Well, it’s finally happening. Tomorrow at 6:40 Eastern Time, I’m headed to San Diego for five months with YWAM out of Tijuana. It’s strange how fast things change. It’s already been three months since leaving Seattle, a year and a half since graduating college and going to Mexico last time.
This past three months has been full of amazing and unexpected blessings. I’ve slept better than in recent memory. I’ve been able to spend time with my parents and two youngest brothers, and get to know my family better. I’ve been able to continue studying New Testament Greek, and appreciate the power of the Gospel in a new way. I’ve been able to teach the 65+ Sunday School at my parents’ church, which allowed me to discover a love for teaching and allowed me to reconnect with those people who have been supporting and praying for me since before I was born. I’ve been reconnect with my extended family. I’ve been reminded that true friendships, whether from high school or college, remain, in spite of time and geography.
Looking out over the next five months, I’m not sure what to expect. I don’t know what exactly I’ll be doing, or exactly where I’ll be doing it. When I first felt that God was calling me to some sort of missions, this is not what I was expecting. I thought that I was looking for an organization more like Mennonite Central Committee: longer-term, one location, cultural and linguistic immersion, and more of a service-oriented focus. YWAM, as near as I can tell, is a bit more charismatic than I’m used to, with less of a formal plan than I would be comfortable with, with a bit more of an evangelistic emphasis than I would prefer. This wasn’t my plan. I’ve been a bit uncomfortable over the past few months as people have asked me what it is that I’m going to be doing because, quite honestly, I’m not entirely sure.
Still, perhaps it is because it’s not my plan that I am better able to see how it might be God’s plan. When I went down to Mexico a year and a half ago, I read The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson on the way down and back. Along with my actual experiences in Mexico, this book convinced me that I wanted the kind of story that Wilkerson described: the kind so big and unpredictable that no human could have planned it. Wilkerson detailed in this book how, each step of the way, he didn’t know what to expect, and in many cases felt foolish as he followed what he know God was telling him to do, even though he didn’t know why he was doing it. I can sympathize with that feeling of foolishness right now; we’ll see where He leads.