Nervous yet?

My trip to the Philippines is a little over a week away. I leave Monday the 8th. People keep asking me if I am nervous yet. It is funny how much it snuck up on me. I was so fixated on finishing the school year at both locations, so I kept thinking the trip was way off in the future. Now it is literally upon my doorstep and I have to confess that I am quite anxious. I hear that verse in my head - "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:5-7. And I am claiming that, or at least trying too. But what I found interesting as I tried to articulate to someone why I was nervous, it wasn't for any of the reasons you would typically expect. My new friend Bob, who is the expert traveling with us, thinks it's uproariously funny to share all his plane crash dreams with me - but Bob's nocturnal visions aside, I am not really terribly worried about the normal stuff like plane trouble or sickness. I guess I have resigned myself to the fact the plane ride is going to be long and uncomfortable. The food is going to be unpleasant and the weather conditions worse. All of that I know is going to wear on me but I am not that anxious about that. I think the reason I am struggling a little is because it is coming at what I hope is the conclusion of a very trying season for me. I have loved seeing all the stuff God has done in StuCo this year but 2 locations has stretched me to the brink. When I volunteered for this trip 6 months ago I never dreamed I would be going there feeling like I have very little to give. My strength is gone. Through the help of Ann Jackson's amazing book - "Mad Church Disease" I feel like I am on the road to recovery but I see that it is a long road back. The only way I can reconcile it in my mind is that somehow in God's infinite wisdom He has brought me to a time and place to be used by Him and if my strength is gone than it is all Him working through me. I often take the credit for God and now I am not in a position to do that.

I do think that the opportunity to "unplug" from the pace of my life for 2+ weeks and just focus on serving people is going to be good. Not in an easy, relaxing way but in a refreshing, refocusing kind of way. I have such a hard time unplugging from things, so nothing like being half way around the world - that's unplugged baby! It will be interesting to see how I reflect on these words when I return. I guess my prayer along with the prayers for details and safety and health is that God & I would reunite in that strange place in the way I so desperately need right now. It is all about Him after all. It's just been easy for me to get distracted and think it is about me these days. So am I nervous? Yes, yes I am. I did joke with someone the other day that one of the crazy thoughts that popped in my head was a Gilligan's Island/Lost sort of scenario where I was stranded on a deserted island with a bunch of students - that would test my love for student ministry!

I am feeling a little weak, a little vulnerable, and a lot out of my comfort zone. But at the same time that sounds like fertile soil for God to come in and do something amazing.