Pre-reflections on Cambodia Mission Trip 2012

From tomorrow morning onward,  26 Dec 2012 to 1 Jan 2013 I will be going for my first ever "Village" kind of Mission Trip under YM Ymove. If you know me well, i'm someone who always talk about the importance of being "Kingdom-minded" and "Mission Minded". And the whole of 2011-2012, been trying to study and embrace what it means to "SHINE FORTH, Light Up the World" from our YM Camp theme in 2011, and YM Theme for the whole of 2012. And to continue the vision and not be a "hypocrite". So I did as much as I can to coordinate as many local community projects for YM and also to participate in some to get a taste on the ground of it. Even read up books and articles about Social Justice and trying to understanding the heart behind reaching out to the least, the last and the lost. Despite doing all these, I can say I know somewhat the theological understanding of missions in my "mind", but to really have a "heart" for these people out there is an area i'm still have much to learn and grow from. I've been praying for God to break my heart for what breaks His. And for him to give me the kind of compassion that Jesus had for these people. Not all the time, I say is easy to love these people. But I know these are children out there which our Heavenly Father Loves and cares for as well. 

Having said that, going overseas and participating in Cross cultural missions has never been an area i'm actually comfortable with. I know God's heart is for the people in this countries as well, but as i've never been there before, I do not know the people there enough to actually care for them. And if i'm really honest, I'm actually apathetic about the people there at this present moment. The last time I went for a Mission Trip was under SCCC to Selangor, we spent 2 weeks there doing campus ministry. Yes we did share the gospel to some students there & prepared an Evangelistic Easter play for the students there, but how much impact did we actually make to the campus students there in the long term? Not t to get me wrong that Short term missions is useless, I still took back much from the time interacting with the campus ministry students there, serving along side a team of fellow like-minded campus students and just seeing God's hand as we serve there, but we can only do so much to the people there in such short term missions trips. 

This time i'm going to Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the first time,and this is a country where I've heard countless of testimonies at how individuals who went for such short term mission trips have suddenly caught a burden for these country and wanted to go back there again. I've yet to catch the heart for these people yet, but I chose to go for this trip mainly to learn and for the exposure for such village missions. 

I've never imagine myself as a cross cultural missionary on the ground, but I know God has called me to be in a local church as a "Sender". But how can one sent others to cross cultural mission grounds without going down for one. So I thought I should get out of my comfort zone and to get exposed to this kind of "village" missions, to interact and learnt from the missionaries there first hand. And another reason I see in such short term trips is, I always believe one of the best form of Discipleship can always take place in an actual Mission Team when we serve together either locally or overseas in an extended period of time! 

You have heard my pre mission trip thoughts, now would like you guys out there to keep our team "WWW.TBG.CO" in prayer. If your wondering how we got that name, that's from our initials of Wen shien, Wanlin, Wesley, Tiffany, Ben & Gan chai.  

Our Team Prayer Request : 

(Spend the whole night on Christmas day packing for my first ever YM Ymove mission trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 26 Dec 2012 to 1 Jan 2013!)

Goodbye Singapore! And seeyall next year in 2013! :)