The Missions Nutshell (what I would have told you before the trip had I actually known what was going on)

Turns out there wasn’t near as much Wi-fi access as I had anticipated having on my mission trip to New Zealand & Tahiti (which was almost a month ago now – boy does time fly!) I suppose that was a good thing though in that it kept me in the moment and didn’t allow me opportunity to worry about connecting with home. BUT, now that my final homework deadline of the year is gloriously passed, BRING ON the connecting! I SO wish I could just have a coffee date with every single one of you, but we shall just have to have a virtual one instead…go ahead, go make yourself a cup of coffee (I’ll wait), come back to the screen and get ready to read about the most recent ride of my life!

“Here’s to all sorts of change happening in New Zealand!” – This is a line I recently rediscovered in my journal from the day I left the country that now makes me laugh. (Side note: I love looking back on things I’ve said or felt and then imagining what God was thinking at the time.) Yet, in regards to this statement I made, I’d like to correct my own thinking with a true story I was recently told: a BSSM student was talking to a friend from back home in another country and the friend commented, “Boy you’ve changed a lot!” and the student replied, “No, actually this was in me all along; it just hadn’t come out yet.” I think there is such a well of truth in this student’s response that perfectly prefaces my own experience this year and on my mission trip. I really had no idea all God would be drawing out of me.

The Nutshell: I spent a total of about 18 days abroad – 10 days in New Zealand, followed by 8 days in Mo’orea & Tahiti. In New Zealand we were connected with Bethel Church New Zealand which is about as close to a church plant as Bethel (U.S.) gets (since they don’t do actual church planting). Bethel NZ acted as our hosts and were the ones who created our entire ministry itinerary for our time there, which included Auckland and much of the Northland. Many of our Bethel NZ hosts were actually former BSSM students who volunteered their vacation time to hang out with us and drive our team around in vans! Furthermore, we were joined by a group of Bethel NZ interns who were currently attending their ministry school; they jumped on board with our teams and got to minister with us while we were there. Our team coming from the US was about 45 people, so much of the time we were actually broken down into smaller teams, better known as Team A, B, C, & D. I was on Team A (which of course was the best team). Occasionally we ministered all together at larger church gatherings, but much of the time we were either split in half or into our four teams.

Now feels like a good time to describe what “missions” looked like for our trip (and many other BSSM mission trips) which doesn’t fit the potentially stereotypical service-project format. While we obviously travelled with hearts to serve the people of the nation, we generally came as a ministry team to support and contribute to local church services in whatever way was desired by the local church. This could look like anything from leading worship, preaching/teaching, children’s ministry, prophesying, giving words of knowledge, prophetic art or praying for healing; sometimes we only participated as a ministry team in support of an already structured service, and other times we were handed over the whole service and told, “Do whatever you want!” So while there was that general “structure” (if you can call it that) to our ministry, we really didn’t ever have a plan; nor did we as students have access to any sort of itinerary that told us more than the geographic location we were going to, which was always subject to change anyway. Haha. 

A running joke on Team A was every time we would ask one of our second year leaders what the plan was he would always reply, “I don’t know what it’s gonna look like, but it’s gonna be good!” And it always was.