Hello, friends!
I missions trip wouldn’t be a good trip unless I could
recount some ways that I saw Jesus work in me as well as in the rest of the
team, yeah? I mean, a missions trip without Jesus slapping me upside the head
would just be a vacation, wouldn’t it? =0). As I look back on my month in
Cambodia, I think there were 3 big convictions that Jesus had for me.
1.
I have spiritual authority. Coming into the
trip, my role was to lead worship, take care of the accounting, and enforce
risk management. Essentially, I had to play a guitar, make sure we didn’t lose
the money, and keep everyone from
getting killed. I was more than happy to take on those roles as I figured that
it would be easy enough to do and allow me to not have to get too much into the
emotional aspect of the trip. Especially with as many “feelers” that we had on
the team, I was looking forward to staying out of the fray while sticking with
our accounting spreadsheet. Of course, God had something more in store. We were
in San Francisco during our layover when I was hanging out with Jesus when I
heard really clearly, “You are more than a director. I have something in
Cambodia for you too.” It wasn’t more than 2 or 3 days into the trip before I
was able to do prayer ministry for one of the folk on our team and later in the
trip I was able to do prayer ministry for another teammate. Throughout the trip
I found myself in situations where I needed to exert my spiritual authority.
Looking back, I’m glad for those experiences, as difficult as they were,
because it gave me more of a sense of purpose for the trip.
2.
Worship is about the heart. I’m pretty sure that
my years of being a worship leader, while helpful in a number of ways, also
ruined me in other ways, particularly in terms of the critical ear that I take
to musical worship. While we were staying in the student center we met a Khmer
student who absolutely had a heart for Jesus, especially for musical worship.
He led worship for his church, was a great guitarist, and generally had a
beautiful heart that loved Jesus. For the first week of the trip, I was
bothered to no end because he was constantly singing worship songs but would
miss a note here or there and miss it LOUDLY, without shame. I’m not sure if he
knew he was missing the note or not but I noticed and it bothered me because
the worship leader in me is always aware of missed notes, missed beats, and
other things that may “take away from the worship experience. I was hanging out
with Jesus one morning and my thoughts wandered to when Samuel anointed David to
be the next king of Israel (1Samuel 16). Jesse paraded his sons in front of
Samuel and even though Samuel thought that Jesse’s first son had the look of a
king, God said that God “looks at the heart.” Bam. It was in that moment I was
convicted to not look at the outward appearance (or in this case, the notes
that came out of the student’s mouth) but to look at the student’s heart. When
I did that, I was able to worship with him and not let something small like my
ears get in the way.
3.
I would go back. The original plan was for me to
go to Cambodia for a month, get “Did and overseas mission trip” checked off my
IV staff bingo card, and then spend the rest of my life stateside, never to
consider leaving North America again (except on vacation). Well, after spending
a month in Cambodia, falling in love with the people, the culture, and the work
that God is doing there, I can honestly say that I would go back. I don’t know
if I will get the chance or if it will be Cambodia or some other country but
I’m at least open to it, which is more than I can say from before I left in
July.
Have an excellent day!
~Adam
