Preparation.

I think I'm turning into my father, aside from the lack of hair. Yesterday, I kept telling myself, "A week from today I'll be flying to Perú!" Today, I'm telling myself, "A week from yesterday I'll be flying to Perú!"

On any given vacation that our family has gone on, there have been numerous times that dad has reminded us: "Well, 3 days from now we'll be back home." or "In 43 hours we're going to be packing up the van to head back." Except this time is slightly different. This time I'm travelling alone and this time I'm the one reminding myself.

A week from yesterday, on May 15, I will be flying down to Trujillo, Perú to spend the summer serving Perú Mission and local missionary families. Though much of my weekly schedule is yet to be determined, I will be teaching grammar and English at a local elementary school, helping out with Sunday School and youth programs for local churches, volunteering at a local orphanage, and potentially helping out at a local Peruvian woodworking shop (Las Ponas), run by Perú Mission.

Although this countdown is making me increasingly excited for the work that I will be doing this summer, it is also preparing me for a massacre. Of myself. Recently, I have been struggling with finding energy and joy to serve the Lord. I have not wandered from the faith or questioned God's goodness in the slightest, but it has been hard searching for the Light through the mundane days. My prayer has constantly been--and I would be overly appreciative if it was yours, as well--that God would use this summer and the people I meet to break me of myself and to grow me in Himself.

See, I struggle hard with pride and selfishness. Whether I feel it, or whether you see it, it is there and battling against the Lord. This pride has been working in mighty ways lately, but praise the Lord that He hears prayers and is mightier than the things of this world; sin included. A major side-effect of my pride has been a lack of dependence and growth in the Lord. Because if I can handle life on my own without help, why do I need to ask of the Lord for help? This is why I am praying for a massacre of myself. Because I know that I can't handle life on my own. That talents or humor can't save me. That selfishness and pride block the heart from God's intervention. Because I am the most conceited and self-centered of them all. Because in order to allow God to work in me and strengthen me, I first have to be broken and humbled.

This prayer has been challenging, yet already fruitful, as I prepare to leave for the summer. It is causing me to pray things that I am so uncomfortable with, to lay down my desire and passion to control situations, and to sacrifice all of myself to allow God to consume all of me. Yet I am already seeing, and patiently expecting, how Christ will answer this prayer. This prayer is not coming from myself; all of me does not want this massacre, but all of me needs it. I am confident that God will use this summer, and answer this prayer, in more ways than I can possibly imagine because He promises to in Ephesians 3:20. That once I am broken and outside of myself, I will be a more loving and caring servant of God to Trujillo. And that the Lord will use this time to shape the rest of my life. This will not just be a summer, this will be the first steps of a life-long process.

In preparing to leave, through figuring out what to pack, thanking all those who have so generously prayed over and supported me, and just thinking about it, I am praying that the Lord will use these two-and-a-half months in Trujillo to humble me and in turn, serve Him more fully.

The only way forward in life is by getting down on my knees in prayer.

-Daniel