upcoming missions trip...or so I hope

Just found out today that my church will be sending a team to the Philippines in April. I have kinda been waiting for info on this, as I've heard talk of it here and there and others have said the church has sent a team once ever couple of years or so in the past. And I've wanted to get in on a missions trip for a while now, having missed out on my chance to go to Fairmont, West Virginia last summer due to what I thought would be work schedule problems (turns out that wasn't the case) and having never gone in college when it would have been so much easier to arrange. So this looks like a golden opportunity, not only because it's in a foreign culture but because it's two weeks long instead of just a few days. Two weeks still isn't enough time, I don't think, to really adjust and become part of what's around you, but it would at least be longer than a lot of the one-week stuff I hear about.

What I like most about this is it's being organized in large part through my local church, so those who go will know one another. It's not like a large parachurch thing where interested folks from all over are put through some training together and sent out with people they hadn't met until a few weeks prior. Not that that's such a bad thing, but it wouldn't be my preferred way of going on a first missions trip. I'd much rather go with people I am at least familiar with and who know me well enough to teach me.* And I know from last summer's efforts in Fairmont that the training and preparation will start months in advance. By the time the team goes they'll have spent plenty of time together and will probably have some idea of what they're in for and how they'll need to work with one another.

There are, of course, several issues. The time off is one, but I think this can be worked around with relative ease. My lack of evangelism skills and generally shaky faith and devotion to godliness is another, but this would seem like a terrible reason to not go on something that could help me so much in that area and give me a chance to give back to the Kingdom (something that I ought to do a lot more of anyway). Lack of missionary experience could be another, as this is a different culture and all, but that would also seem like a bad reason to stay off the team. One has to start somewhere and this looks like a great one to start with. None of the potential roadblocks I see now seem to present a real challenge to going.

The real catch, though, is that there is some sort of interview and selection process involved. This is a new thing for me, this idea of having to apply and be selected to go on a missions trip. Every other church and organization I've learned about has been open to anyone who wishes to go and is willing to do their part to arrange the necessary support. I'm not sure what all is entailed in this whole process, whether it's to make sure those who are going are at least Christians who understand what they'd be over there for or if it's to hand pick a core group of church members who will have the most impact. If it's the former I'm not too concerned since I've been attending the church for over a year now and have volunteered for various work days and cleanups several times. I think the church knows who I am and that I'm willing to serve. But if it's the latter then I don't like my prospects. Having never been on a missions trip before and not being on any sort of leadership teams or committees or such groups within the church, I would be easy to pass over in favor of someone more qualified. With such an approach this would make sense for the church, but I admit I'd be more than a little upset if a church I attend and support rejected willing missionaries (me included or not) on the basis of trying to keep the group small. This would seem to indicate an overreliance on man's methods and strategies as opposed to God's will.

So...there are still a lot of things that remain to be seen. I don't know enough details yet but I do know I'm plenty interested enough to start preparing as I can now through prayer and reading. And it really helps that we're going through Acts at church and so I'm learning a bit about Paul's journeys and his approach to missions.* I hope this comes to pass and I end up spending my birthday in the Philippines--how cool would that be? But either way maybe I can at least be on a Fairmont team this coming summer. And if I went on both that'd all but clean out my stash of vacation time for next year, but I'd be hard pressed to think of better ways to use it.

*Given what I've seen in Acts and some Pauline epistles over the past couple of months, investing time and energy in individuals seems to be Paul's preferred method of training missionaries. See Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, and even Mark (though they disagreed enough to part company for some time). As I can't think of any examples off-hand where Christ, Paul, or anyone else sent inexperienced believers into a far-off mission field on their own or with others like themselves, I think Paul sets forth a good model of how missionary training ought to work. And sending some newbies such as myself with several older, more mature believers in the same church would seem to be a good example of how this would carry over into modern missions.