During my time preparing to become a missionary, I heard often that life in missions never goes the way you expect it to. This mantra is something I wrote on my heart and in my head as I tried to prepare to sell my things, pack up what little I had left, find benefactors to support my mission, and move to a random country to serve the poor and preach the Gospel. I tried to put myself into the mindset of being okay with anything happening, of really going with the flow and trying to do whatever God would put in front of me to do. I didn’t know what to expect when I dropped my elementary education major to graduate early and do mission work, I didn’t know what to expect when I flew to Louisiana for my first day of formation, I didn’t know what to expect the day I found out which country I would be sent to, and I definitely didn’t know what to expect the day I arrived at my post in General Cepeda, Mexico. I had been to this town before for three weeks during formation, so I knew I would remember how to get to the store, where the chapel was, and how to say good morning to people on the street. Even so, I knew that living in Mexico would be a totally new way of living I hadn’t yet encountered in my small, sheltered life in Colorado. I remember sitting in the passenger’s seat of my teammate’s truck on our road trip to Mexico thinking “what have I got myself into? There’s no going back now. What is going to happen that I’m not supposed to expect?” I found myself trying to define the unexpected, which didn’t work in the slightest. I expected myself maybe unpacking and having a delicious meal the first night there. I expected to walk around the town the next day and change lives with the fluent Spanish I had somehow miraculously learned in one day. I expected myself to feel right at home the minute I walked into my new house in my new country. Well, I’m sure you expected this, but none of those things happened. We had no time to unpack because we arrived later than we had planned, I was terrified of Spanish, and the room we moved into had a bright pink baby bed in it. We walked in to set our stuff in our brand new room, realized we needed beds, and started carrying some mattresses from other rooms in the house. After fumbling to carry my mattress, I set it down and was overwhelmed by the dust cloud that came out of it. Plan A was unpacking, relaxing, and getting all settled the first night. Plan B was dragging my old mattress outside and beating it with a bat for over an hour to get all the dust out. My plan seemed easy and relaxing, while God’s plan involved a bat, years of dust, a well-needed shower, and the unexpected. I wanted comfort and God gave me a mattress to beat. I never could have expected that!
I am generally a very spontaneous person, so when I discerned to do foreign missions with FMC, I found that leaving all I had to make a difference and follow Jesus somewhere random was exciting to me: another adventure God was calling me to. Even despite my adventurous view on life, whenever I begin something new or risky, my perfectionist personality craves to know absolutely every detail of what will be happening next. I love adventures, but sometimes I would rather write them myself instead of waiting to see the next chapter unfold in my life. The unexpected things in life can seem extravagant and thrilling, that is, until we get nervous. When I get nervous, I want to get un-nervous, which most of the time prompts me to go out of my way to make sure I am taken care of and provide for myself. For example, before moving to Mexico, I was unsure of many small details. One small unsurety was where I would buy toiletries like deodorant and shampoo in my little town. Little did I know, it is actually fairly easy to find any necessary toiletry in General Cepeda. But, since I was slightly nervous about this at Christmas time, I asked for toiletries for Christmas. My brother and dad both came through with bottles of shampoo, deodorant, and body wash wrapped with bows on top. So, I ended up leaving my house in January with enough toiletries for a year, most of which is still in my closet in Mexico waiting to be used up. I guess you could say worrying about toiletries saved me money in the long run, since I will probably never have to buy shampoo or conditioner while I live here. Every time I run out of shampoo or conditioner, I get to open a new one that reminds me of my family, which gives me a little feeling of home away from home. But, worrying about the future in this way took away a small opportunity to let God provide for me here in Mexico. Having a years worth of shampoo and conditioner felt like a surety at the time, and besides my toiletries, the rest of my future felt unexpected and uncertain. I was excited for my adventure, but I only wanted an adventure I could be in control of a little bit, so I provided for myself instead of allowing God to show me he had it all planned out already. Even though I came with a bag of shampoo and conditioner, I still had to beat my mattress with a bat. When I realized this, I realized that I, we, truly cannot escape the unexpected. Even though these examples are small and seemingly unimportant, they show us something we do all the time. How many times have I tried to define my future with only things that feel safe, predictable and expected? How many times have I planned something small and tame instead of taking huge, wild risks with Christ?
Again, a life in missions is is a life full of the unexpected. Actually, I think the truth is really that life is full of the unexpected, no matter how we choose to spend it. Sometimes the only surety in our lives is knowing that nothing is sure at the moment, and that’s okay! We don’t need to know everything that is coming next. All we need to know is why we choose to be happy and choose to serve during the times of instability, unsurety, and mystery in our lives. We choose the unexpected because we choose to believe that the world is much bigger than ourselves. We choose the unexpected because we believe in a God who loves us and has our safety and wellbeing in mind even more so than we do. The problem about not knowing what to expect when you do something God calls you to is that you can’t expect to know what that means until you simply go do it. So go do it, whatever it is! Often our expectations and our hopes for what we will do next actually get in the way of the doing. We can get so wrapped up in figuring things out before we take a risk that our inner scaredy-cats convince us not to take a risk at all. True courage comes from taking risks, from intentionally encountering the unexpected, and from choosing not to have expectations but instead to have faith. Sometimes, God uses a dusty old mattress and bat to help remind us that he is there, that he is moving, and that he wants to surprise us with the wonderful things he has planned for us. Let’s grow, let’s beat our mattresses, and let’s give all the glory to God who made the world for our joy.
Some thoughts from your friendly neighborhood missionary,
Rachel Speer, the girl with the oldest mattress ever but who is absolutely loving it.
"Be cheerful. Jesus will take care of everything." -Saint Padre Pio
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