Here’s one last reflection on my TREK experience describing perhaps the deepest way that God has worked in my life.
I had the pleasure of sharing my experience and some lessons in obedience at my sending church, Glencairn MB in Kitchener (www.glencairn.ca) after our worship service yesterday. If you weren’t able to attend but wish you could have, send me an email (chandlerjacob @ gmail . com) and we can find a way to meet up so you can hear from me!
For myself and my teammates, obedience has been a huge theme throughout our time in Portugal. We each came from different provinces/states, from various backgrounds, with a wide range of experiences, and bringing a diverse set of skills and assets to the team. Though most importantly, we each had our own expectations of what the TREK program would be for us. Some expectations were about food, living conditions, personal time; while others were assumptions and hopes about our ministry activities, goals for the mission, and how God would practically use us to build His kingdom.
As we arrived on the foreign mission field, we realized that some expectations would be met, some unmet; for some we would be excited and satisfied, while others we were very disappointed. For me, I had recently spent a long summer working in the kitchen at a summer camp – very full days committed to very tangible work and defined tasks. In Portugal I quickly recognized that our work would be much less structured, more open-ended, and our daily work schedule would be truncated by the need for rest after exhausting days of being immersed in a foreign culture.
In Isaiah 55 God tells us “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” So even my best guesses at how God intends to use me for His work (or even how many hours a day I would be working) doesn’t compare to His thoughts and His plans. Regardless of what our backgrounds are, where we’re from, and what kind of great skills we think we have; once you’re on an intense, cross-cultural, foreign mission field, the only thing that matters is whether or not you’re able to be obedient to God.... (read more)
I saw this played out in a very real way in our ESL ministry. By the third month of our stay in Portugal we had mostly settled in and become more familiar with the culture, language, and people. The locals had also become more comfortable with us and we were starting to build meaningful relationships with them. At that point we started to pray over a vision for new ministry goals and for how we would spend our remaining time on the field. The idea of teaching ESL in our churches became a clear calling, so we obeyed and started building a curriculum and offered weekly classes in the church meeting space.
Our classes became a big hit as within a month or so we had a regular group of 15 to 20 students, and a lot of interest and positivity every week. Despite this success, we found ourselves asking the questions “Is it enough that we are only teaching English? Are we not also called to preach the Good News to our students?” We were very cautious to introduce an evangelistic focus to our classes as we knew that it would shift it away from our students’ expectation: simply learning English. So for a while we felt we had to go against our desires and drop our own expectations for this ministry, in order to be culturally sensitive and focus only on the needs of our students. And that is what I discovered ministry to be: meeting people’s needs. God was expressing His love for our students through us by meeting an immediate need.
Though this was an ongoing question within our team, “What place does evangelism have within ministry?” I grew a lot through wrestling with this question. I spent a lot of time in prayer and listening to God as I knew He had a plan which was far better than mine.
Also as a team we challenged one another with these questions to the point of conflict: “Are we living up to what we are called to be as Christ-followers? Are we being obedient to God?” I believe this is one of the fruits of team accountability; that we naturally challenge one another to be more obedient to God.
We did eventually introduce scripture into our curriculum. We looked at the Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 139, and some other simpler-English passages. This all was well received, though we believe it was only because we spent months building relationship and trust with our students during regular classes before jumping into scripture. This was God’s plan, not ours. There have been many answered prayers and we are truly grateful for God’s hand on our ESL classes.
Myself and my teammates did our best to hear from God and be obedient to His words. I was obedient this year by choosing to devote 10 months to discipleship; by choosing to give up my desires here in Canada to go to a country I know nothing about. I was obedient by living in a close community, by praying for the least-reached people of Portugal, by living as a Christian in a spiritually dark country, and by ministering to people who don’t know God.
As I was obedient to God, he did infinitely more than I could ever ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20-21) God is faithful! God says to us in Isaiah 55 “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
Here are some stories that speak about obedience that I've learned a lot from this year:
- Abraham's Obedience - Genesis 22: God chose Abraham to bless all the nations of the earth, because he was obedient in an incredible test of sacrifice. Abraham also understood God's incredible grace, as he says: “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering”
- Saul's Disobedience - 1 Samuel 15: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice,and to heed is better than the fat of rams." Samuel calls Saul out on His mistake in focusing on the offering and sacrifice, and not being obedient to God's voice.
- The First Mission - Luke 10: Jesus sends 72 of His followers out to heal the sick and declare the kingdom of God. Upon their return He reminds them not to be proud of their accomplishments, but to "rejoice that your names are written in heaven."