Ever since that first trip to Peru in December of 2003, I have heard about how amazing Ecuador is. Danny once said that if I ever went to Ecuador, the country and I would fall madly in love with each other; and Ava said that if we got to visit “that camp on the mountain” my heart would be forever captured. As I wrote letters, watched the Lord build my support team and prepared for my trip, I was so excited. I was excited about returning to South America, seeing a new ministry and getting to communicate and worship in Spanish. Our team grew to include mostly people I didn’t know. I knew the three Bentleys of course and Danny; I had met Josh and Carrie Anne and Lance, but didn’t really know them. Ben and I had gone to Biloxi on a hurricane relief weekend six months before but hadn’t talked much since then. I was excited to get to know new people, especially in the context of South American missions and I love the way the Lord binds hearts on trips like these.
For a month before the trip, I was stressed. Really, more overwhelmed than stressed. I felt like I had so much to do in very little time with loose ends to tie up at work, along with laundry and packing and just the details of the trip. About ten days before we left, however, I realized that I had been trying desperately to prepare myself for the trip. I had been so busy with work, family and life that I had been missing God. I hadn’t been avoiding Him, but I hadn’t made time for Him either and I definitely hadn’t sought Him or His peace regarding the trip.
When I did intentionally make time for the Lord and to allow Him to prepare my heart, I came to a realization that scared me. I wasn’t excited about the trip. My lack of excitement even made me feel guilty. I always wanted to go to Ecuador, that wasn’t in question. I couldn’t wait to see what the Lord was doing there and how I could be a part of it, but the reality of traveling and going to South America was of no consequence to me. Two days before we left, I sat down with Pam Williams. We talked over what I was thinking and she prayed with me. It made all the difference. The time with Pam didn’t make me excited about the trip, but gave me the freedom to not be excited. She made the point that, maybe, the reason I hadn’t been excited about the trip was because there was nothing new in it for me. I had done the South America thing so many times before and having Ava and Danny on the trip raised my comfort level significantly.
My feelings over the trip were further explained the next night as I re-read some letters from the year before. In April of 2005, Ava and I were adult leaders on the high school spring break trip to Peru. Early in the trip I purchased a journal in which I wrote letters home to a friend. I got the journal back from her the night before Ecuador so I could write to her from Ambato. Before packing the journal, I read over the letters I had written a year earlier. Parts of that journal brought me to tears as I discovered that so many of the God-things that had blown my mind in Peru are now common-place, daily things in my walk with Lord; commonplace in the sense that they are evidence of the maturity in my walk with Jesus and how I’ve grown closer to Him. It was so precious to me to look back and see those things.
I had written to her, also, that I was glad she hadn’t come to Peru with us. Early in the planning of that trip, there had been the possibility of her being a part of that team, but it didn’t work out. I was glad she hadn’t come because she hadn’t traveled much and had never been out of the country. I wanted her to come when she was, in her words, a more seasoned traveler and when flying wasn’t novel for her anymore because I wanted her to see the beauty of the ministry and to see ministry for ministry’s sake and not be distracted by the travel.
Reading that was one of those moments where it seems like the Lord has knocked me in the head to make sure I’ve caught His point. That was precisely where I was with Ecuador. I had come to a point in my traveling experience where Ecuador was about the Lord and ministry and people and not at all about the travel or the flight. I was going and doing ministry for ministry’s sake. It was a beautiful moment to see that progression in my own life.
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