Written by a Cafe 1040 Student

Last week, my team and I took an excursion to two very different places. After traveling by taxi, plane, bus, van, and boat, we arrived at our first stop: a small minority village to the south of our Base Town. The poverty and the language barrier were much more of a presence here, and so too were Muslims and their teachings. Actually, pretty much everyone in the village was a Muslim, and during our two-day stay there, we got the chance to eat dinner with one of them who was friend of Cafe 1040 and hear about his beliefs. The food we ate that night was without a doubt the best I've had during my time here, and admittedly I probably ate too much of it, but listening to him speak was tough. The conviction in his eyes as he spoke of his faith challenged us all with the need for people to go to places like these and spread hope, because the truth is, until the Father decides to send out laborers, there will likely be no one carrying the truth of Jesus to that place until the next group that visits with Cafe 1040. We left with new perspectives and challenged hearts, and headed to our next location.

The second place, in sharp contrast to the dirt roads and quiet of the village, was a large, bustling tourist city in a neighboring country to the south. The blend of belief was wide and varied there. Looking out over the cityscape from my hotel window I could see the peaks of temples, mosques, and steeples, all within a block of each other. We got the chance to visit many of these places, and I was exposed to a lot of things I had previously only heard about. We also got to meet some workers who had been in that place for over twenty years, and some of what they shared was astonishing. The one thing that stuck with me the most was when one man told us that he and his wife had seen very little fruit from their work the entire time they had been there. That's around two decades of serving the Father with little to show for it, and I was stunned that they had managed to stay for so long. Then, he said something that I haven't been able to get out of my head since.

"There's nothing of value about staying anywhere for twenty years. It's only being faithful for twenty years that counts."*
 

I was deeply challenged by that, and I realized that I want the same for myself and everyone else who follows the Father. We should all be able to look back at our own lives in twenty years and say, despite what fruit or lack of it may be present, that we were faithful through and through. It's that mindset that God has been drilling into me since the day I got here, and it has been redefining what I strive for in my future, my relationships, and my prayers.

*Paraphrase