SPACE 2006 team - Cameroon

"Without risk, there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith" - Kierkegaard
If you want to live a life larger than yourself, you must be willing to take some risks. - Erwin McManus

Well, here is the deal with my summer team. My SPACE team is making plans to go to Cameroon this summer. You might be wondering why. One of the best reasons - to visit and help out a GCC family that lives there. Their job is to build indigenous youth ministries and we will help out with some of their efforts during the summer. We will be in or near the city of Yaounde. It's quite exciting but also very daunting. Africa, like whoa.

The plans for this trip have not come easy. A few candidate leaders could not go because of family concerns - and these were strong, solid, very capable leaders. These leaders are fantastic - smart, well spoken, servants, students of culture, love being around teenagers. And they pass probably the most important test - can I trust them with my own children? [By the way, all the other leaders are just as fantastic AND also pass that important test.] When these leaders had to bow out, my confidence was really shaken. Maybe Africa is not the right locale for student teams. Maybe no one is quite ready for Africa. Maybe it's too much, too far away, too much unknown. And on and on.

In the midst of waffling back and forth, I had a phone conversation with someone from the GCC MTF. This particular family falls on the opposite extreme side of the safety continuum - in other words, they are totally unsafe. They only go to the mall in the daylight. They only eat food that has been 100% cooked. When they go to church, the whole family rides in the back of a pick up truck. Standing up. [If you know them, I hope you are laughing.] On a more realistic and serious note though, when compared to God's call to reach the nations, this family knows that risk, adventure and mission is part of the deal. In other words, it was quite a pep talk.

I was reminded again of why we do this - maybe you readers already got it. If we decided to bag this specific trip because of these kinds of concerns, then this SPACE thing packs up and closes shop. If risk, adventure, and the 10/40 window is not worth it, SPACE is simply a big farce.

So there are our plans. 5 teams this summer. Oh, and I almost forgot. One more possibility of another team - a reverse mission thing. Tell you more about that later too.

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