Well, it's been long enough since my last post! I've been home from El Salvador for a week and a day now. I planned on jumping right into the job search the day after I got back, but that was overzealous thinking. I underestimated my need to process this trip. But God has been good- I just got a job yesterday! But that's not what this is about.. back to El Salvador :)
So I went into this trip with completely different expectations that I've ever had going on a trip. A little back story. As some of you know, the summer after my high school graduation (2009), I went on a 2 week missions trip with my basketball coach (Stutzman) and team. We spent most of our time in Peru, but we stopped in El Salvador for about 2 days. While we were there, we visited a building site my coach was in charge of and met a few families he was connected with. Our time in El Salvador was short and was not at all the main focus of our trip. Something random that stuck with me was this unique wall near the exit of the airport in ES. I saw it as we were driving away, and snapped a quick picture of it.
It intrigued me; I wanted to see it again. But at the end of the two week trip, my short time in ES was just a brief, almost non-existent memory from the whole trip.
Fast-forward to last summer. More than once, the smallest (and random) things began to spark memories of my few days in ES. While staying in a motel in Portland, it made me remember the motel we stayed at in ES. And then something made me remember the beans we had for breakfast one morning. Very random things were brought to memory, and I began to wonder why. Of all of the places I've been, why were these things coming to mind? My time in ES was so short! I began to wonder if I was supposed to go back one day. Well, one day came sooner than I thought!
Going into my first semester last fall at Simpson, I already knew that I wanted to help lead a short-term missions trip if I was able to. For the past few years, I have had the desire to lead teams overseas; I want to be used to help others experience God and missions the way that I have experienced them. But when I applied to be a leader with World Serve (Simpson's short-term group), I actually requested to take a team back to where I had been in Russia to work with the YWAM base there. I knew the possibility of planning that trip was not that great, since there were already places that World Serve said they would like to go, so I put on my application that I was willing to go anywhere. The trip to Russia didn't end up working out (obviously), but as the application process to be a leader progressed, I felt God calling me to the El Salvador trip. I knew that was where I was supposed to be! It was one of those things that just felt right in my heart. And therefore, this picture means SO much to me!
Where I once desired to see that beautifully designed wall once again, God brought me back! I know that He let me see that at the last minute in the bus in 2009 to give me something to long for here, even if that sounds strange. He used a simple wall to speak to my heart.
Yes, that was a very long explanation and back story for just a picture! But it has to do with the different expectations I had going back to ES. Because I felt like ES was THE place I needed to be, I had this expectation that God was going to do something crazy in my life, or show me something big, or SOMETHING! (Looking back, I had such conceited expectations!) As the two weeks in ES came to a close, I had gotten closer to my teammates, made great friendships with the missionaries there, our translators, and the other team we worked with, gotten inspired by hearing the missionaries' hearts and visions, was challenged in the ministry we helped with, tried lots of new foods, etc, BUT, I didn't feel like God showed Himself to me in any big and powerful way like I was expecting. The 2nd week we were there, in fact, I began this wondering of "why am I here God?" It wasn't until the last night that I really figured it out. We were having our nightly debrief with the staff, and Richard Mullinax (you can check out his ministry blog here http://missionax.com/) asked us each to share why we thought that God brought us to El Salvador. My mind began to reel with possible answers. But, I really didn't have one because I was still trying to figure that out myself! I was about 2/3 of the way around the circle from the person that started, so I had a couple of minutes to think. As I was listening to my team share why they believed they were brought to ES, it hit me- THEY are why I was brought. DUH Jessica! Like I shared above, I do desire to lead others overseas so that THEY would be able to experience God's tugging in their heart for missions like I have felt, so that THEY would know what it means to rely on God for everything, so that THEIR walk with God would grow- because all of these things (and more) are things that I have experienced in missions and feel are so important to share with others. As my team was sharing why they thought they were brought to ES, they shared these exact things that I desired for others to gain. My heart was touched listening to them share how their relationship with God had grown and how their heart had been tugged for ministry.
I realized that sometimes I can be so self-centered in thinking that God was going to show me something great, when in reality, He put leading on my heart so that others could experience Him (like I desired!)!
And that is the story of how I ended up in El Salvador. More on the actual trip to come!
So I went into this trip with completely different expectations that I've ever had going on a trip. A little back story. As some of you know, the summer after my high school graduation (2009), I went on a 2 week missions trip with my basketball coach (Stutzman) and team. We spent most of our time in Peru, but we stopped in El Salvador for about 2 days. While we were there, we visited a building site my coach was in charge of and met a few families he was connected with. Our time in El Salvador was short and was not at all the main focus of our trip. Something random that stuck with me was this unique wall near the exit of the airport in ES. I saw it as we were driving away, and snapped a quick picture of it.
It intrigued me; I wanted to see it again. But at the end of the two week trip, my short time in ES was just a brief, almost non-existent memory from the whole trip.
Fast-forward to last summer. More than once, the smallest (and random) things began to spark memories of my few days in ES. While staying in a motel in Portland, it made me remember the motel we stayed at in ES. And then something made me remember the beans we had for breakfast one morning. Very random things were brought to memory, and I began to wonder why. Of all of the places I've been, why were these things coming to mind? My time in ES was so short! I began to wonder if I was supposed to go back one day. Well, one day came sooner than I thought!
Going into my first semester last fall at Simpson, I already knew that I wanted to help lead a short-term missions trip if I was able to. For the past few years, I have had the desire to lead teams overseas; I want to be used to help others experience God and missions the way that I have experienced them. But when I applied to be a leader with World Serve (Simpson's short-term group), I actually requested to take a team back to where I had been in Russia to work with the YWAM base there. I knew the possibility of planning that trip was not that great, since there were already places that World Serve said they would like to go, so I put on my application that I was willing to go anywhere. The trip to Russia didn't end up working out (obviously), but as the application process to be a leader progressed, I felt God calling me to the El Salvador trip. I knew that was where I was supposed to be! It was one of those things that just felt right in my heart. And therefore, this picture means SO much to me!
Yes, that was a very long explanation and back story for just a picture! But it has to do with the different expectations I had going back to ES. Because I felt like ES was THE place I needed to be, I had this expectation that God was going to do something crazy in my life, or show me something big, or SOMETHING! (Looking back, I had such conceited expectations!) As the two weeks in ES came to a close, I had gotten closer to my teammates, made great friendships with the missionaries there, our translators, and the other team we worked with, gotten inspired by hearing the missionaries' hearts and visions, was challenged in the ministry we helped with, tried lots of new foods, etc, BUT, I didn't feel like God showed Himself to me in any big and powerful way like I was expecting. The 2nd week we were there, in fact, I began this wondering of "why am I here God?" It wasn't until the last night that I really figured it out. We were having our nightly debrief with the staff, and Richard Mullinax (you can check out his ministry blog here http://missionax.com/) asked us each to share why we thought that God brought us to El Salvador. My mind began to reel with possible answers. But, I really didn't have one because I was still trying to figure that out myself! I was about 2/3 of the way around the circle from the person that started, so I had a couple of minutes to think. As I was listening to my team share why they believed they were brought to ES, it hit me- THEY are why I was brought. DUH Jessica! Like I shared above, I do desire to lead others overseas so that THEY would be able to experience God's tugging in their heart for missions like I have felt, so that THEY would know what it means to rely on God for everything, so that THEIR walk with God would grow- because all of these things (and more) are things that I have experienced in missions and feel are so important to share with others. As my team was sharing why they thought they were brought to ES, they shared these exact things that I desired for others to gain. My heart was touched listening to them share how their relationship with God had grown and how their heart had been tugged for ministry.
I realized that sometimes I can be so self-centered in thinking that God was going to show me something great, when in reality, He put leading on my heart so that others could experience Him (like I desired!)!
And that is the story of how I ended up in El Salvador. More on the actual trip to come!
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