Abandoned

Excited, terrified, anxious, full of anticipation, and fearful of the unknown, are all words that could be used to describe the feeling I had the morning of my flight to Bolivia where I would be serving as a student missionary. I remember wondering what this day would feel like? Would I be so anxious that I couldn’t stop shaking? Or would I be so excited to the point where I wouldn’t get any sleep? But the word I would use to sum up that morning would be peace. Past me would’ve told you that that is absolutely absurd. Past me would’ve said, “How can you possibly describe a day where you are about to leave your family and friends for 8 months, go to a place that is unknown to you on a branch of the Amazon River with tarantulas on the roof, bullet ants on the floor, and gnats and mosquitoes everywhere else, to basically be a father to a group of 14 boys who don’t even speak your language, cooking meals for them, getting them to do their chores, and most importantly on top of that showing them the best picture of Jesus. You are crazy to describe the day you are about to go on a plane and fly directly to that environment as peace.” Anxiety and fear were definitely there that day, but peace was the most prominent.

Peace? How?

So this is the first post of my blog and my journey as a student missionary, but to start I need to give a short little backstory. How could I have peace? This past summer I worked as a camp counselor at Cohutta Springs Youth Camp. I was absolutely terrified to start. I felt so underqualified and had huge imposter syndrome because I could never be enough for the job that I had that summer. I could never live up the the actions that He did. I could never talk to the campers like He would. I could never represent Christ by myself. So it was my first week. I had a group of amazing boys. They behaved extremely well, and I felt like I started to get the hang of things. In fact, at the end of the week, we won “honor cabin of the week” which is basically just a reward for the cabin that was most well-behaved and looked like they were having the most fun. At that point I’m like, ok I can do this. And I went throughout the rest of the summer that way. Oh boy was it tough. I was trying to represent Christ to kids as my imperfect self because there was a part of me that kept saying, “I need to do this. I need to be the one to reach these kids. It is up to me to help these kids make the decision to give their lives to Jesus.” I had never fully surrendered my life to Christ. There was always a part I wanted to keep.

Fast forward to the final week. It was teen week so I had some older campers. At this point, I’m ready to be done. For the past 5ish weeks I had been with kids almost 24-7 and it was so draining as an introvert. It finally started to catch up to me and I was getting sick as we entered the last days of teen week. I remember on the Friday night of teen week I was at my lowest. I had crashed. Friday night was the most important night of camp. It was the night when the campers would see the story of Jesus in a play and then make a decision to follow Him or not. After that, the counselors would take them to a special spot and talk to them about their decisions and what they mean for their lives personally. It was the most important night at camp, especially since the teenage group was really at the age to start making decisions, and I was out of gas in the tank. I felt like I couldn’t go on. I remember stopping and thinking to myself, “How in the world am I going to do this.” And then, like a punch in the gut, I realized I was right all along. I could never be good enough for this job. I will not be able to do this talk on Friday night in a way that would be meaningful. The feelings of success in weeks past blinded me from the fact that I was really failing. I had limited God’s power because I felt that I needed to have control. But now I saw that the only possible way would be to completely surrender to God. So I prayed, “No more of me. I give it all to you.” Shortly after I had a friend send me a verse in 2 Corinthians saying, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” Oh boy was I weak, but that means that God’s power was perfect. It’s not like he got any stronger, it’s just I had no more strength of my own to rely on. After that, I was still tired and sick, but I had something I had never experienced: peace. It wasn’t just any peace, but peace that surpasses all understanding. I went on that night to have some of the best conversations ever and it wasn’t me speaking. I was shocked at the words coming from my mouth. God was there and He was the most real I had ever seen Him. The only way I could get to that point however was by surrendering completely. But the term surrender is used so much and doesn't really have the same kick to it. What I did at that moment was I completely abandoned myself. The way to achieve peace is to abandon your control.

The Story Begins

Ok, so you came here to hear about my stories in Bolivia and how God is working in my life. Maybe you are an upcoming SM who is trying to figure out where you want to go or maybe you have even made the decision already to go to Familia Feliz. You maybe want to hear about my SM life and you got none of that in this post. What's with that? Well for one, I want to have where I am at in my own personal spiritual spiritual life at the beginning of my journey as an SM written down so that I can see where I am at when April comes. But I also want anyone reading to understand that the story that God has planned for your life really begins when you make the decision to abandon yourself. God is guaranteed to show up if your focus is solely on Him. Abandon the fear. Abandon the anxiety. Claim the peace. That's what I've learned and that's where I'm at. I appreciate you for reading this far and I hope that you can find something inspiring in my story as I promise the next posts won't be like this one and will actually have stories about my time in Familia Feliz. God Bless!

- Jayden Cushing

A group of us Famila Feliz SM’s heading to Bolivia.