My Pastor, Michael Flake, delivered a message today that was excellent at summarizing my initial thoughts, regarding my upcoming trip to Nigeria. Mark 4:35-41 where Jesus is taking the disciples across the Sea of Galilee to minister to the Gentiles.
His analogy of ministering to both the Jews and Gentiles back in Jesus’s time relates to my feelings about traveling to another part of the world and interacting with local Nigerian Christians who’s perspective on faith and blessings is totally different from the world I grew up in.
Being a servant to the Nigerian team will be a life changing event for myself and I am excited to see how God is using this to strengthen my faith and change my perspective on what is important in life.
Having recently retired from a 41 year career where thinking that achieving success was important and now transitioning to life after work and starting to see what is really important in life and understanding what “significance” means from the eyes of Jesus is really working on my perspective of what is really important for my remaining time on this earth.
I know that being a servant to the unsaved is the most important thing in life and I am praying for clarification on what that means for myself.
Back to Mark 4:35-41, Jesus is taking his disciples “over to the other side”. My mission trip to Nigeria will be a trip to the “other side” and I am excited to serve the A2S local team to the best of my abilities. And as a result of that experience grow and mature in my faith!!
