God has been really good already, though it hasn't been the easiest of past two days. Sunday morning I arrived, and waited in immigration for a full 2 hours. While many people read through the line, my mind was exhausted after sleeping for less than 4 hours in the entire night, that I had no mental energy to digest a book. After arriving at the hallowed halls of GDS (my apartment building from last term), my good mate, Simon signed me in and graciously allowed me to stay over at his place.
I then ran off to Reality London for a good service and time of fellowship (ok, the fellowship was better for my tired mental state than the service-I may have dozed off about five times while taking notes; viewing the legibility of my letters creates a fantastic plot of my mental state of preparedness vs. the topic being discussed; I also may or may not have slept from the chorus of the first worship song to the last verse of the 4th and final song while trying to pray during worship). Well I got it out. There's my confession. Chris Sneller, our beastly project director and my good friend, shared that there were three things that could get in the way of making this summer a great one, and unconfessed sin was one of those.
Instead of boring you with the details of the following 12 hours, I'll skip ahead to my horrible misjudgment of transport time, when I told the rest of the team (8 people who had ridden in an 8 person van to Oxford) that I would meet them in Oxford at 11. After sleeping through my alarm due to the fantastic magic of the earplugs that Simon had given me to help me sleep through the night, I horribly misjudged the time it would take me to get a haircut, get to Victoria, run down the bus, ride the bus to Oxford, and find the hostel. let's just say I was about 2 hours late to meet the team. Gosh, I hate being 'that guy' who is late, but I hate even more being the guy who can't be independent, and I was definitely embarrassed by my failure to be able to navigate around the UK in a timely manner. Humbling-much?
That brings me to a lesson that God has really been trying to teach me for some while: humility. While in the Dominican Republic for the 2nd time over spring break, I really struggled with pride. Because I had been there before and knew my way around the block, I relied way too much on myself, rather than humbling myself before God. There's a subtle difference between being confident in one's abilities but asking God to use them, and being confident in one's abilities to the point that you don't ask God to use them. I definitely strayed too far in the DR, and God gave me some hard lessons there, so I think God is using this year of returning missions trips to bring me back to London, where I lived for 3 months, and to teach me to rely on him even in places that I feel competent in. As I'm currently filling out my applications to medical school, this is going to be a hugely important lesson. I feel comfortably in the academic sphere, and God has given me the ability to succeed at many things that I set my hands to, but I want to ask God to be a part of my medical school application process and to be a part of every single decision in areas that he may have gifted me in, but I still need to rely on him for.
This is going to be a great summer; and I hope that God teaches me lessons in humility in this place where God has challenged and grown me in so many ways over the past two years.
Cheers.
P.S. While in Oxford we had a great scavenger hunt, and one thing we needed to find was a picture of something that represented a 'difference between the US and the UK.' While my friend Paige took a picture of a sign with the words below on it, I'm not gonna wake her up asking her for it. This icon will have to do:
The DIfference: In the US, his last name is Christ.
P.P.S. having someone named Paige on project opens up endless pun possibilities. Also, another girl's last name is 'Tenpenny.' Needless to say, when I saw a 'Dime Crunch' flavor being sold at the ice cream shop we were in, I tried my hardest to convince her to buy it. I'm still trying to find out where in the Bible pun-making is listed as a spiritual gift. Because if it's there, then I think I'm set to go spiritually. I would probably join staff or something.
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