As I begin this journey that I feel God is calling me to, I can already sense the beauty and the difficulty that so often intertwine in His work. It has been very much a process for me to get to this point, but everything about it feels right. The work that I will be doing in the Middle East with learning Arabic and volunteering wherever I can as I learn seems to be like an answer to prayers and a strange longing I've felt towards that region for years. I am expectant and hopeful as I anticipate God's revealing to me just why He has placed that desire in my heart.
Along with the hope, I cannot deny that there is also trepidation. I know that raising support will be difficult, but it will be good. I can see that God is going to use this support-raising process to keep carving away all those things in me that do not glorify Him. I fear that my work ethic will not be sufficient, but He tells me that his grace is sufficient for me and that His power is made perfect in weakness. I have this tendency to let relationships die away because I often lack the emotional drive to push me forward into intentionality, even when I do care about people, but support raising will enable and require me to generate and maintain those beautiful partnering relationships that God has intended to exist in the church since its inception. We need each other, and God will use this process to keep reminding me of that. God is going to use this summer to prepare me for the difficult, beautiful work He is inviting me to do, and I know it will be good. And I know He will be good. "If a man remains in me, I will remain in him." He is faithful, and He will enable, and I will praise His name.