“Your GYC mission
trip food budget is only $7000 US dollars?” Our local Iceland mission trip
contact somewhat dubiously questioned as we traipsed through an Icelandic
grocery store. “I don’t know if that’s possible.” He explained that he had been
involved in cooking for church retreat type groups there many times and how it
took much more money than we’d been allotted for our trip. My heart sank. But this
was God’s mission! I was just here to serve, and I knew the rest would have to
be up to Him, even though now it seemed like we were trying to cook for a
mission trip group on an apparently too-small budget.
Several months
before, my friend Ellen had been contacted about potentially cooking for the
Iceland GYC mission trip. “I’ve really been wanting to do more for God,” she
confessed. “And I feel this could be an answer to prayer. But I can’t do it by
myself,” she told me. “You have to come with me if I end up going!”
“I’d love to help
you,” I replied, “but I don’t know if it’ll be financially possible for me.”
I’d quit my job almost one year before and had spent some time volunteering in
Thailand since then. I didn’t have a lot of extra spending money. But I prayed
that if it was God’s will for us to go that Ellen would be chosen as the cook
and that it would be financially feasible for me. And one month later our
prayers were answered. The mission trip leadership invited Ellen to officially
be the trip cook and since they were paying for her flight, she graciously paid
for half of my flight. We were going!
