Long, but worth the read

Looking for/breaking trail for the obstacle course

Ok, so I just returned from a day on Stradbroke Island.   I only had one day since tomorrow morning I’m headed off to Canberra to help pitch a tent.  What was I doing on “Strady”? Well, before we send our outreach teams on outreach, we run them through a mission simulation.  This includes a mock airport in “Bagistan” local contacts that don’t show up, and uncomfortable food.  A big part of this is called “Mission Impossible.”  In Mission Impossible the teams are woken up at random times during the night (they don’t know it’s coming) they are run through an obstacle course with several team building activities, food challenges, and the like.  After they leave the course, they go to a mock village to share the gospel to the locals.  This course took an average of about 2 and a half to 3 hours to complete.  I went through my own personal mission simulation that same night.

My roll was first to help make the course, normally it takes about 2 hours to set up, but we had problems finding the trail we normally use and it took us about 5 hours to set up, but the time we finished it was getting dark and we needed to run the guides through so they knew where to go (plus we hung glow sticks to mark the very rough trail).  When all was said and done I had been in the bush for 7 and a half hours eating only a small sandwich and had only a little water.  9:30 PM I emerged and was able to eat and rest for about a half hour.  At this point I was tired, hungry and dehydrated I had no desire to continue helping with the simulation, but we were rather short staffed and I had no choice but to continue.  I had cut my foot while building the Obstacle course, so I was assigned to the village as one of the locals that need the gospel.

So at this point I have no desire for ministry of any kind, I just want to go to sleep, much like the outreach teams that come to the village.  Right before the first team arrives to the village some random drunk guys come up and we start talking to them.  One of them was really interested in who we were and what we had to offer.  His father was a Pastor, but he didn’t follow God on his own.  We told them what we were doing and asked them to join our tribe.  They agreed since they were bored.  The first team came up and was surprised to have complete strangers to present the gospel to so it worked really well.  William, the pastor’s son, was very interested and stayed for a while, and even the members of the “village” were sharing true God and love with him.

It was an amazing experience and I’m really glad to have had it.  Especially when I was so tired and not wanting to do any ministry, it was God’s way of showing me that there are a lot of things much more important than me. And I'll write about Canberra when I get back.