Second time around..

In my last blog I talked about who I am a little and kind of how I got involved with my first missions trip.  It is a long one, so Im not sure if anyone will actually read it or not.  There is so much more I could write, but I try to limit it for the readers sake (not that there are any readers yet).  So yeah, I went to China to do missions work back in May of 2005 and it really was a life changing experience.  I came back from that trip motivated and changed.  

But how much was I really changed? Was I merely changed for a few weeks/months?  Did my heart truly go through a transformation?  These are questions I wrestled with when I got back to the states.  One this I knew for sure though; I love China and her people, and I wanted to do nothing less than to go over there and show them Christ's love through my actions.  I tell people I have always had a passion for Europe and Asia, and it is so true... something deep inside of me has always yearned for those countries...  

The next year at school I decided to become a leader on a missions trip, and I only wanted to go back to China.  So, I became a leader(this is one of my first times really being a leader in this extent, so it was a learning experience for me).  Me and my co-leader chose a team of 7 (smaller than the last one) and we did all of our team training and stuff. This time it felt really weird for me. It was a new, totally different group of people I went with this time... and my biggest struggle with this team was trying not to compare them to the team before them.  

We went to China and it was a very stressful time for me. I, at many times, felt very alone. Everyone on the team was very different from me and I felt like an outcast most of the time.  Most of the time I felt as though no one respected me as a leader or a person. It was really hard for me to be there at times, and I even remember crying myself to sleep at night because I felt like a failure.  In some ways this was an eye opener for me. I was able to see my own weaknesses and work on them.  The Lord also made me realize that the trip was really not about me at all and it was about the service I could provide for others.. (my team and the Chinese people).  Also, trying not to compare people and experiences, and learning to embrace everything that was new with open arms. Missions is all about the 'F' word... Flexibility.  

There were hard times, but would I do it over again?  Yes.  Would I change anything?  No! I learned a lot and met a lot of very neat people who I am still in contact with today.  God did good things that year, not only through me, but to me. I still have so much to learn about being a leader, but I know it comes with time.  If you can't get through the hard times, you don't deserve the good times.

fin.

Until the nets are full,

JFW