This ridiculously long blog entry chronicles the recent happenings in my experience of learning what God's will is for me with regard to the missionfield. I just wanted to record it, not necessarily so anyone would read it :) I highlighted and/or bolded the areas that sorta summarize what I learned and the decision God led me to.
So my housemates and I decided we were going to take a roadtrip out to Fredericton for their 30th annual Bible Conference last weekend. It was a great time filled with God's presence and direction but a confusing time for me overall.
Besides the 15 hours of driving on the way there and a few mishaps that happened here and there throughout the weekend, the first thing that really got to me was a visit to the house of my elderly friend Reg. I used to spend every Saturday night at Reg's house back when I lived in Fredericton. He's got to be the finest octogenarian I know! :) When I talked to him about some of my thoughts on the missionfield and whether God wants me there he said:
"There's two things missionaries are called to do according to Jesus: 'preach the gospel' and 'make disciples'. Not everyone has to be preaching the gospel and planting churches when they go out on the missionfield, some people are called there to make disciples of those who have already heard and believed".
At first I had a hard time with this thought. I mean, there are lots of people on the missionsfield doing support work such as office work and not necessarily being directly involved in preaching or discipling. They are supporting those works though... but I didn't give that much thought as I realised that I don't feel like God is calling me to the missionfield to do something other than these two things. When I'm in Haiti it just feels right when I'm with some young person one on one getting to know them better and just naturally telling them about who God is and what He's done and encouraging them to get to know Him or get to know Him more. I know that is what God's called me to do, I'm just not sure sometimes whether He means me to do it here in Toronto or out on the missionfield. That's what I want to find out!
So after being encouraged by Reg's thoughts on the missionfield, I enjoyed hearing John Dennison give a report about his work in Mexico. It was a great report and I enjoyed listening to it, but the best part was that after the break, he came over and sat by me to take in the rest of the conference. This was great because I had wanted to ask him a question and didn't know when I'd possibly have time to talk to him what with everything else that was going on at the conference. So just before they started with the next block of speakers, I leaned over and asked him:
"How can a person know whether their sense of a call to go out to the mission field is really a call from God or just their own desires influencing them?"
What he said to me was that while it is important to make sure that your "call" is genuine, your desires can be a part of that confirmation. Not all personal desires are wrong of course, God is not normally going to call a person to the mission field who genuinely doesn't want to be there. And then Mr. Dennison quoted a Psalm to me in a way I'd never thought about it:
"Delight yourself in the Lord; and He will give you the desires of your heart."
Psalm 37:4
What he said to me was that this verse is clearly not saying that anyone who delights in the Lord is going to get everything he desires, because we know that isn't true. But you can see it like this: if you find your delight in the Lord, He will give you the desires He wants you to have. The person who is devoted to God is going to be changed, molded, and guided by Him though the Spirit of God. Our desires are a part of that process. Don't ignore or discount them. This was a powerful and moving thought to me.
I wanted to ask him more questions, but the next speaker was starting so I had to hold off, but I let him know I would try to find him later.
After that, during the next break for meals, my roommate let me know that some old acquaintances of mine had recently returned from doing a short stint of gospel work in Haiti! I was surprised at the internal reaction I had to this information, but it just really struck me because even though Swaziland has really been on my heart lately what with what we've been up to there, its just never been a part of me like Haiti has. I don't know why that is for sure, but I do know that finding out that there might be another young couple that I know interested in doing work in Haiti for God just blew me away. I wanted to sit them down and find out more about it, but to tell the truth I couldn't quite figure out where I knew them from! I'm so bad with names... and I didn't want to make a fool of myself. But eventually I clued into the fact that they were not only from Clementsvale where I've spent some time serving at their yearly conference, but they are also family to some good friends of mine here in Toronto! Wish I'd remembered that while I still had a chance to talk to them in person... But either way the news about them having gone there just got my mind racing.
Because the thing is, as much as I can see myself ending up in Haiti at some point, the thought of going by myself deflates my heart. I know me well enough to know that I'm not likely to hold up well under the pressures of foreign missionary work without close support and fellowship -- and I just don't think I could get that from the people there. Not because the Haitian Christians are any less warm and supportive than anyone else, but because just like anywhere, they still treat you like a foreigner... like a missionary. Not like their friend down the street, but like a friendly stranger. And that's not gonna cut it when things get hard. Now, I know in reality I don't have to worry because Jesus is always with me and ready to help me. But he gave us friends and fellowship for a reason, and I don't think I've been equipped by Him to live without it.
Now, after the surprise about my Clementsvale friends, I next had the opportunity to pick the brain of a very good old (young) friend of mine who is very shortly going with his wife and two children to the country of Angola to become full time workers there for God. It was so inspiring to hear their story of how clearly and miraculously God had told them where and when to go and what to do there. It was just another sign from God that He does still speak directly to His people and that nothing is stopping him from doing that in my life. I just have to trust Him.
After the ministry was all over and we had an amazing time of singing (the singing in Fredericton is always amazing), Mr. Dennison was giving a message to the youth and opened it by mentioning (anonymously!) the conversation I had had with him that afternoon! That really caught my attention. What was awesome was that his message that night for the youth was so directly about what I had asked him about and he'd prepared it ages ago. The synopsis was this:
How can you know God's will for your life?
1. The Word of God
If you're looking for specific guidance in a situation, first ask yourself 'What has God said generally to me through His Word?' Do those things first. Obey what He has already given you! Get going with the general and the specifics will be given to you in God's perfect timing.
2. The Witness of the Situation
Circumstances can be a confirmation of God's will as long as they are in line with the Word of God.
3. Wisdom of Believers
Before making a major decision, build up counsellors! Neutral people who can give you wisdom. That can also be a confirmation of the will of God in your life.
4. Wait until you can say with confidence: "The Lord has prepared my way"
Like the servant who went to find a wife for Isaac, he trusted God to show him who was the right woman and God showed him very clearly! At that point there was no doubt at all that it was God who had arranged the circumstances.
These people sure do love alliteration. :)
Anyways, it was awesome to get this message and to think about how it applies to my questions about whether God is calling me to missions work.
After this message though, I hounded Mr. Dennison to get a moment alone with him to pick his brain some more and that's when I got the real gems of the weekend.
My real burning question for him was this:
"If I'm involved in the youth ministry at home and God really seems to be moving there and blessing the work, then how am I to understand the burden that I have to leave and do missions work? Is it just in my mind?"
He gave me some really powerful things to think about when trying to answer this question myself before God.
Is the ministry you're doing at home something you do that someone else could be doing? Conversely, is there something God has placed on your heart to do (in the missions field) that He has equipped you specially to do that not just anyone could do? That could be a good indication of what God is telling you/showing you about His will for you and His ability to take care of the ministry you would be leaving by going out.
Look at the ways that God has equipped you. Are you equipped for the missions field? Can you learn a language? Can you live in those circumstances?
Look at the ways that God is opening or closing doors with respect to your burden. What are the circumstances showing you? Work, home, finances, support, etc.
Where is there currently an ear for the gospel? A lack of an 'ear' does not mean that there is not a call, but a definite cry for gospel preaching/teaching/discipling is definitely another sign or confirmation of a call from God.
Once again, look at the desires God has given you. He's not normally going to call someone who loathes children into a children's ministry. What has He given you a desire for?
If you have a burden or desire to go on the missions field, take some time if possible and go short term. See what it is like to live there. See if God blesses and speaks to you there. He'll make His will clear to you.
These thoughts gave me so much to chew on and meditate over for the rest of the weekend and I was so thankful for them. My old friend Dorie Lyn was also really supportive of the idea when I confided in her about it as well but I couldn't tell if that was more out of excitement and whatnot since my roommates were both intending to go based on clear marching orders they'd received.
Before I knew it it was time to head home and for about 7 hours of our 12 hour drive the three of us were talking about the ministry and the missions field and how God had spoken to us. It was really neat to see how God was clearly working in the lives of my roommates to show them His will regarding their nearing departures on to the field.
For me the matter was still pretty muddy because although I had Haiti heavy on my mind and heart, I still did not feel as though God was calling me to head off there. I had though a lot more about what Mr. Dennison had said and had started praying about the possibility that God might be able to bring me to an IJM office somewhere in the world for a year on a fellowship to learn about how they are using their advocacy skills to fight against violent oppression and spread the gospel and then after my year there go to Haiti to try and do the same sort of thing on a much smaller scale as a way to reach and disciple people through ministry. This idea really made a lot of sense to me, but I was still feeling pretty uneasy.
Once we got home it was time to get to bed because I had to be up for work in a few hours! But just before I drifted off to sleep, both C &C found out that they'd received news in the mail/e-mail when we got back that were direct answers to prayer about their plans for the missionfield! Very exciting. But troubling as well as I realised that unlike C&C and Joel and Kaleigh, I definitely couldn't point to anything that God had shown me lately that would indicate that he was confirming my inclination toward going to Haiti or my desire to depart for the missionfield in the near future.
So I then went to bed feeling a little depressed and disappointed. Spent some time praying and then decided to soldier on in my reading since I God speaks to me and other through the Bible. I would probably have preferred to pick a more uplifting book, but my studying lately has been in the book of Obadiah and I figured I'd just stick it out there until I was done with it. And unfortunately for my then fragile psyche, the verses to pop out at me during my reading that dark night were:
"The arrogance of your heart has deceived you, [....] Though you build high like the eagle, though you set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the LORD. [....] Jacob will be a fire, and Joseph will be a flame, but you will be as stubble". Oba 1:3-4, 18.
And I don't think I have to outline just how discouraged this made me feel! And to add insult to injury, I fell asleep shortly after reading this passage and had violent nightmares all night. A very unpleasant evening and end to the conference to be sure!
The next day I had a telephone call from my good friend in Fredericton. The one who had been encouraging me to take the next steps towards the missionfield instead of hesitating. She was calling to apologize because she felt as though she had been too pushy. She said "If you're really waffling between going or not going, Genna, maybe its just not the time". Another hard thing to hear.
Now I'm studying Obadiah during my Bible study time but during my regular reading I've been recently enjoying reading about David's life. I was impressed with his humility and had been admiring afresh his devotion to God -- some of the things that he did during his lifetime must have made him seem like a real fool for God to the people around him. And its awesome how he didn't let all his disappointments and all the times of uncertainty of God's blessing deter him from following God singleheartedly. So on Monday when I was on my way to work after my dark night of the soul, I happened to be reading in second Samuel on the GoTrain. David, the King God had promised to bless was, once again, fleeing from the palace from before someone close to him who wished him dead. His own son had decided to overthrow him -- a King who had dedicated his life to his people and His God. So he's fleeing from the palace and then this jerk shows up:
"When King David came to Bahurim, behold, there came out from there a man [...] whose name was Shimei [...] he came out cursing continually as he came. He threw stones at David [and cursed him saying] [...] "Get out, get out, you [...] worthless fellow!"
Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over now and cut off his head." But the king said, "[...] If he curses, and if the LORD has told him, 'Curse David,' then who shall say, 'why have you done so?' [...] Let him alone and let him curse, for the LORD has told him. Perhaps the LORD will look on my affliction and return good to me instead of his cursing this day."
So David and his men went on the way; and Shimei went along on the hillside parallel with him and as he went he cursed and cast stones and threw dust at him. The king and all the people who were with him arrived weary [...]
2 Sam 16:6-10
David's patience and trust in God really struck me. Here was a man who God had chosen as a man after God's own heart yet time after time I read of him going through immense personal and national trials and pain. But what got me the most about this passage was that David could have lopped this guy's head off but he didn't. He knew that the Lord could bless him if He wanted to bless him and had a right to try him if He wanted to try him. Now was the time for trial and pain. David accepted that. The time for blessing would come, but that was the Lord's business.
And I knew the same must be true of me. I know that God knows the desire he has placed within my heart with regard to His work abroad. But I can't go ahead of His timing, as much as I'd like to. I started to meditate on this thought early that week and as I was thinking about it I thought I'd spend some time thinking about Haiti and what it might look like to go there at some point. I started by e-mailing my Clementsvale friends to find out more about their short time there and whether there was an "ear for the Gospel" there as Mr. Dennison had suggested.
While I was waiting for a reply to my e-mail, I spent some time looking up the blog of some missionaries I knew of in Haiti to see what they were up to. It is a young couple who went over to Haiti to spread the gospel and especially to disciple youth -- the very thing I want to be doing! So I thought I'd read more about their time there and try to be inspired by the work they were doing. Well, colour me surprised when I see on their most recent blog headline "Moving to Nicaragua!"
Riiiiight....
So yeah. Turns out that a couple of months ago the home of this young missionary family had been broken into by Haitian thugs wielding guns. A home invasion! There were shots fired in their home and they had their young daughter in the house with them. It was just too much for them and they've decided to leave Haiti for good and are now beginning their ministry in Nicaragua.
Well, I trust God will bless them where He has brought them, but it just wasn't encouraging news to read about as I was trying to pump myself up about Haiti!
By this point in the week I was feeling pretty low. While on the one had God had seemed to answer so many prayers and open so many doors with respect to taking the year off and going off with IJM, and weighing me down with heavy thoughts about the work to be done in Haiti, at the same time He seemed to be making it abundantly clear that He was not going to give me marching orders to Haiti at this time. And I really started to wonder, then, how to make sense of it all.
And just as I was getting to my lowest point in this little adventure, God saw fit to bless me by shedding some little light for me.
See, I had been starting to doubt that I was really being called at all to missions work -- especially in the advocacy field. I wondered if I was just letting the romance of the idea of IJM and the adventure carry me away. Gary Haugen's books could convince just about anyone that they're being called by God to go out and fight oppression single-handedly. And he quotes all the good verses in the Bible about the subject, so it makes it hard to know if the feeling of a call that one gets from reading them is really just because Haugen put it in your mind in the first place! I needed real confirmation from God that it was He who was speaking to me, because I can't go without knowing He's going before.
I kept going in my daily studying of the short book of Obadiah, even though I found it so discouraging. But in the middle of that week, God showed me something special there that really spoke to me:
Because of violence to your brother, [...], on the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth, and foreigners entered his gate, you too were as one of them.
Oba 1:10-11
I didn't experience this as a rebuke to me, but as a clear indication that now that God has laid on my heart the violence that is being done to my brothers and sisters around the world by violent men and women, I can't stand aloof and go on with my life here or I am just like those who are committing the violence.
God's Word is amazing to me. See, it never changes, which is awesome, yet its living which is beyond awesome. But how does that work exactly? Well, I'm sure its different for everyone, but what I've found in my life and relationship with God is that He speaks to me most clearly when I am studying or meditating on a passage of His word as opposed to just reading it lightly. And what He'll do is captivate my mind with a particular passage or verse all of a sudden in a way that I've never seen the verse before. Not a vague way of interpreting the verse, but a clear and obvious way that just simply never occurred to me before in my countless readings of it in the past. Its hard to describe the experience clearer than that, but I've learned to recognize His particular messages to me when reading and I love it.
I know that that passage in Obadiah might not seem to say to you what it said to me, but I knew that that was what God was saying to me. And it has helped to give me peace about going with IJM -- knowing that God is behind it and has brought this burden to me for His own purpose.
Last Sunday Sharon taught the sunday school class about the importance of patience. Then later that day I went to Bridlegrove Chapel where the evening ministry was also on the subject of patience. And I've been thinking about David and his patience in waiting on the Lord to show him what to do next. His trust in God's timing and his refusal to step out ahead of God despite what his friends were saying about the absurdity of his situation as a man of God and the rightful King of Israel.
God knows what He's doing. I don't need to know what comes after IJM at this point. He may make it clear before I go, He may make it clear while I am there that year, but He may not, and if that is His will then I will come home at the end of that year and see what He has next for me and find out how He wants me to deal with this burden I have for advocacy to the oppressed going forward.
At this point I am thinking I may request a post in the Rwanda IJM office for a year starting June of 2013. I am still praying about it, but this is what I am thinking at this point. Rwanda is a country where one of the official languages is French, like Haiti. And unlike the Uganda IJM office, the Rwanda office does work in both the areas of sexual crimes against children as well as land grabbing issues against widows and orphans, which would be helpful to learn more about with regard to Haiti. I'm going to spend this year attempting to seriously ramp up on my French in preparation. But in the end I won't have a choice where IJM chooses to send me if they even accept my application for a legal fellowship so it will be up to God to make the way clear.
I will keep praying about it and talk to the elders about my exercise as soon as I am able.
Sorry for the saga, but the whole story had to be told. One day I may need to re-read this entry to assure myself of just how directly God brought me to this decision and to see how He used even my discouragement and disappointment to show me His will for me.
Awesome.
