Five Years. Really?

(The following is a speech I will give, am giving, gave - depending on when you read this - at my five-year recognition chapel at OMS. If you'd rather hear it, I'm sure I'll post a link to it somewhere. There's a ton more I could talk about after five years, and I probably will in the blog soon. For now, enjoy.)

All right. Here we go.

I've been struggling with what to say on this, the fifth plus a bit anniversary of my time at OMS, ever since Kathy told me about it back in August. 

Okay, if you know me, you know that's not entirely accurate. I've been freaking out about it ever since I learned we do this kind of thing at OMS.

So, about five years. 

I've asked quite a few people what I should talk about today. Some were helpful. Some were not. I credit Foster Pilcher with the idea of writing a blog post and just reading that. So I did. Incidentally, if you'd like to read along, this posted about ten minutes ago. becausehislovecompelsus.blogspot.com

Five years ago, I started working here. But the journey really started about seven and a half years ago when I traveled to Sierra Leone, West Africa. On that trip, as I looked out over the city of Freetown, I felt that God was telling me that my future would involve missions of some kind. Six months later, I was interviewing with OMS.

I'll be honest. It took me a while to figure this place out. Y'all are holiness people, and as a rule, you're a little more touchy-feely than I'm used to. I also come from a denomination that historically has had a fairly narrow definition of the word 'missionary.' There are some people who do not consider what we do in HQ to be missionary work. That's something I've had to overcome both personally and professionally. 

So, two years. That's what I promised God. I'll do this mission thing for two years, and then I'll move on to The Plan. If you're not following along, The Plan is capitalized. I like Plans. I like routine, I like knowing what the next thing is. My Birkman is quite clear on this. 

So imagine my surprise when I reached the end of that two years and thought, "You know, I think I could do another year." You're smiling, but this was by no means a sure thing. 

Before we get to that, though, there are two things I need to highlight about those two years, and they actually happened within months of each other. First, I traveled to Thailand and South Asia in April 2011. Mike Dragon said last week that the first thing they do when you visit South Asia is break your heart. And he's right. I honestly didn't know how to deal with that trip. So I did the worst thing possible and shut down. I still have trouble talking about it. 

Then, in June of 2011, still not quite recovered, I went to Poland. And yes, I went for ministry purposes, but I want to talk about the day I spent in Auschwitz and Birkenau. 

I'm a history major. No matter what else I do in this life, I will always identify as a historian. And I had a lot of head knowledge about the Holocaust before this trip. I knew the numbers, I had seen the photos, I heard eyewitness accounts. 

But now I was walking where it happened. I saw the barracks designed for horses that instead housed hundreds of people. I saw desperate words scrawled on the walls of death chambers. I saw rooms of suitcases, shoes, and human hair stolen from millions of people. 

Needless to say, it was pretty impactful.

I came away from those trips with three things made abundantly clear. 

1. Satan is very real. 

2. It is a lot easier to serve evil than it is to do good.

3. We have hope. 

That last one may seem a little incongruous with the others. And it may seem hard to come away from a place like Auschwitz feeling hopeful. Even South Asia might seem like a stretch.

But for as difficult as a place like South Asia is, the Gospel is advancing. One of the things I vividly recall is standing on the shore watching dozens of people be baptized. It's a pretty incredible sight, made all the more remarkable when you know that persecution is not just a buzzword for these people. It's a reality. When I got off the plane in the capital, there was a notable oppression of spirit. I could almost feel the enemy working. But that just means he's scared. Satan doesn't have to work hard when he knows he's in control of a place.

Which brings us to Auschwitz. People talk about that place as though they can almost hear the cries of victims. And it is admittedly creepy to walk through the gas chambers. But mostly, I felt empty. I felt like I was seeing the pinnacle of evil. Like Satan had gotten things started and then let humanity take over, and this is what they achieved.

But I was talking about hope. And as we know from history, the Allies won. People realized what they were capable of. And for a little while, people pursued righteousness. Auschwitz now stands as a memorial and as a symbol of things that should never happen again.

Okay, so I sometimes go off on these rants on my blog. I apologize.

Let's go back to that third year. I finally felt like I was fitting in, or at least my brand of crazy was appreciated. So naturally, things started going wrong. I was in a pretty severe depression for several months. And I need to address this because we don't talk about depression much in Christian circles. I understand that. I don't really want to talk about it myself. But I talked to a counselor at my church about it, and she very nicely handed me a pamphlet that said my depression was a sign that I probably had a secret sin or that I wasn't close enough to Jesus. I'm here to tell you that the only reason I made it through is because I was desperately clinging to Jesus. He gave me hope that I would get out of the valley. And I eventually did.

I was pretty sure I'd be leaving OMS after three years, which was extremely disappointing. I felt like I was becoming the best version of myself here, and I didn't know how that would translate in the wider world. My Plan had changed, and I didn't like that.

But then I was offered a beacon of hope. A chance to stay for one more year. I'm not going to lie. It was a hard year. I was frustrated. I felt like I was losing whatever perspective I'd gained. So when the year was up, I was finally ready to leave. I had begged God for two more years. And now I was begging to move on.

It really looked like it was going to happen, too. My contract was up, I'd applied elsewhere, and yet every time I went to pack up my things, I'd hit a wall. It felt wrong.

And then ECC came calling. And I knew God was telling me to stay. I would officially be at OMS for a full five years. It's been a long road. I don't know how you guys focus on just one thing that happened. Five years is a long time.

But if I had to narrow it down to one lesson, that lesson would be hope. I'm a pretty cynical person. I will pretty much always see the worst-case scenario. But I have also become a hopeful person. And the source of my hope is and always will be Jesus Christ. I have been redeemed, and that gives me hope for the rest of the world. If even one third of the people we reach with our one billion opportunity gives their life to Jesus, can you imagine what that would do to the world?

I don't know where I will be five years from now. I'd love to be back up here, sharing my special brand of eccentricity and failing to concentrate on just one thing about the next five years. But wherever I am, I hope that I'm bringing hope to others. That's my new Plan.

Before I leave, I want to publicly thank a few people for getting me through the last five years. To my parents, for your unwavering support and for letting me cry on your shoulders, thank you. To my sisters, who gave me their own special brand of encouragement, thanks, I guess. To Lori McFall, for being a second mom, a sister, and a best friend rolled into one, thank you. To Sam Downey, for being a port in a stormy sea, thank you. To all of you, for sharing in my journey, thank you. And to God, for giving me exactly what I need when I need it, whether I like it or not, thank you. 

Re-entry

I feel the need to explain some of my post-trip decompression process. It is not a fool-proof method, and really, you should only use it if you don't mind ending up with severe neuroses like mine.

1. Plan for re-entry before you leave. This is incredibly important. You are the only one who knows how you process things. Do you need people? Do you need quiet? Every trip you go on is a life-changing experience, and if you aren't prepared to process what you see and hear, you will lose some of what you could have learned. Personally, I need some quiet time with my family (usually my parents). My mom always knows which questions to ask to draw out those little nuggets of gold, but she also respects that it may take me some time to answer a specific question.

2. Journal. Religiously. I don't care if you just write a list of your activities, take the time at the end of the day to write. Write about what happened, how it made you feel, things you overheard, people you were frustrated by - whatever, vomit as much as you can on the page. It's really easy to forget the little things that brightened your day if you don't write them down. I have a specific journal that I use for all my trips, because a lot of what I experience has happened before in some form or another. It's easier to go back and see how certain things were handled if it's all in one place.

3. Don't make any monumental decisions for at least two days after you get home. It would be really easy to come back from the poverty of Africa and decide you really don't need all that stuff in your house. And yeah, you may not need it. But take a few days to think about it. Are you ready to give all your money to the Nicaragua building fund? Fantastic. Can you afford it? Probably not. It's okay to want to take action about what you've seen; in fact, I would encourage it. But do it in a way that makes sense for you.

4. Talk to people about your trip. I know, you didn't expect to see that on any list I made, but it is important. There are certain things to remember, though. First, I'm going to address the more verbose members of my audience. You will have no problem with this. In fact, you are going to tell everyone you meet about this trip, regardless of whether or not they want to hear about it, and that's fine. But respect your audience. No one has experienced exactly what you have on this trip, and they may not be quite as enthused about the things you saw as you are. That's why it's important to plan ahead. Do you have people who will listen to you no matter what? Talk to them first. They will listen to all you have to say, and then they can help you pick out some shorter stories that you can tell to the less patient individuals who ask about your trip but don't really want to hear everything.

Now, as for the rest of us, I realize that asking you to talk is akin to asking you to climb into the lion cage at the zoo - utterly unthinkable. But people can actually have some value for you at this stage. Take your time to think and process on your own, but when people ask you questions about your trip, try to answer them with more than four words. They might ask you things you wouldn't think about on your own. I was really frustrated when I got back from Thailand and South Asia because I was having a hard time processing things. But the more people asked me about the trip, the more I was able to think and process.

Also, for both types of people, it may help to have a reunion with the people who were with you on the trip. Then again, it may not. But if you do, try to forgive the people who really annoyed you. It'll help with the next one.

5. Be at peace. Whatever your final conclusions are about the trip, you aren't done with re-entry until you make your peace with it. Whether you have some things to change, decisions to make, people to forgive or ask forgiveness of, don't start something else until you feel peace in your soul about your trip. I hesitated when I was first asked to go to Poland because I still wasn't at peace over South Asia. Once I had settled things there, I could concentrate on seeking God's will about Poland.

You should be able to track this process pretty well in my blog posts. I may not mention it at all, but you will be able to tell how I'm doing by the length of time it takes me to get a trip post done.

On that note, expect the Poland post to be up soon.

SOUTH ASIA

So.

I've been promising this thing for about a month. At first, I just didn't know how I was going to do it. Obviously, I can't really talk about the country; giving geographical details defeats the purpose of having a security policy, but not giving geographical details makes it difficult for me to tell a story. I can't explain the context, so the story makes little sense.

I decided to just do a picture post. But which pictures? I have about 800 from which to choose, and even if I could limit it, I have the problem of context again.

Then I thought about just not doing a post about South Asia at all. It eliminates the security problem entirely, and I can stop agonizing about how to do it. But that's not fair to you, because it really was a good trip, and I did see some incredible things.

Finally, as I was talking to my dear friend Beka, and we were discussing our respective failures to update our blogs, I was forced to acknowledge that my reticence was explained by a root problem.

I haven't come home, yet.

Physically, I've been home since the fifteenth of April. But mentally, emotionally, maybe even spiritually, I'm still standing on top of the guest house, looking out over the capital.


On every trip I take, I ask God to teach me something, to reveal Himself in a new way. Sometimes, I'm given a verse or a subject to study even before I leave. Often, there is a single moment of clarity, such as when I was in Sierra Leone back in 2008. God is always present wherever I am, but there is always one of those "Ah-ha!" moments when I suddenly realize my purpose for being on the trip.

I don't know what that is for South Asia.

It's painful to admit that. I have prayed about it, but I don't know what else to do except wait. And I hate waiting. I suppose that's my lesson this time around.

So, just the facts this time around. I went to South Asia with my boss so we could see the ministries there and gather stories to share throughout OMS. We saw a girls' school, micro-loan recipients, evangelism teams, churches, a baptism and discipleship training. We interviewed dozens of people, we took hundreds of pictures, and we did it all in about four days. Here's just a taste of what we saw.














I would appreciate your continued prayers for me. The past couple of months have been rough, and it's often been a matter of taking things one day (sometimes hour) at a time.

I would encourage you to head on over to Beka's blog. She writes good stuff.

And if she hasn't updated it, please point that out to her.

;D

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Once again, I have written and starred in the latest radio ad for One Mission Society.



I am working on my blog for South Asia, but it may be awhile. I have to sort through 700 pictures. Unless you want to see them all. :)

We're headed to our next destination shortly. Probably won't have any internet connection, so no blog posts or Facebook updates. Please keep me and my boss in your prayers over the next few days. We're not really sure what to expect, but have been told many (often conflicting) things. We're both quite nervous, and would appreciate your prayers greatly. Thank you all, and look for an update when I return to the States on Thursday, April 14.