Manitoulin 2K17 Reflections.

I arrived home a couple of days ago from what has been my favourite week of the year for the past five years. Here's a bit of backstory: for the past eight years, my church has been supporting a team from our own congregation who take a week-long mission trip up to Manitoulin Island to run a VBS for native children on the reserve of Wikwemikong. We stay at a campsite that's about half an hour away from where we do the camp, and when there's a clear day (of which there were really only a couple this year), evening views at the campsite look a lil somethin like this.

Legit my fav view of all time.

I could take time in this blog post to share about our daily itinerary, hilarious memories, or the fact that we had three rain days in which we had to do the entire camp inside, but I have a better idea. Each time I've gone on this mission trip, I've found that my faith is challenged - but in a good way. I recognize afresh my need to rely on God in all things and at all times, and some of my own personal weaknesses are revealed to me. Figuring out my personal weaknesses can suck, but ultimately they direct me right back to the Lord so that's a good thing. 

Our trip is from a Saturday to a Saturday, and on Sunday we usually go to the church of the mission organization that we're working with for the mission trip - Daystar. However this year we did things differently because of the larger group that we had. Instead of everyone going to the Daystar church, we had a little worship service of our own at the campsite. During this worship time, our Youth Pastor (who leads the trip) was asking people to share their favourite Bible verse(s) and why. The verses that I shared ended up being a constant reminder to me all week:

"But He said to me: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Don't get me wrong. The week went incredibly well, by the grace of God. As a team we worked well together, being flexible and going beyond the parameters of our designated roles to help each other out with whatever needed to be done. But I had some challenging situations goin on my mind, and I felt that sometimes they weighed me down so much so that I worried they were impeding my ability to be an effective leader. Thankfully, according to my fellow small group leader, I was wrong about that.

Within my weaknesses last week is when God stepped in to do His thing. Well let's be real, He's always doing His thing, but I noticed it the most when I was feeling my weakest. He allowed team members to approach me and intentionally ask me how I was doing. That really spoke volumes to me because I'm someone who will claim that I'm always fine unless someone is really intentional about wanting to honestly know how I'm doing. And God sent five of my fellow team members to ask me how I was doing and offer to go on walks with me so we could talk about what was on my mind.

God did so much more in the last week than just what I've included in this post, so I'm thinking I'll do a part two to this post in the next few days so y'all can read more about how amazing the mission trip was, and how awesome and faithful God is. Always.