1 Week Down – 22 to Go!

1-22-2010

So today is Friday. This means that Steven and I have officially been in Kazakhstan for an entire week! So far, so good. I am loving the experiences I am having here and really enjoying the people I am surrounded by. It is so different than my normal life in America and that is exactly what I was looking for. When I first got here I remember thinking I was going to die, that these next six months were going to be awful and I gave God the whole spiel on how He had made a mistake and how He doesn’t have a clue what He’s doing. Us humans are really good at telling God when He is right and when He is wrong. We like to make deals with Him and we tell Him that He is in charge as we whisper into His ear which direction to turn next. If God gets annoyed, then I’m sure we have become His most annoying creation. We are like cockroaches telling a master chef how to prepare his dish or like men trying to tell a woman how to give birth.

My mind takes me back to the end of November when Steven and I first made the decision to go as Student Missionaries. We were talking in the darkened hallway of the dorm sometime past midnight and were incredibly excited. We weren’t sure, but we felt confident that God was leading us to Kazakhstan. Why Kazakhstan? It’s quite simple really. We went to talk to the Student Missions coordinator, told her that we wanted to go in January to a place that had an urgent need and she handed us a flyer that said “Urgent Need in Almaty, Kazakhstan.” That just about did it. It’s interesting however, because I have walked by many posters that tell me to do all sorts of things and I usually just smile and don’t think much of it. In fact, at Southern it is my job to design posters to try to get people to go on short term evangelistic mission trips. Usually I hang up about 40 posters, about 2000 people see them and I get excited if 1 person comes in. 1/2000 is awful odds. But, think about it, when is the last time you walked by one of those “We Want You” posters and decided to put life as you know it on hold and go. It sounds crazy and that is exactly what it is. I think if people paid more attention to posters (or anything offering opportunity) and actually thought “maybe that is for me” then monotony would not have such a tight rein on all of us. More people would be living better stories. I’ve been reading Donald Millers book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and I must say it is phenomenal. Go buy it and read it. It is my prayer tonight that Christians everywhere would be unsettled with a once-a-week expression to God and unsettled with a constant, monotonous routine. Get up, get out, and do something ridiculously crazy. Follow the Spirit wherever He decides to take you and trust me, He knows what He’s doing.