Mission Trip with the Doulos

The next few posts are some thoughts about my mission trip last year, I thought I share my journey with you on the blog.

Prelude

It started when I received a prophecy from a visiting speaker one Sunday morning service end of 2004. I was helping friends who started a new service playing djembe in worship. While asking for congregation to come to the front to be prayed for, the speaker pointed me out and gave me the prophecy, "You will go to the nations, I don't know but you will." I was shocked at the moment. I always have been involved in other ministries except 'mission'. Though I did not sign up for the next available mission trip, I took the word to my heart seriously. I know He will lead me, and the word will come to past. The week after that was a combined service at our church, another visiting speaker came, and he’s from Operation Mobilization. He spoke about mission and mentioned the ship's ministry. Once again, he had sowed a seed in my heart. One lunch time in early 2005, I was little worn out from the pressure of work. I've decided to check out mission opportunities; naturally I went to the Doulos web site. The opportunities were engineers, carpenters & etc, no IT related jobs. So I've decided to expand my search on OM web site, and found IT related jobs. The ad came up. Linux Tester for 1 - 2 years. Something happened in my heart at that moment. I tried to ignore it for the next few days. It did not go away. Finally, I've made enquiry about this position. I've got a reply from OM. Read through some pre-requisites. One of the recommendations is for candidates to have done some short term mission trips. There were a lot of short term mission trips organised by churches, most of them are very short. We're talking about 10 to 12 days. As for me, I think it's too short for me. I finally ended with Short Term Exposure Program with Doulos. STEP is a 2 month program where you're exposed to different aspect of mission.
Jehovah Jireh - the provider
I started making enquiries about my annual leave for Oct-Dec 2005 which was after my friends’ weddings. After some discussions, my leave was changed to July-Aug 2005 with one month paid leave and the other one unpaid. Normally, I would have to resign under this situation but the Lord's favour was upon me.
When I started my application to join STEP, I did not think I have enough money. The flight to Africa was expensive as it is not a very popular destination for Australians. How would I get the money to support this trip? When I got my tax return back from the tax office, it was more than enough to fund the trip. God is good all the time, all the time, God is good. Though, I did not raise money for this trip, I've used my "own" money. The lesson I learnt from here is that, my money is His money. Everything I have is His.
Another miracle happened in my application of my leave for this trip. The whole trip is about 2 months; normally the application of the annual leave will never be approved, simply because of the length of the time. Amazingly, it was approved. One month paid, one month unpaid. I am happy with any arrangement. The fact that I was able to come back to my job after my 2 months leave is a miracle. Normally, situation like this, one would quit his or her job.

After months of anticipation, the day has arrived...
(stay tuned)