Middle East Trip: Day 1

Prologue: Friday August 20

The Friday of our departure was yet another warm morning in a string of hot days. The Lord had certainly acclimated us to the Middle Eastern heat with weeks of heat advisories and near 100 degree temperatures About mid-morning I double checked my bags, put an away message on my work cell phone and turned off my personal phone and left for the airport, occasionally double-checking my neck holder for my passport, money and plane ticket.

As my younger son Eric drove me to XNA I marveled at how God had brought me to this point. How was it that a very ordinary man from northwest Arkansas, who four months ago did not even have a passport, who for decades had struggled with substance abuse, who came into Celebrate Recovery six years ago as a depressed insomniac, how was it he would be flying to Syria to teach lessons to Christian leaders who grew up literally in Jesus’ backyard? Simple concerns ran through my mind as well. How would my body react to confinement in an airplane for up to 12 hours at a time? Had I spent enough time in preparing the lessons to teach? How would I respond to the eight hour time difference?

As we cruised through the Arkansas countryside I was so grateful for the many prayers that were covering this trip. A week earlier when out team had our final meeting we discussed how spiritual warfare had been intense that preceding week. For some it was external challenges, for others the attacks came through close personal relationships with unexpected arguments, but some, like me, the struggle was largely internal. Self-doubt was an old and familiar companion of mine. Who are you, doubt would whisper, to go and teach these people anything? You know little to nothing about their culture, you know hardly a word of Arabic, you are 30 years or more older than these young adults you are supposed to be with so how can you relate to their lives? And just look how messed up your life has been! Who do you think you are?

Of course the answer I am nobody. But God reminded me through scripture and other believers, that is just the point. If I go full of what I can do with my own agenda, there would little room for God to use me. God delights in using the ordinary in extraordinary ways so that He might be glorified. And if God can use Balaam’s donkey to speak, there is hope he can use me too. The good aspect of the spiritual warfare was it drove me deeper into the arms of Christ. I refocused, and sought out as many prayer partners as I could. And I spent additional time myself in Bible reading and prayer. During those times God encouraged me to leave all methods of electronic communication behind, that for the ten days of the trip my focus was on what He might be doing, how He might ask me to join him in a specific way and perhaps might “speak” a personal word or two to me as well. During last week of preparation a certain peace reigned until the night before we left. Then I believe everyone on the team experienced this same thought: “Oh, my, am I crazy? What am I doing?” By morning calm had returned and a ready or not here I go attitude settled in.

At the airport a few good friends took time off from their day to see us off and after bags were checked we prayed and took pictures and hugged and said our good-byes. In what seemed like a blink of an eye we were buckled into our seats and airborne. As the plane banked almost directly over my house and climbed into the summer sky above the Ozark Mountains we all looked at each other and said: This is it! We really are going to Syria!