Preparing for the Unpreparable

Have you ever prepared for a big recital, play, or game? You put hours of preparation for the big finale. That’s a bit of what it’s been like here these past few months. I’ve learnt more than I could ever contain in a blog post and I am still just processing the majority of it. Every week a new speaker comes with truth and wisdom to share. Our mentors are constantly equipping and pushing us to deepen our personal relationships with our Savior. Our outreach leaders are teaching us some foreign language phrases and sharing horror stories about the crazy Asian food. The base staff are encouraging us with stories of their own life-changing outreach experiences while washing dishes together. Our whispers to our roommates before drifting off to sleep are full of dreaming of what outreach might be like, because this phase of the DTS is to prepare us for outreach… right?

On March 27th, my SFMI (Surfers For Missions International) team will fly to Taitung, Taiwan and partner with the YWAM base there doing an assortment of different ministries (most of which are unknown)! We are the first team from YWAM Maui to go on outreach to Taiwan so surprises are certainly in store! After these first 2.5 weeks, we will fly and sail (yes I’ll be back on a boat again! PTL) to the isolated Mentawai Islands where we will meet up with a contact who will lead us to the remote villages on the tiny islands. Once again, we are the first team to go to the Mentawais! The Hindu island of Bali will be our next stop where we will focus on Friendship Evangelism on Kuta beach. The last stop on the outreach will be to the Muslim island of Lombak where we will be working with a local orphanage as well as schools and possibly a prison ministry. As you can imagine, we will be doing ALOT of travelling as well as entering countries with very small Christian populations so please keep our team in your prayers for safety, unity, and breakthroughs!

As the days between now and the time our team heads to the airport to begin our trek gets smaller and smaller, I get asked the same question more and more. “Do you feel prepared?” My usual response is a chuckle and “As prepared as I’ll ever be!” For I could honestly spend years of preparation for a trip like this and still not be fully prepared. Largely because the majority of it is unknown and therefore all the harder to prepare for! I could go to school and become fluent in Mandarin and Bahasa only to find they speak a different dialect. I could read countless books on theology and memorize the entire New Testament only to be asked a question I can’t possibly answer. In all our preparations we’ll never been fully prepared for every situation we are thrown. And don’t get me wrong, preparation is so important and being equipped can make us all the more effective. However, we serve a God who can use our unpreparedness and uncertainty and turn it into good!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.” 
-Proverbs 3:5-6

When we place our trust fully in Him, He can lead and guide us in His will all the easier. And I’m pretty sure His plans and purposes are much greater than anything I could ever muster up. My team does not consist of top university graduates with years of experience and expertise, rather we are a gang of goofy youth whose lives are riddled with mistakes. Yet we are radical risk takers and lovers of a Saviour who used a bunch of smelly illiterate fisherman who were even less prepared than us to change the world. And we are saying ‘YES!’ Yes to trusting in Him, yes to letting Him direct our paths. Yes to whatever crazy adventures He has in store all for His glory! It is at times all too easy to get caught up in the preparations for something more than we should. It is a well known saying among Christians that ‘God does not call the prepared, but prepares the called.’ But sometimes He doesn’t fully prepare us to our own expectations or conditions. Most of the time He will call us to situations we feel totally unprepared for! But that doesn’t mean to stray away rather we should chase after them and risk it all relying on the only one who is most definitely always prepared! What do we have to lose?

“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ” 
-Philippians 3:8

As I load my hiking pack with the bare necessities for these next months in Asia (Jesus, please help me not to forget anything!), I am confident not in my own preparedness but in the strength of my Creator-King. I look back on these weeks as some of the best of my life. I’ve explored His creation, I’ve rode His gnarly waves, I’ve shared my heart and done life with some phenomenal people and I’ve dove deeper into His Word than ever before. And I could not be more stoked for the days to come! Because He can take the few phrases in Bahasa and Mandarin I’ve learnt and the few scriptures I’ve memorized and use them for greater things. For His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Bring on the adventure!