Last Saturday marked a milestone: one full, unbroken year for our family on the ground in Mexico. Here are 10 things I’ve learnt so far:

1. Creepy crawlies are not that bad. I was pretty worried about spiders, snakes and scorpions when I first arrived here, especially in proximity to my kids (ok…and in proximity to myself). I did have a vague memory from my previous stints overseas that they never turned out to be as much of an issue as I’d expected, but I didn’t really trust that memory. Poisonous insects that could be hiding anywhere? Surely that’s something to be nervous about? But the vague memory was proved right. While it’s always wise to check your shoes and remain mindful that this is the jungle, creepy crawlies really aren’t that big a deal in our everyday lives. If anything, they’re just a bit annoying. Ants in the sugar, mosquitoes munching the ankles, that kind of thing. It seems pretty rare to be in any real danger. Our keen research has suggested that there are no small beasties here that can kill you outright, and other harmful effects of a bite or a sting can be mitigated considerably while medical attention is within reach. It’s not that often you see the offenders anyway. In a whole year, we’ve only come across a live snake twice, and those few encounters with scorpions and spiders engender much less panic now than they did at first. When you’ve lived through their removal a few times over, you realise they’re not invincible and they can be contained. Stand down the red alert! Even finding a big tarantula was only interesting for a while. There’s not much a broom and a long-handled dustpan can’t deal with.

2. What I thought was going to happen is not what is going to happen. What we thought we had come here to do has turned out to be not what we’re doing at all, and apparently this experience is pretty common among people like us. An experienced friend who supports a lot of missionaries told us they don’t know ANYONE who is now doing what they first thought they were moving overseas to do. Instead there have been disappointments, baffling twists, turns, closed doors, new opportunities, and exciting unexpected developments. Surprising change, it seems, is part of the deal. It helps us a lot to work on the basis that although we don’t always have a single clue know what’s going on, God does, and the plan is already being worked out according to his intentions. Phew.

3. Ceiling fans have pros and cons. I may have mentioned this before, but it’s really hot here, pretty much all the time. The seasons are: summer, hot summer, and rainy summer. Right now we seem to be in both hot summer and rainy summer. Humid, steamy, sticky, sweaty…you get the picture. So a room where the air doesn’t circulate much can feel pretty suffocating. Ceiling fans then, quietly and efficiently keeping a light breeze moving around you, are a life-saver, no doubt about it. When there’s a power cut and everything grinds to a halt, in the sudden quiet, dark, intense heat you realise just how much they’re usually cooling you down. You could say then, when it comes to built-in interior ventilation…we’re big fans! However, there are down sides. If you’re tall and the ceiling is low, a leisurely stretch can be rudely interrupted by battered knuckles. To avoid repeat batterings, getting dressed requires an awkwardly hunched position. Important paperwork takes its opportunity and blows away when you’re not looking. And baking, especially sieving flour? An unexpected snowstorm.

4. Fear is a loud-mouth that won’t go away. Oh, fear! Fear has had a lot to say this year. It has disheartened me to notice that in every new situation, fear raises its voice, becomes overbearing and tries to take the reins. And I thought I was brave! Fear’s supposed remit is survival, but I no longer believe it has my best interests at heart. It gives bad advice and invites in its undesirable friends – self doubt and self pity. Apparently though, it’s here to stay, so if it’s to be part of the furniture, I’ll learn to hoover round it. I’ll acknowledge its voice but unplug its microphone. It might sometimes have a point, but it doesn’t get to dictate and dominate my response. Nope. There are others with better things to say.

5. I no longer care about getting a suntan. It is amusing to me to note just how much the secret desire for a suntan – or perhaps just the chance to absorb sufficient sunlight – previously influenced my behaviour. Thinking ahead from our sun-starved starting point in the Frozen North, it pleased me greatly to think that here in the tropics I was likely to end up a few shades darker than my usual British glare. Properly brown legs was a genuine life goal. It seems a bit silly now. Ok, I have brown legs…and, er…now what? They’re still just my legs doing all the same things they were doing before. I still like the brightness and warmth of this climate, but already I’ve forgotten why I was quite so obsessed with sunshine before. I know, that’s a privileged position to be in! If anything though, being constantly in the sun is a bit of a worry, skin-wise. I am fairly tanned, but also there are days where I get burnt no matter how much suncream I put on or how long I keep covered up. If I can’t avoid it, and I’m here a long time, what will the outcome be? The sun’s rays are intensely hot, and I can already see negative effects on my skin from regular exposure. Maybe white legs would be a better life goal for me.

6. I’m not quite who I thought I was. This has been a painful one, but a learning point that I genuinely would not have been without. Something about leaving my home culture and trying to work out how to be me in a whole new one has plonked my character and habits firmly under the microscope. It’s quite the humbling process being greatly reduced in eloquence, competence and influence all at once. It shows you things. Highlights blind spots. Shock-reveals motivation. Coughs meaningfully as it points out wonky values. I am becoming increasingly well-acquainted with my own weaknesses, neuroses, inadequacies, as well as the amazing grace available to me to grow up through them. It’s not always fun, but I’m so grateful, because maybe without this new scrutiny I might have gone on ahead, not seeing, forever blindly the same.

7. I don’t know best. This is the sequel to point 6, if you like. More devastating, yet life-giving revelation. If you’d asked me on arrival, I would never have presumed to say I know best about anything much at all. Obviously not! But digging a little deeper, there was an underlying assumption in me that sooner or later – after I’d absorbed and assimilated enough – I’d move into the role of a teacher. Not literally, necessarily, but that in some format or other I’d be the coach, the leader, the knowledgeable one. Isn’t that what I came to do, essentially? Save people with…what, my superior knowledge?

In the first month or so of the past 12, I was asked to deliver a training session. I followed my instructions, but it was clear to me as soon as I uttered my first sentence that no training would happen that day. The trainees did not want to be trained. They saw no need for anything to change on the subject at hand and although they humoured me politely, they clearly saw no reason why I should be the one to teach them either. It was a lightbulb moment in many ways. I don’t know best, and even if I did, it wouldn’t necessarily be viewed that way by locals nor be persuasive enough to change anything. Those I am trying to help might not even see my efforts as help. They might be wary or dismissive of my different ideas that make little sense to them, in much the same way as I am wary or dismissive of theirs. People are very attached to their own perspective, I find. If anything, since that day, those same trainees have been trying to train me in their way of thinking. It’s quite funny really! Maybe we all do this, as humans. We see someone different to us, and without even questioning which one of us is right, we set about encouraging them to become more like us.

8. God does know best. Or, alternatively: God can still be trusted, even here. I have so very many stories of the way God has proved that he means what he says when it comes to me, my life and my family. SO many stories. So many answers to prayer against impossible odds. So many miracle moments. He always does what he says he will do, even if it really looks like he’s not going to. He is always kind, always loving, always right. I have the proof in a hundred thousand personally answered prayers. And yet… I still doubt. The challenges get bigger with every passing year, and it’s harder at times to remember the truth. Sometimes it feels positively foolish to keep trusting God. ‘Yes, yes, he’s always come through for us before, but it’s never been like THIS before, and there’s a whole lot more at stake…’

Often I am chagrined when I look back and realise that I’ve asked God for something, then totally freaked out and assumed it can never happen, gone through a drama of my own making, and then later received just what I asked for at exactly the right time. He listens. He answers. He provides. He doesn’t always say yes, of course, but his way is always better in the end. It still works, it’s still true. He can be trusted, even here at ‘the ends of the earth’. God really does know best.

9. Other people’s approval is not guaranteed. I don’t know what surprised me more, discovering that approval from other Christians for doing something we’re all commanded to do was not universally guaranteed; or realising that I had previously assumed it would be, and was motivated considerably by that. Both revelations took some processing. Approval, I have noticed, is most often bestowed where people are alike. If they understand you, get where you’re coming from, and you’re doing things much as they would, approval tends to follow. If you do things differently because of your country of birth, culture, church background, life experience and more, you’re unlikely to hit those markers and are more likely to feel disapproved of. There are precious few people who have enough open-mindedness and grace to see something done in a way that’s very different to what they’re expecting and yet still recognise the good in it. As noted in point 7, people remain attached to their own perspective. Sometimes, it seems, they don’t even realise that other equally good perspectives are out there.

If you have made a life habit of using other people’s approval as a reference point for how well you’re doing, finding yourself without it can be quite perturbing, even anxiety-inducing at times. It can be confusing. One can feel misunderstood and get defensive, resentful and bitter. It can be tempting to start listening to those two imposters that Fear invited in: Self-Doubt (‘Maybe they’re right. I’m a disaster. I’ll never get this right.’) and Self-Pity (‘nobody suffers like me, I’m all alone and life is so hard’). Paradoxically, Pride sometimes elbows its way in too: (‘They’re the ones that have it all wrong. I’m the only one really doing things right’).

They’re all liars.

Firmly showing liars the door and ushering in the truth has been immensely comforting. We’re reminded that doing the right thing has never guaranteed human approval anyway – often quite the opposite, in fact. Even the one human who lived a completely perfect life and did everything right suffered a serious, ultimately fatal shortage of approval from those around him. And that was all part of the plan.

Another side effect of not feeling others’ approval is choosing to withhold it myself, in retaliation. Despite what self pity and pride would like me to believe, I am not the only one. There are so many others just like me. There are thousands upon thousands upon thousands. Already just around this area we’ve met scores of others who have left their homes, taken up a whole new life for Jesus, and are buckling down to do very similar things to us not very far away at all. It can be sobering at times to see what others do, how differently they do it, and how well they view themselves as they go. It’s not always pretty. Am I like that too?

But eyes of judgement are part of the problem. It feels like a construct straight out of hell that we should all be pressing on purportedly towards the same goal as our next-door neighbours but all of us ‘alone’, each isolated in our pride and self-pity, each offended by the other’s presence in our territory, each scorning the others’ efforts and believing our own are better somehow. I am not the only one. We are many. And we’re all on the same team, whether we acknowledge it or not. This is about one kingdom for one King, not a million personal empires. And if I won’t be generous with my approval and be as open-minded and gracious with my kingdom co-workers as I’d like them to be with me, then hell wins.

The approval of others in this calling is not guaranteed, no. But neither is it necessary for success.

10. Finally, I am not needed here. Wait, what?

Mmm. Another painful but necessary realisation. Having been fully convinced over the years about the needs of the poor, the need for missionaries, the need for the gospel to be preached; and having set my life on a course to answer that need, I expected to feel needed here straight away. ‘It’s alright guys, everything will be ok now; I’m heeere!’ Instead I often feel irrelevant, superfluous to requirements. I am clearly dispensable. It was humbling to note early on that local people can patently do what I came 6,000 miles to do a whole lot better than I can, should they be inclined to. So am I packing my bags to give it all up and go back where I came from? No.

Jesus said the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. And he commanded us to go, and make disciples everywhere. Yeah, Jesus said that is needed, so…how come it feels like I’m not?

Well, maybe it isn’t me who’s needed. I guess I always thought God had called me to this missionary life because I’d be good at it. Kind of a promotion from ordinary Christian life. The last year has soundly blown that notion out of the water. I’m not good at it. I’m not perfectly equipped at all. I’m a messy work in progress. It’s not a promotion, it’s more like starting all over again – an internship at the very beginning of the learning curve. But it’s ok because as point 7 revealed to me: I didn’t come so that my gifts, skills and insights could change peoples’ lives. They can’t change anyone! Over the past year, my confidence in my own knowledge and abilities has been repeatedly stripped away until I only have one thing left really worth sharing; knowing Jesus. And I see now that that was the point all along. In my weakness his strength is made perfect. More of him and less of me. This was never meant to be about offering anyone knowledge of a subject, but the knowing of a person.

It’s merely about introducing an incredible personal friend to those who haven’t met him yet, over and over and over, and getting each one to pass it on over and over and over too. And anyone can do that. In fact it’s crucial to our overall mission that anyone can do it. Certainly many, many are needed to do it. My skills and abilities can even be an obstacle. The ‘how’ needs to be – is – simple, replicable, accessible to all. I want the first few eager new friends to take that introduction, raw as they are, and immediately copy it, each sharing it with someone else. And so on, and so on, and so on. That can never happen if I am the source of knowledge, if I bill myself as the expert, the big-shot, or even hint at the suggestion that these connections all belong within my sphere, that I must be included, that my own person is a necessary element of the process of spiritual change. It really isn’t about me. Let it spread without me as a bottleneck. Let it no longer be mine. I am just the messenger, and one of many. Or, to use a metaphor I recently encountered, I am a waitress, and not a chef. It’s not for me to create the food – that part has already been done. It’s my job, quite simply, to get it out there.

I am not needed here. Jesus is.