Rejected Invitations

I'm a little perplexed at this point. For the Cam team, we have had 3 invitations respectfully declined. Now, I'm okay with getting declined. At least I tell myself that.

We are trying to fill the male spots on this team, and those 3 were our good hopes of some quality male guys being on the team. Not that I have anything against girls - you know the contrary. But we have to get some male mix on this team, for the benefit of not only myself and GMur, but for everyone else - the rest of the team, our in-country hosts, the students we will be building relationships with.

At the start of this process, I worried that we would get the 'mission tourists' - those people that want to go on a missions trip because the destination was rad cool. "Africa!" they would say. That group of people was precisely one of the reasons we started SPACE, because a connection with a culture, family and locality was far more important than going somewhere because it was cool, exotic or glamorous. Instead, now I'm worried that we won't be able to get any more guys on the team and that it would really dismay the one guy student signed up already. It appears that some people have no difficulty turning down what I would think as the opportunity of a lifetime - traveling to a country very close to the 10/40 window, to build relationships with other peers from another culture, working to encourage and bless a family supported by our church, led by a team of local church student ministry leaders.

Am I missing something obvious?

Nonetheless, the team will be fine if it is all girls. We will manage. It will be a great adventure regardless of who declines, worth every ounce of energy and risk, because there are families living in Cameroon intentionally and they would love us to come, hang with them, get to know some high school students and show them that this kind of investment is just a tad of what God did when He sent Jesus.

UPDATE:
That post was written kind of late. There *is* something obvious I am missing and I do need to at least jot it down here. This trip might be too risky for some families and as leaders, we have to be fair to them as they determine God's leading for what is right for them. Leaders must be sensitive to students and their families as they work through how God is calling them. After reading my post, I hope I didn't come across as too insensitive in that regard.

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