The Refiner's Fire

I've been on enough mission trips that you would expect me to become a little more accustomed to some of the pre-trip challenges that occur with painful repition as I prepare to leave again.

Here is a list of suggested preparations: I'll start with the easy ones...

• learn about your destination, including customs. ok, handled.
• pray with team mates. in fact, did this a couple of hours ago.
• pray for wisdom, team mates, destination friends, family and self. this is appropriate.
• establish a relationship with at least one person who will pray daily for you and with whom you can be personal and candid with after you return home. Praise God for my friends! People that God has placed in my life to help smooth out my rough edges.

moving on to the more difficult to grasp:

• expect to encounter the unexpected, including problems. I am great with this in country, but prior to departure I expect everything to run smoothly, no difficulties or obstacles in final preparations. This is where I need to admit bouts of dillusion...
• get lots of sleep the week before leaving. This rarely happens in a typical week in my life, let alone the week that I'm trying to wrap up my personal life as well as work before traveling internationally.
• make a vacation day for yourself prior to leaving, perhaps the day before. Completely impossible for me to do with my personality of trying to estimate time frames to accomplish goals. There's always a big stack to complete before leaving.

Please understand that I think this is a great list to work through and suggest for short term mission team participants, it's just that being totally honest, 9 days out, feeling stressed out and completely overwhelmed with my to do list, it is interesting that I expect to be changed and challenged while on the trip. I realize that re-entry into our culture is anything but easy, but yet, I seemingly resist the fact that the pre-trip is life changing and causes tension and change to occur as well. This is my first aha moment of the trip.

Repeatedly, I tell people that our journey starts well before we embark on the actual trip itself. For some reason, this trips has driven that point home in my own life.

Please pray for each of us this week as we prepare... personally, spiritually and as a team.