-Charles Spurgeon
March 21st! We are now a couple days into the spring equinox, my favorite season. I love the hopefulness springtime has to offer with the return of sunshine and greenery, and the association with birth and new life.* I suppose I am a bit biased, though; my birthday is in the spring, after all.
I am now counting down the days until I make my way back to the country I fell in love with. There are 68, to be precise. It's still so surreal to me even though I accepted the opportunity to be an intern all the way back in October. It felt this way last year too, when I was preparing to go to Germany for the first time. For some reason it felt like I wasn't going to be able to go, or I was just in a dream. That same feeling has returned, but perhaps for different reasons. Perhaps I'm just still in awe that God would afford me such an opportunity. Or perhaps I just feel, as the old saying goes, "more blessed than I deserve."
Even so, there isn't a day that I don't think about the coming trip. I think constantly of the people I will reunite with, the ways I will be challenged, the familiar beauty I will get to see again. Leipzig was so unlike Loveland, my hometown; there are more than five times as many people, it's centuries older, and its rich history is vastly different. Yet for all the differences, my heart sure made its home there, and I seldom felt out of place despite linguistic and cultural differences between the two cities.
Downtown Loveland. Photo from www.loveland.org.
Yet I am still content with the time I have left to stay at home. I guess that's in part because I know that my departure date will be here before I even know it. On the other hand, there is much God is teaching me here before I leave, lessons I wouldn't have the opportunity to learn during my mission trip.
One of the greatest of these, of course, is to trust. I have to smile when I think of how God is teaching me. For all my lessons in humility and leaning on God for understanding, I still have much to learn. It is much like how I feel when I am the passenger of a vehicle - if I am not the one in control of the car, I feel apprehensive, and I have to assure myself the driver knows what they are doing and will not be foolish enough to get us into a wreck. God operates exactly the same way - and, in fact, if I am to completely surrender myself to Him, I must relinquish complete control of the vehicle. No grabbing the steering wheel when I think He's going to get us in a wreck. No trying to talk Him into going a different route. Just sitting back and trusting that He knows how to drive without my "help."
In these past months as I've prepared to leave, God presented these lessons when I had to ask for support. Before they accepted me as an intern, the missionaries I will be working with this summer, Jim and Lina, asked how I felt about the idea of raising support. I had never done it before - my first trip to Germany was funded by my savings account - and they wanted to gauge what my feelings were. "Good," I had answered confidently. "There's a lot to raise, but I know God will pull through." This is the answer of someone who has full faith that God will indeed provide the needed funds; perhaps I really did have full faith in Him, or maybe I was just coming down from the emotional high of spending all day with my friends and was feeling a bit too self-assured. Either way, I guess it was a good opportunity for God to put that confidence to the test. I had to take a giant leap right out of my comfort zone as I asked people to support my ministry. Making it known that you have a need is a difficult thing for many people, and I think putting it out there that you need money in particular is especially so. Being self-sufficient is comfortable and powerful. Coming to people with empty hands and asking puts you in a position where you are saying, "I don't deserve what I am asking for, and asking you to support me requires humbling myself before you." Yet God provided me with people who gave me a powerful reminder - I am not asking people to fund a summer vacation to Germany, but rather, to fund my lodging, airfare, food, and other costs so I could obey the command to "go forth and make disciples of every nation" (Matthew 28:19).
I was also blessed with a great amount of emotional support. Missionaries, friends, family - even people I barely know have come forward to pray for and encourage me. I sorely needed solidarity; money is what will get me across the pond, but being lifted up in prayer is fortifying. Even just to be able to have simple conversations with people helps greatly; to know that there are people there for me is akin to putting on a suit of armor.
As of writing, I now have $749 to raise. This means that of my $4,800 goal, God has so far provided $4,051! If you are reading this, would you please pray that God continues to provide the needed support for me and the other four interns - Emily, Rachel, Tim, and Noel - who will be serving in Germany this year? In addition, my friend Steffen, who directed the camp last year in Germany, will be serving in Slovakia this year; please pray for his support as well. Finally, I ask that you pray for us to trust in God and surrender our wills to Him, even when (especially when) things don't go according to plan and we feel discouraged as we encounter cultural and spiritual challenges. (If you would like to also support me or another intern through giving, you can give securely by clicking here and clicking on the picture of the person you would like to support.)
68 days. Deutschland, here we come.
I'm excited to build upon friendships and establish new ones, and learn more about how God is working in Germany.
*Some of my European friends have made it quite clear that even though it is officially springtime, there is no sunshine or greenery to be seen, and it is still cold and gray. Stay strong, my friends!
