God showed me

So lately I've really been struggling with the whole tour thing, I've literally been on the brink of packing my bags and just going home, it's been that bad. You see the truth of the matter is that Seeds really didn't have their stuff together when they sent us into the States and the team has been suffering the results of it thus far. Well it has come to the point where I've been looking really hard at coming home and just giving up on the whole tour thing because I've become sick of everything that has been going on, like the not being told what is happening, not knowing where we'll be in the next week, and not even knowing when or how we'll be arriving at home. The last two days we've been in Oakland at a Salvation Army church in the heart of Chinatown. We got to the church the other day and right away things weren't going well. We didn't have anywhere to park the vehicles, the captain (pastor) and the woman in charge of getting everything organised weren't even there, and the space that we had to set up in was extremely small. So right there I personally, as well as many others on the team were NOT in a good mood or spirit. So yesterday we did an afternoon show for a bunch of their after school kids that come in, that was ok, it wasn't our typical show at all as they really didn't get the whole HIV/AIDS thing and thus the play itself didn't seem to make that much sense to them. So needless to say the attitude of most of us had not changed much from the time we had first gotten there. Today I almost lost it. Mom mentioned to me that there were flights leaving out of San Fransisco on Monday for only $199 and that would take me right home. Well in my current mood and mindset this morning I was ready take that opportunity and be home come Tuesday morning. So I went and was talking to different people on the team, like Nicole and Kyle, as well as others. After talking to them I really hadn't changed my mind as to going home, I was still ready to be making a phone call to Reg after tonight's show and telling him that he needed to find someone else to fill my role as I was leaving because I had just had enough, and I wasn't going to take it anymore. When we got to the church for dinner tonight Shambra pulled me aside and had a talk with me about where I was standing on everything that had been happening in the past few days. I told him straight up that I had had enough of this and I wanted to go home. Well he challenged me on that and asked me to look at where my heart was with it and just tried his best to encourage me. I have to be honest however and say that though I did take what he said to heart, I still had it made up in my mind that I wasn't going to stay. I was still going to go home on Monday. The show went by uneventfully and I really felt that the people of the church really didn't quite get it, boy was I wrong. After Dave did his appeal, the captain got up and said quite a bit to the congregation in Chinese. They then asked all of us to come to the front, and they thanked us profusely, and then they gave us all gift bags. At this I lost it and started to well up inside, and it even brought tears to my eyes and continues to do so as I type, I mean I didn't deserve this at all. My attitude has REALLY stunk lately, and here these people were feeling soo blessed by the ministering that we had done that they wanted to express that through giving us all something special. I couldn't, and still can't, understand why God chose to bless me and the team in this way. But it has made me think about where I am on the whole continuing the tour or not. I thought about the missionaries in the times of the writing of the Bible. I thought about Paul, when he was going around in his travels. He came up against many places that didn't want him at all, he most likely came into a place or two where they didn't know who he was or what he was doing there. The same as what we've been facing this last month or so. We've come into towns where they didn't want us, we went to a Church in Reno where they had been trying to cancel on us that very day. We've come into almost every place with them not knowing fully who we were, or what we were about, and what we were doing. But the thing is that we are missionaries right now to the United States of America, and as missionaries we have to be expecting hardships. I have thought that we weren't in the will of God anymore with this tour, but something that Shambra told me stuck tonight, if we truly were out of God's will in this, then He will end it, there will be NOTHING that we can do to make it go on any longer. Well I have come to a new conclusion, or outlook on the tour if you will. I am just going to take it one day at a time and let God handle this. There's nothing else that I can do, I'm a missionry of the Lord and I won't quit on Him. That's the thing, I've been thinking about the human aspect of it too much, I've been soo focused on the mess that our leaders at Seeds Int. have made and put us in, that I forgot momentarily who I'm really here for, and I'm here for God, and I'm here for Him as long as He'll allow me to, not a moment longer, not a moment less. That's all I have to say right now about this, I just want to ask all my familly and friends that read this that you will please keep us all in prayer as we struggle daily to keep trusting in God for the remainder of this tour, but pray that we will also have the knowledge that this is where God has placed us, and that if it is to end early, He will pull us out, it's nothing we can do, it's all about Him and the glory of His holy name.
Nick