Beach Mission '08

Well I'm back from my second year at Peninsula (formerly McCrae*) SUFM. Just as with last year, and most things of this nature, there are some really great bits and some really big challenges.

For pretty much the whole year, I haven't been sure why I would go back to mission, apart from the very weak reason that I didn't want to be 'soft' and quit after just one year. For the last month leading up to mission, I just was really reluctant to even think about it. In the final week before, I still didn't want to go.

The mostly negative feelings were there for the first half of mission. I think I was even going out of my way to find reasons to not like being there. I definitely had some struggles that weren't just self-inflicted, and some of these were the same as last year. Personality clashes are something that come with working in any team. I think, being the idealist that I am, that it gets to me more because we're meant to be living in a 'Christian community', but still can't get it right. I know that that's a very naive thing to think. You just seem to forget that when you are not thinking properly about it.

On one of the days in the middle, I hit the point of getting past all the rubbish and starting enjoying myself, and working out better ways to face the challenges. There was one day when JV and I were just play fighting against all the little boys and then some of the ones who were in my small group last year arrived and were really excited to see me and remembered me. That was an encouraging moment, which was also followed by a great teens program that night.

I feel that teens was a good move for me. I got the feeling the day after last year's mission that if I was to get more out of, and more importantly, give more to mission, I would be better suited for teens. I'll tell that story in another blog. There were four of us leaders, and we made a great connection with one teen in particular, but had quality interaction between all the teens over the time we were there. The real challenge for us is to make sure it's not all lost and forgotten about for the rest of the year.

Another thing that I really enjoyed about mission this year is the structure and organisation of each day. My usual day is extremely unorganised and I do things mostly at random. It was really good to schedule in things, especially specifically making time for God. I loved being forced to read the Bible everyday and having alone time (in which I would do physical things, as a balance for the 10 days of spiritual things). I want to try and make myself be more organised this year, and in doing so, make many aspects of my life healthier. On a physical level, I was worried how my skin would react to mission, since it was 10 days of stress and heat - things that usually flare me up - but it actually improved there, and I think it was partly to do with being organised and knowing exactly what I was doing at all times, and having scheduled time for myself or for relaxation or reflection.

That's about all I can spew from my head at the moment. Tomorrow I'm going to being my trying to be organised. There is some more stuff that I will write about later this week. Peace.

* It should be spelt McRae. Or McRay.