Convictions

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

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