I still can't hardly believe that I've been four months since this journey began. Four months, five states, many tears, many more friends later, and all led up to this, Thursday Sept 22, to fly to Berlin.
For anyone that would want to go in to ministry: I can guarantee a few things having just started down this path.
1: Your emotional and spiritual levels meet their limits if you do it right. Nothing about this lifestyle is intended to be in itself comfortable. Recenty I was pointed out to in Scripture that those who answer God's calling to work closely with God on anything must find themselves in this cycle between action and rest. This dynamic is not meant to be comfortable. This means great care must be taken in to having a well-established prayer closet as a mobilized "storm shelter" of sorts. This is not to avoid or temorarily escape the storms of life in its changes, but to give us the opportunity to posture God as the one that keeps us from devastation in the midst of struggle. I would imagine myself as a palm tree in a hurricane: above surface, the gale-force winds make the trunks and leaves flail around and be tested in its resolve to stay together, but the base of it won't budge for anything. When I meditate on God's calling as that foundation, it gave me the focus to press through despite the flailing that my emotions wanted to do.
2: There is much reward with this line of work SO LONG AS GOD INITIATES IT. This is important to understand. The God who places the calling on people is the same God that invites us to walk WITH him as He leads us to what action He would have us do. This prompts a difficult spot: speaking for myself as a person of function and initiative, there exists a fine line between trusting in God He alone can provide, and doing the work God would have me to do with all my heart, and the temptation therein lies in that I am the one doing the work. In my experience I found this to be true about missionary support-raising: it doesn't matter the amount you ask from people: if the heart to give and support isn't there, it's not going to happen. Some of the most impactful people in this ministry I've been going down are not the ones supporting me financially! I've found that God wants us to be able to slow down enough to look around our environment and notice all the little niuances that happen while we go down this path of ministry! God initiated all the relationships that I've seen blossom and multiply, and gathering them all into a "spiritual armory," a collection of people that you can turn to knowing that they are sincere and support your cause, is one of the most potent devices God puts in place for other ministers. All this is initiated by God, and the sooner a person postures oneself in response to this, the wiser off one is for it!
Now on to the real meat of the situation:
I fly out of Detroit Metro at 3:30 PM this Thursday the 22nd. I'm flying Lufthansa out of there to Frankfurt, then hitch another flight to Berlin, arriving there 8:00 AM Friday morning Belrin time (1:00 AM Michigan time). It is here that all the effort climaxes: God has been faithful to me and kind to my little soul in keeping the relationships I've been forming with my cohort (transition team) strong. I arrive at 8, where the five other newcomers (whom I'm thankful for each of them) arrive between then and noon. The team members already on the ground will then pick us up all at once and take us to our temporary living. It is during this time for the following few weeks that we undergo orientation as to the spiritual and social climate of Berlin, and are given the rules and overviews for conducting ourselves in this particular environment. Over the next three months we will be attending language school, finding our more permanent living arrangements, finding good churches to plug in to ( I'll elaborate on that next time) and praying through what our ministry emphases needs to be.
During the summer, I would meet with many who are supporting me in some fascet. I'll reiterate what I said, and what's going on in response to my pitch over the summer: The team in Berlin is a "mission's laboratory," branching out in to new and developing areas in which the Gospel can be injected and seeing which promotes the most spiritual growth. Therefore, at its most basic, I am joining a creative team: trying to spread out the Gospel in the best ways my team is doing in the best ways I know how. I do have somewhat a compass God has given me because of my individual equippings and passions that have been cultivated overtime. This I know to be true about my ministry compass: My ministry is still two fold (until God steers me otherwise), 1: Using my engineering degree, I want to explore avenues in which to apply these technical traninings to business ministries, and growing connections and relationships through tangible hopes that people can see results and be shown love. (For Germany, this still intrigues me, and I want to see if this form of practicality serves as a love language to this culture). 2: Much of my desires go towards wanting to be a source of encouragement for other ministers in the city. Whether that's holding a Bible Study for ministers, an accountability circle, performing hospitality ministry and having guests come in to a place of rest (my primary choice, God willing) or at the extreme of hosting backpacking ventures to offer pilgrimage to other ministers ( a pipedream, kind of--we'll see) this is where my desires want to be. However this falls, I want to be able to surrender each idea to God and wait for His motion on the matter.
There is much more I could write about, but I can write for a while, so I'll end it here. Blessings to those who read this and find encouragement in all that's going on! Pray for Germany, and God Bless!