I had been praying that God would show me his glory and that he would show up in a very real and very powerful way. I wanted to know that God really and truly cared about me. And I was expecting something big. I was expecting a life-changing thing that when I looked back on my life I would be able to point to a moment and say That was it, that moment during a summer mission trip to Italy, God spoke to me and my life changed and took a whole new direction.

When I got back to debrief in Warrenton, I was still struggling with the fact that nothing huge or life-changing had occurred in Italy. In fact, I felt further away from God than I had felt in months. I felt as though the relationship damage that had been done would take months, years to repair. Just to get back to where I had been before the trip, let alone grow, seemed unfathomably difficult.

And then, I had a revelation. I suddenly realized that maybe I had been looking so hard for the BIG thing, that I missed all the small little affirmations of God’s love that he sent. This train of thought continued as I looked again at the life of Moses, from which I had drawn so much inspiration. God showed Moses his glory and Exodus also says over and over again that Moses was a friend of God. I started thinking about what characterizes a true friendship. It is not huge monumental gifts or enormously memorable moments. It’s little things. Small things that happen every day.

I started looking back at my trip and realized that, indeed, there were little tokens of God’s affection scattered throughout my trip to Italy.

The first one that I can remember occurred three or four days after I arrived in Italy. I had an envelope of money that I was to give to Dave Powell that would cover all the expenses of the trip. I misplaced it and thought nothing of it until one of the other team members told me that the envelope had had cash in it and not a check. I started casually looking for the envelope, then frantically. I had finally looked in every possible place. I was almost in tears when I walked into my bedroom where all the girls were sitting. I asked them if we could please pray. One other girl prayed first, then I prayed. Almost as soon as I said Amen, the other girl rolled off the bed and said she would look in one more place. She pulled the envelope out from behind the nightstand.

I had been very discouraged by the fact that none of the children at MOKIs had responded to the Bible stories and asked to be counseled for salvation. I was haunted by the fact the Chris had not come back to MOKIs. He was a little boy that had raised his hand and told me very seriously after I had presented the salvation message, that what I had said made his heart hurt. I had not had a chance to talk to him that day. I looked for him every day after that but I never saw him again. But because of Chris, I started watching the kids and if they looked like they had a question, I invited them to stay back and to talk to me about what they were thinking. I was able to lead five kids to Jesus!

Four days before my team left, our team leader and his daughter left for the states. He had been taking alot for us and he was worried that in his absence, my team would be attacked. But God had provided two soldiers with whom my team had built an incredible friendship, and in Dave’s absence, they stepped in and protected. In a time when we were most vulnerable and helpless, God provided a way of escape.

Those are the things that I can remember now. As I begin to remember smaller details of the trip, I know I will see more things that were gifts to me from God. It was a difficult trip but it was a good trip and an opportunity to experience God.

Italy-Part II

I find it quite disturbing that I have been in Italy for almost four weeks and I’ve only updated this blog twice. For those chosen few who read this, I sincerely apologize.

Who knew that four weeks could go by so quickly? When I arrived at the hospitality house here in Vicenza, Italy, the four weeks of ministry ahead of me looked long and I was really excited to see what God would do on this mission trip. Now it’s getting to the place where we are counting down the hours until we leave for the airport. We have made so many friends here and met so many incredible people that the idea of saying goodbye is terrifying. I would rather not.

The MOKIs (Moms Out, Kids In) were successful and it was awsome to be able to spend time with these kids who are so desperately in need of love and attention. There were those, of course, who were a special challenge but, to be completely honest, those usually ended up being my favorites. It was also an amazing blessing and a gift from God to be able to lead five children to Christ. To hear them say that they are now a child of God after they had prayed to accept the forgiveness Jesus offers because he died on the cross and rose from the dead, was the most incredible thing. I ecspecially liked the part where I explained that because I am a child of God and they are a child of God, that makes us brothers and sisters in Christ. (The tenses in that paragraph seriously bother me, but I have a two year old telling me about dinosaurs so I am just not going to worry about that. I apologize, English majors.)

In addition to the child evangelism in which my team and I have been involved, we have had, of course, many opportunites to travel around the north part of Italy and see all the places you are supposed to see when you visit Italy. We have been to Venice, Florence, Pisa, Verona, Vicenza, Siere Mione… etc? We had been hoping to go to Rome for the weekend but that didn’t happen and we spent the weekend in Germany and Austria instead (that was amazing!)

But I think one of the very best things about this trip has been the friendships we made with some of the soldiers here. They have been like big brothers and they have challenged me incredibly in my walk with Christ. There have been amazing conversations and inside jokes born and movie lines quoted with these guys and I’m going to miss them so so much. Here’s to Gary (my hero!) and Kev (rocks!) and all the others that are a very important brick in the hospitality house.

There were very many good memories made here and I am truly going to look back on my time in Italy and perhaps get a little homesick.

Italy-Part I

I have now been in Italy for just over a week. When we got off the plane in Venice, we were barely awake and my ankles were already swollen. We found our people right away and drove forty-five minutes to Vicenza. As we drove, we found out that for the next week we would be helping at the SETAF (South European Task Force) Chapel teaching Vacation Bible School. We had actually been prepared for that at training in Missouri but we were given no time to rest because they didn’t want us to sleep so we could kick our jet lag as soon as possible. So we sat through a VBS meeting, an evening church service, and a Hospitality House meeting while fighting sleep. They finally let us go to bed and we woke up early to go teach VBS at 8:30 in the morning.

Although these five early mornings seemed torturous, it was a blessing to work alongside people that the kids already knew and respected so that when we worked with the kids in MOKIs (Moms Out, Kids In), discipline would not be such a huge issue. It was also nice to see how much the kids actually knew about the Bible and to have something to reference and expand upon when teaching MOKIs.

We also had a lot of afternoons and days to go off and do touristy things. One afternoon, one of the girls that works in the school on the base took us to a castle/island/fortress ruins about forty-five minutes away. That was absolutely fabulous and since we are in the area where all the Murano glass is made and gold jewelry has been a huge export item for centuries, the shops were amazing.

An afternoon after VBS we went to an Italian villa that has been in the same family for generations. All the art in the villa was done by the father. It was all Greek mythology and truly Renaissance. The art in the guest house was done by the son and was paintings of every day life. It was fascinating to see how religion had changed the perception of art in the course of one generation. There was also a story about one of the daughters who had been a dwarf. Her father had dwarf statues made in her honor and they lined the courtyard walls. Rob (our host) had been planning to tell us the story but it must have slipped his mind.

On Saturday, we went to Venice (!) and took a water taxi to Rialto Bridge where we shopped for an hour then wandered over canals and around corners to St. Marks Square. We toured the cathedral, saw the original cast bronze horses stolen by Napolean and returned after WWII. We toured the Doge’s Palace and crossed the Bridge of Sighs. We contemplated a gondola ride but decided that the romantic image would be destroyed if six people went together.

We spent Sunday afternoon with six or seven soldiers at a park nearby. We were surrounded by the foothills of the Alps. It was gorgeous despite the hazy day. I had some time to sit by myself and catch up on my journal and watch Italians jump off of a bridge into the water. It was really a good time to be alone and prepare for the next week.

Yesterday we started MOKIs. MOKI stands for Moms Out, Kids In and it’s pretty much three hours that we have the kids and moms can get some things done that they can’t really do with kids. Most of their husbands have been deployed for about fifteen months and their kids are going crazy and they are stressed out so they really appreciate that we can do this for them. And we get to teach the kids about Jesus for three hours.

MOKI yesterday was a little unorganized but we got through it perfectly well. I taught the Bible story (Jesus forgives the sin of the paralyzed man) and the second time around I actually remembered to look at all the verses in the Bible. The second time I told the story, after I had given the invitation to accept the forgiveness of sins that Jesus offers, one of the little boys raised his hands and said, “Ma’am,” (they are all military kids but this one is so polite and always says sir and ma’am) “after what you said, my heart really is hurting me.” I wanted to talk to him some more but his dad came to pick him up early. So please pray that Team Italy would have more opportunities to really share Christ not only with this child, but with all the children that come to MOKIs.

To Italy

Right now, I have absolutely no idea what the reason could possibly be that God would suddenly take Iceland away and send me to Italy, a country I really haven’t been crazy to visit.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I was numb. I can’t really remember much from those days except how completely weighed down I was with discouragement. On Friday night at CEF headquarters here in Warrenton, MO I was still a little spacey and disengaged. I honestly just wanted to drown in my misery and whine and say God, you have no idea what you’ve just done to me. I’m giving up and going home. But he sent me a friend. We hardly knew each other but she could see that I was down and needed some encouragement. She came alongside me and spoke words that she could not have known I needed into my heart. She prayed for me and hugged me and I really began to feel significantly better.

For the next several days, it seemed that everything that was said in chapel or in group times spoke directly to my struggle to accept Italy as my new destination. Over and over again the idea that God would take our expectations and turn them upside down and once we trusted him, he would work mightily were brought up. Again and again we were encouraged to trust trust trust God.

And now I’m there. I don’t know what God’s up to but I am there. I am fully engaged, looking forward eagerly to God working huge ways in my heart and in my life this summer. I am repreparing mentally for Italy and I am getting really excited to work with the kids there. God has never let go of me and he’s not about to now. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Change of Plans

I feel as though I am horribly behind. In just a few hours I will be leaving for the Baltimore airport and officially beginning my summer mission trip. I can hardly believe the time has already come! And I have updated rarely or not at all and I feel bad.

Saturday night, May 31,  I got back from an extremely intense personal development/BOB/ canoe trip in the Adirondacks in New York. I was beyond stretched physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I learned so many things about what it means to pursue God and to put others first. We were also committed to finding out what it truly means to be a woman when all the outward appearances of femininity are stripped away. It was an amazing trip and I learned so much about myself and had so many God moments and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Then on Sunday I had my commissioning service. It was fabulous and I love my church even more now. *big grins* The rest of the week was spent with my dear friends and family and getting ready for my trip to Iceland.

Then on Wednesday afternoon as I was helping my friend pack the last of her belongings in boxes before her wedding this weekend, I got a phone call from CEF informing me that the girl with whom I was going to Iceland had backed out of the trip because of a sudden death in the family. Because they do not like to send summer missionaries alone, Iceland has been cancelled. But since I am open to going to another country with another team, I have the option of going to either Italy or Uganda.

At first I was completely in shock. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I wouldn’t be going to Iceland. I was mentally prepared for Iceland, I was completely thrilled to be going there, I had my shopping done and now I wasn’t going. And I know that Italy and Uganda are fabulous choices but you have to understand that I had my heart set on Iceland so there were quite a few moments that I could have cried on Wednesday night.

But when I woke up on Thursday morning, I felt much better about the change of plans. I went shopping again and spent the day packing my bags and spending time with my friends. It’s unofficial, I haven’t yet heard from CEF, but if given a choice, I will probably choose Italy. If I go there this summer, I will be living at a US military base, working with the kids of the soldiers. The more time I have to think about it, the more excited I get.

I would, however, appreciate much prayer on my behalf. One of the things we learned about being a woman on the canoe trip is that beautiful women are adaptable. I feel like I’m really going to have to learn that in the next couple of weeks as all my plans are blown out of the water and I have to rework everything. And to be completely honest, I do not do well with change. So yes, please pray.

Iceland-Part I

Last summer (‘07) I travelled with a friend from high school to Ghana in West Africa. For three weeks we lived in the Lighthouse Children’s Home mission compound, got to know the children that live at the Lighthouse, and explored Cape Coast and Abra Inside. I fell in love with the children there and when I got back to the States, I decided to pursue returning to Ghana to teach in the school Lighthouse was starting. It soon became evident that that was not going to happen. In a way, I was grateful because that would mean putting of college yet another year and I was already losing my motivation to continue my education. I did not, however want to spend another summer working at a mundane job. I wanted to do something fabulous before starting college.

So one particularly slow day at work, I googled “summer mission trips.” The very first link was summermissions.com. I clicked on it and found that it seemed to be a perfect way to spend my summer. Over the last year, I have discovered that children are my heart. It seemed that God was affirming this love as I read over the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) website and found that I could spend an entire summer ministering to kids. I read over the application and when I got home from work, I talked to my parents about the idea of a summer mission trip. They gave me their blessing so I started filling out the application.

When I first went on summermissions.com, I had looked over the list of destinations and decided on Iceland as my first choice, Ireland as my second. They had a whole list of African countries but it is my dream to return to Africa for an extended period of time in the future. Not to mention the fact that I had just been there. I’m not a huge fan of South America so I checked out the European destinations. There was Iceland. When I researched Iceland, I read that it was settled by the Vikings, has a huge waterfall (I think it’s the biggest in the world), volcanoes and glaciers. With CEF, I would be teaching Bible school at a summer camp in the mountains of Iceland. It sounded fun to me!

I have since been accepted to go on a summer mission trip with CEF. I have begun to raise funds and thanks to the many people who gave financially, I reached the April 10th goal deadline of 25% of funds raised. On June 6th, I leave for two weeks of child evangelism training in Missouri. From Missouri, my teammate and I leave for four weeks of ministry in Iceland.

I am very excited about this summer. Already, I have seen God working and providing for my needs. I can hardly wait to see what He will do next.