My first full day at SIMstart! I am really encouraged to be here. It is so neat to be surrounded by other people who have an want, a desire, a calling to go and serve across seas. This morning began having breakfast in our kitchen. Our cabinets and refrigerator are fully stocked with any breakfast necessity you can imagine. We get to make our own breakfast and be at morning chapel by 8:30. Today, that was a success! After chapel, we were sent in our different directions, my first stop along my personal schedule was to the medical office. My blood was taken (she got the vein on the first shot!) and I was given a tb test. After that I went for a brief walk around the campus and took the picture above as well as the two below.
At 10am, I had my meeting with my selection coordinator, Kimberly Love. We got a whole hour to discuss possibilities. She had previously sent me 10 that I had spent the last several months going through and nothing really sticking out to me. Today, we looked through the database, I printed out five (most I had already seen) and after asking many questions and her telling me about the different areas I was able to narrow it down to two. I was having a really hard time, because I want to make a decision just because I feel as though most people here know where they are going already and are able to get their specific questions about their specific areas answered. I also just want to have an answer. But I left this meeting with confidence that when the time was right (even thought I desire it to be sooner rather than later) God will tell me which one.
*Side note- in front of the entrance to the chapel & dining room is a path that has the signs shown below around each corner. The path takes you in a square around and has a fountain in the middle. I found the two signs that each have the places I am praying about going to...
At 11:30am, I had my meeting with a psychologists to go over the pysch evaluations that I took a couple months ago. I had taken 3 evaluations. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the tests really described my personality and character, both positives and negatives.
One of the tests revealed some interesting personality traits, that combined definitely explain my dejection of confrontation as well as my stubbornness. It also showed how balanced I was as most of the categories fell in the middle. There were a few that swayed toward one side or the other and I was able to explain how I feel in a lot of situations because of those titled words. I will be getting a 2-3 page summary of the exams and interview we had today so I may post more on this at a later date.
12:30 was lunch, Baked Potato with all the fixins'!
Once I was done with lunch I had the entire afternoon to relax and spend some time in the Word, focusing on God and searching out His will for where He wants me to go. I had great intentions and at the end of it, I did get some good time with Him, just no definitive answer. Another attendee and I sat in the living room for quite awhile and discussed our psych evaluations and all the fun things that we had each talked about in our sessions. It was quite fun to laugh for awhile and get to share about what God was doing in each of our lives, where God was leading us and some of the fears that go along with those. Towards the end of our afternoon break, sort of frustrated over still not having a definitive answer I decided to look online at each of the countries and see if anything not just sparked by caught fire in my heart. I must say, I did get a lot out of this time. I won't share what I found exactly, but will say, it swayed me a bit one way.
5:30 was dinner. Parmesan chicken, a vegetable medley, zucchini casserole and bread.
At 6:30, we returned to our residential floor for community hour. Each floor has a regional director who stays on the floor and handles any issues that may come up. He, Ray, led our hour time together as we discussed fears about the missions field as well as how that is countered with faith and trust in Jesus. I was really encouraged to hear other share very real and similar fears that I too have been struggling with. After a period of time of sharing our fears, he then had has share some of the scriptures that we have used to combat fears those fears or one's we have faced in the past.
I shared a piece of scripture that was revealed to me by a dear friend that I have read constantly for assurance and peace. It comes from Exodus 3-4:17. It is Moses' encounter with God through the burning bush. During this encounter with God, Moses' hears the calling that God has for him, to go to Egypt and rescue God's people. Ex 3:7-10 says, "the Lord said, 'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slaves drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey...And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharoah to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt." Moses received the call, I too received the call to go.
But like Moses', I too have concerns. "But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharoah and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" (Ex 3:11) God, who am I that you would call me to go and preach the gospel in Africa?
And God responds with a simple promise to Moses' that I too cling to in verse 12, "I will be with you". Such a few words and yet there is so much hope in that fact that God promises to always be with me. Fears fall away as promise after promise is revealed that I am in the hands of God, I am in the will of God. Bad, difficult, challenging things will come my way, but God promises that through those times, He is strengthening our faith and trust in Him.
But like me, Moses' as human as he was, continues to doubt and says to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me 'What is his name?' What then shall I tell them? God says to Moses, 'I am who I am' This what you are to say to the Israelites: I am has sent me to you." (Ex 3:14) God, what do I say when these people ask why I am here, who sent you? A good question that Moses posses I must say because, as I'm sure Moses thought about, was whether the people will believe you. Whether they will respond with cheers or with rocks thrown your way. In my case, my question is more, how do I communicate to them that I am willing to work alongside them to not only care for orphans but to show them God's unfailing and perfect love. God, what do I say? I am has sent me. I'm on a mission for Jesus, one that I shall not be ashamed of.
But Moses isn't done, and during my rant of fears, neither was I, and this was a big one for me, Ex 4:10-12, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue. The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say." Jesus, you send me, okay I'm good to go, but what do I say? How do I share you with them when I don't even know the language? Why are they going to listen to me? Jesus, I can never come up with the right words in English that I want, how in the world am I going to do it and in another country? It's is in this passage that I find my answer, and where to look but back at him. Jesus of course, Jesus who not just sends me but works in and through me to share His love with others. All I have to do is be willing to go, Jesus and the Holy Spirit do all the rest.
However, Moses' has one last plea, "O Lord, please send someone else to do it." I'd be lying if I say I hadn't said those very same words. Why not someone else, someone who's gone to bible school, someone who has the gift of evangelism, someone, anyone, just not me. But with this plea, came conviction. Who am I to ask God, what do you want for my life, and then when He tells me, say no, I don't like that one, how about another? God doesn't work that way, for Jeremiah 29:11 says "I know the plan I have for you..." The, one, single, mono plan. Not plan A or B or C. It may be my plan B, but whatever I end up doing was always God's plan A for me. And in the next few verses of Exodus 4, God tells Moses that He will send Aaron, Moses' brother to go with Him and that He, God will help them to live out His plan. And throughout the rest of the Bible, God keeps that promise.
I too must cling to the promise that God is always with me. Even when I doubt my own capabilities, I must remember that it isn't my mission, my goals, my work, but rather God's, I only get to be a tool. Just like a hammer or a rack can't do the job on it's own, I too must trust the person using me to conquer something bigger than I could ever do alone. A hammer can only hammer things, it can't do the job of a rack. And neither can accomplish it's given task without a hand driving the tool in the way it is to go. So it is with God, we are tools, used by God to create masterpieces that are so much bigger than anything we could ever begin to creatively think up or try to accomplish.
