Last week was exhausting, good, but exhausting. Schoolies are all of the highschool graduates who head out to some great beach destination and party without any rules. It’s like “Spring Break” for the US, but its at the end of their school year.
We set up at a park to make pancakes and chai tea for those who were in the area. There were actually a lot of backpackers that came to our spot, which mixed it up a bit. The first night I spoke with a man from somewhere in northern Queensland who decided to come down to the beach for the day. He was slightly inebriated, but I could see as we chatted that he was on a journey to find something more. There have been different people in his life who had preached at him and God was portrayed poorly, but also he had some good experiences as well. I feel like I could have spoken more intentionally with him, but I just wasn’t hearing what God wanted me to say. I told him about how I always had wanted to come to Australia and that it was so cool that God would combine my passion for art and missions and bring me here.
When he found out I was from Minnesota he went on and on about how we’re so nice and that you can tell when someone is from there and that its really genuine and down to earth. I laughed inside though, because I know of plenty wild and crazy Minnesotans! Apparently he has traveled on the west coast and some on the east coast of the states, so he had a bit of knowledge about the many faces of Americans.
I think it was a good beginning... I realized over this past week that really, this was the first time I’ve ever been in a situation of intentional “evangelism.” Missions the way I’ve been taught has focused on relationships and building and supporting churches in under-developed places. I believe that there is a place for what we did this last week. There were many of us who made connections and relationships with these young kids and backpackers and there were probably a dozen who were lead to the Lord... genuinely, you know? It was good for me to see a side of evangelism that wasn’t the “TURN or BURN” mentality, yet was intentional about speaking truth.
So, here’s the deal. I just went to read the portion of Velvet Elvis about agendas, because it kept swirling around in my head.... what does it mean to have an agenda, what did he mean again? Well, I’m not going to tell you everything I read or quote from the book or anything. I’m just going to tell you what I think God might be telling me or what I think I am learning... it’s this: I am a work in progress and I will never “arrive”... I tend to put pressure on myself because I didn’t “do” enough or say the right thing.... and the point is that I just have to be me. And if I forget about trying to do or say the right thing and just be me, I forget the "agenda" and let God do what He wants in the situation.
This aspect of never arriving and needing to just be "me" applies to every part of my life. I think somewhere along the line, I thought I had overcome (arrived, finished) this battle of insecurity and comparing, etc. I have definitely grown a ton, but being thrown into a new situation with NO familiarity has definitely brought up old feelings of “fitting in” and all that crap. I can’t depend on my surroundings, friends, family, to be confident in who I am, I need to be confident in who I am in Christ and who He made me to be. I guess that's one big thing I'm learning... who I am, apart from being an artist, aunt, sister, daughter, niece, grand-daughter...etc. etc. I am a child of God and my desire is to know Him more and more, and to make Him known in the way that comes most naturally to me.
