Live / Unlikely Leaders

4 months into marriage a series of events brought Chris (husband) and I out of Ukraine where we were serving as ESL teachers back to where we had met and served when we were engaged, Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas. 

When I tell people that Chris and I served as missionaries in Bahamas, I see what they are thinking. Suffering for Jesus in the Caribbean. My memories of Bahamas are definitely of beauty. The people are beautiful, the ocean is beautiful, the experiences- also beautiful. Along with beauty I saw a lot of poverty on the Island as well as segregation. The ships came to the tourist port where you would find the large hotels, beautiful restaurants and fun shopping. We lived in a run down motel turned apartment complex a short walk from the beach. If we turned left from our apartment building we were tourists. It was when we turned right and left the gates of Port Lucaya that we became “the white people”. 

I know when I say Chris and I were missionaries for the first 5 years of our marriage, some of you may equate that with a white savior mentality. Where as this is something that has and does happen, it hasn’t been my personal experience in long term or short term missions. During my time as a missionary I learned many things about God and others. One of the things that has shaped me most was having the opportunity to come alongside people in other countries to learn from them and get to be a part of the work they were doing. In Bahamas it was a great honor to work with a variety of Pastors on the Island who were committed to being a positive presence in their communities. Now, as a nonprofit leader, I sometimes wish I had full time missionaries who wanted to give me their time and expertise to move this thing God has asked me to do forward.

The Spring/Summer of 2005 found Chris and I in Bahamas again and this time we were in charge. 16 missions teams were coming starting the end of May and going until the beginning of August along with a full staff of Summer missionaries. Back in 2005 I had just turned 20 and my role that summer was to communicate with the team leaders, to help set up and confirm their outreach and service projects, to oversee the shopping and execute 3 meals a day for anywhere from 30-75 people. Along with all of that I was one 1/2 of a leadership team that oversaw a staff of people who were mostly older than me. 

I was terrified. I woke up every morning that summer filled with dread. The only thing that got me out of bed was the knowledge that I would get to go back to bed when the day was over. 

As I read my Bible, the stories that always stay with me are the ones where God uses the unlikely for his glory. 

The teenage shepherd boy and his stones.

A young girl who birthed and mothered the Son of God and the carpenter, his earthly father.

The servants at the first miracle who witnessed water turning to wine.

His 12 Disciples are described as “uneducated, ordinary men” .

And this uneducated ordinary woman takes great comfort in knowing that the same God that used stones to defeat a giant, called fishermen to spread His good news and honored the faith of a two man army is today asking me to be a part of what He is doing in the world around me.

I survived that summer and more than that I thrived, we all did. At the end of summer when we were starting to send staff home, after the last team had left, we stood in a circle and prayed. When we were done one of our staff started singing “Our God is an Awesome God”.

Our God is an awesome God

He reigns from heaven above 

With wisdom, power and love

Our God is an awesome God. 

We sang it over and over, our voices loud and with tears streaming down my face I knew the truth. God had done it. He had used my hands, feet and voice but he had done the real work. He had given us strength, he had brought the people we needed, he had helped us overcome conflict, he had showed up and moved at outreaches and among teams. 

I was such an unlikely leader back then and in so many ways I still am today. I know what many people in positions of power see when they look at me. A young woman without the right experience or education to get the right kind of results to be successful. Thankfully, that isn’t what God sees. He sees a willing heart. My own journey is filled with many mistakes and wrong choices, yet God still pursues me and he still asks me to follow him. Like I am one of the servants at the site of the first miracle and Jesus is asking me to take water and fill stone jars to see it become wine. 

We all experience seasons where it may be hard to get out of bed. The faith journey can be lonely. Filled with rejection, misinterpretation and judgement. The world we live in is a hierarchical one and this is true of the church community as well. Humans have created a pecking order to success with hoops to jump through like having the right education, the right job, the right acquaintances, the right social status etc. What if instead we looked at people with eyes of faith? What if we asked Jesus to help us see others as he does?

I want to see the unlikely bring God glory. I ask for it. That the foolish would shame the wise. That God would show up big for those whose only defense is “God asked me to.”

Coming off that summer in Bahamas I remember believing two things. 

First, God could be trusted to show up for those he had called. 

Second, he could use me as a leader and it wouldn’t be because I was qualified it would be because He is more than able.

There are many people who are unlikely leaders. They have stepped into something way too big for them simply because God asked them to. They are leading at your church, stepping into places in the community that are hard, starting nonprofits, doing the unconventional thing as they raise their kids or love their neighbors.

Maybe you feel like an unlikely leader. There are days where you battle fear and feel like you have gotten in over your head. I want you to remember this important truth today, God could have chosen a million ways to reveal himself to this world, but he chose to put his very Spirit inside those of us who believe. So your obedience could be the unlikely answer to someone else’s need.

Here is the best part, the results aren’t up to us, they are up to God. When he chooses to use the unlikely among us to do the work, then the credit is clearly his. Let’s be unlikely leaders today, let’s step out in obedience and by faith trust that it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of his good purposes (Phil. 2:13).