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I went on my first short-term mission because I picked up a flyer with a surfer on the front. The back of the flyer announced: Dawn Patrol: Radical mission to surf, skate and club culture: Newquay, Cornwall. The ‘mission’ part of the flyer didn’t get quite as much consideration as the surfing part, and so it was that I found myself in Newquay, in the middle of the summer, being public about my faith, and wondering what I’d been thinking of when I signed up. It was hard work, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing and I had to wear a bright yellow t-shirt. By the end of that week God had changed my life. Looking back, I reckon I learnt more about the Kingdom of God in those seven days of mission than ... well … lets just say I learnt a whole lot!
When I arrived in Newquay for that first, epic Dawn Patrol mission, I was loaded down with serious questions about how my faith in God connected with real life. I suppose I was worried about having to do embarrassing stuff and then somehow discovering that to top it all off I was a deluded looser whose faith in God was basically a big old fantasy. Oh, and I was also worried about some nutter head-butting me if I mentioned Jesus... As it was, none of these things happened. Quite the opposite in fact. Dawn Patrol was more challenge than embarrassment, and as for being ‘deluded’, I’ve never met more people in one place who were desperate to have a chance to talk about their spiritual ‘inclinations’. No one beat me up, but I did pray with quite a lot of people who’d never been near a church in their lives.
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Over five summers, God used the guys that volunteered for Dawn Patrol missions to impact the lives of hundreds of young people in Newquay. Looking back now however, I reckon that this was at least matched by what God taught the mission-team members themselves about life with Him. When I got home after that first summer of mission in Newquay, I discovered that my thinking had become mission-shaped. All of a sudden I was expecting God to surprise me. I was assuming that God was up to stuff in London as well as in Newquay and I started looking out for clues so that I could join in with Him. I wasn’t the only one either. The guys I’ve stayed in touch with all say the same thing. That experience of short-term mission changed all of us. Whether it’s in the UK, Europe, Africa or anywhere else, those involved in short term mission will find themselves dropped into some crazy situations. If you decide to go for it, you’ll end up in places where the only option is to trust God. Sure, it’s exciting, but much more than that, what you experience of God will shed a whole lot of new light on the journey of radical discipleship that Jesus has called us to follow Him on.
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