The truth is I don’t know how.

We’ve all been waiting, myself included, to hear the summary of my trip to Scotland. After I returned last year, I did a pretty fine job of recapping the experience. So I’ve been sitting and waiting and starting and deleting and typing and coming up with not a one thing about the trip. I don’t know how to recap it well.

It’s not that it wasn’t memorable. It was ridiculously memorable. I can still feel Scotland.

Its just that things were different this year. I wasn’t there to experience Scotland, though I did. I wasn’t there necessarily to build relationships with Scottish people, though I did. I didn’t pray at the altar with students. I didn’t meet with them in small groups. I was there, as the team leader, to make sure my team members experienced those things. Not me. Not that I wouldn’t have, it wasn’t that I was unwilling- it’s that my role was to facilitate, not to be. It was my job, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to build the environment that made my team successful. Not necessarily being successful in ministry myself.

And I loved it.

I loved watching some of the younger girls, first timers in Scotland, be amazed by the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. I loved watching team members try a fried Mars bar for the first time. I loved seeing our team pray for the Scottish students, be moved to tears by their situations, be confused by the accents, all of it. I loved seeing some of my team members pray out loud for the first time, watch them lead an evening service, or just hear them pour out their heart to me. Just listening to my team members talk about the students and how they want to keep in contact with them, how they love them deeply, it made my trip. The fact that most of the team is already planning to return next year says to me that I did my job, that God did in me what I prayed for months He would do- lead the team.

I wanted nothing more from this trip than to see my team members be changed by God and used by God. It was a dream come true. It was a pile o prayers come true.

So my Scotland recap isn’t about the awesome places we went- like Glencoe, St. Andrews, Loch Ness, etc. It’s isn’t about the awesome people that live there who are like family to me now- Harry and Anne, Gary and Hazel, the Canters, etc. It isn’t about the youth camp and how amazing the whole thing was. It isn’t about the hilarious experiences we had, and there were plenty.

My recap is this- God is worth it. He is the awesome part of this trip.

We’ve meet weekly as a team for months, raised over $50,000, prayed, fasted, emailed, shopped, planned, went on a retreat, and met in small groups. We traveled to Scotland with 22 pieces of luggage and 22 tubs full of camp supplies. We got up every morning of camp at 7am and didn’t finish the day until after midnight each night. We had road bumps and issues and concerns and frustrations to go along with the laughter and joys and beautiful pictures. It was absolutely exhausting and were it not for the power of the Holy Spirit, I would have collapsed into a pile of mess on day 3 of this whole adventure.

But I would do it all again tomorrow to experience God like we did. The people of Scotland, the kids at the camp, are worth it. Knowing God like I know Him now- it was all worth it. Feeling surprisingly prepared for Nashville like I do- it was all worth it.

The truth is, after this trip, I don’t know how to live without Him constantly on my mind.

And that was Scotland.

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