in which i experience major déjà vu

This afternoon is the day Brian reveals the ministry assignments. A note about the MA--the key elements are 1. your ministry partner, who you are inescapably stuck to for three weeks, 2. where your assignment is, though most are "upcountry," and what you'll be doing there (evangelizing, teaching, etc.), and 3. your host family, usually the pastor you're partnering with and his family.

The staff team has been having regular meetings to discuss the students (so fun). One thing you realize after sitting through hours of meetings, switching around students on the map, is that there is no precise art or science to this--no ministry assignment is going to be wonderfully perfect. It doesn't come down to our calculations and who we think would work well with who, or which pastor would love to mentor these students, but it is all incumbent on God's faithfulness to take whatever we offer to Him and to make it something glorious.

I remember, so clearly, what it felt to be the one sitting there last year, anxious and nearabout wetting my pants below-the-knee skirt, wanting to find out who I was paired with and where I was going. (I made a bet with Jonathan Berger that I would be paired with Courtney Teaford, and I was right. The fool still owes me a soda). Mostly, though, I remember being clutched with the fear that the three weeks would somehow be untransformative and awful.

But again, it's never so much about what we think can or will happen by our calculations, because there is a mysteriousness to how our God works that neither operates under nor conforms to them. Which is such a relief.