Although sometimes it can be hard to identify a change in life’s season when you’re in the middle of it, change is going to happen. It is one of the most consistent aspects of life. A couple of years ago I had a chance to watch myself respond to a season change. While I didn’t like what I saw, I at least realised what was going on. By realising that a significant change was happening, I had a chance to try to be more self aware, more intentional, and more patient with myself and those around me as I navigated the insecurity and excitement of it all.

Let me paint the picture.

I had been working for years as part of a volunteer team to grow an amazing medical outreach program which used a ship to reach remote communities. We had the privilege of providing simple but essential services to some hard to reach corners of the Pacific, it was rewarding to say the least. The organisation’s leadership took a decision which changed the direction of the vessel, both literally and figuratively. I did my best to stay loyal and we started from ground-zero, reestablishing the organisation, ship, and outreach programs in the Caribbean. We arrived in an exciting and challenging context offering people, equipment, and resources we felt would provide big impacts in communities whose lives had been turned upside-down by huge hurricanes.

I jumped in with passion and energy; seeing our results over recent years had me convinced of the potential product we could deliver. For months we worked at growing appropriate relationships, fundraising for day to day costs, and demonstrating what we could do and why we were there. I was doing what I do well: helping to press ahead toward a vision alongside visionaries, workers and supporters. As the months wore on we began to find traction, we began to see our efforts producing impact in tangible ways, and we saw a new region start to get behind us both financially, spiritually and professionally.

While all of this was going on with no little stress involved, I was aware of a niggle in the back of my mind, a niggle which kept me thinking about the opportunities that still existed in the region we’d left: Vanuatu seemed to be calling me. I felt that I should be going back there but couldn’t see how I could bear to leave this growing work in the Caribbean; though we were finding traction, we had a long way to go to be really sustainable. In the following weeks I travelled extensively, meeting various obligations in different regions, and when I returned to the ship, it was waiting in an unexpected spot while we raised funds for the next step.

Over the next few months a series of small, apparently unconnected issues began to come up, culminating in a very uncomfortable phone call one afternoon. With a lot of travel under my belt and all of the normal stresses of the endless task list added to this new challenge, I was thrown into an internal tail-spin, realising that my attempts to be loyal to the cause were being profoundly undermined by that niggle to be in Vanuatu. It was a niggle I’d hoped I was suppressing when really it had been showing itself regularly. I did the missionary thing and prayed, asking the Lord to help me filter through all of the circumstantial stuff, the swirling emotions and feelings of failure, grief, embarrassment and shame, and understand how He would have me respond. Very quickly He helped me to realise that I was on the cusp of a change in season.

You see, in the course of my missionary “career”, I’ve regularly been in positions to help establish a thing at it’s beginning. Whether a new building, a new ministry office, a new outreach program, or a new organisational relationship. These roles are usually in support to the person with the vision, roles with a lot of responsibility. My time in the Caribbean was no different. But the challenge in these roles has consistently been the change of season: you see, when someone who’s good at setting things up gets to a certain point in the growth, they begin to become a hindrance rather than a help, to the continued growth. They still see all of the things which need to improve, but their best move is to recognise that the growth is now stable, get out of the way, and let the next guys step up to the challenge.

So at that moment in the Caribbean, I was realising that my season of helping set up this amazing ship outreach program was ending. I realised that the last few months of niggling difficulties, underlying frustration and stress had been contributing to the message that my time there was drawing to a close. It was a moment of mixed emotions: on one hand, I’d be able to follow that niggle and head back to Vanuatu, I’d be able to work more closely with wonderful people, I’d be able to go back to a region I love; on the other hand, I would leave a ship I’d poured so much time, energy and passion into, I’d leave precious friends and amazing colleagues, I’d say goodbye to a recipient community who’d been very gracious to me.
And then the insecurity arrived: I’d made comments which would not reflect well on me. I was going from a productive and successful outreach program, to a nation where I had no actual role or well-defined vision: would people think I was quitting? Was I hearing God right, or just being silly? Did I really need to move on?

The weeks following the decision to finish in the Caribbean held the incredible opportunity to help deliver an eye surgery clinic to hundreds of people. We processed, assessed, treated, and in some cases gave surgery to people for four intensive days. The surgeons worked late into the night, our young volunteers worked tirelessly with often frustrated patients, our engineers fixed faulty gear at a moment’s notice, and grass-roots people met Jesus while getting their sight restored. I’d love to say that being aware that I was in season change meant that I had my swirling emotions and insecurities under control, that I was well rested, cool, calm and collected, a consummate professional; never becoming frustrated, never snapping, never becoming irrational, controlling or micro-managing. But I wasn’t always in control of my self, all of the emotion of ending my season with the ship, all of the frustration at my own failures, all of the grief at my imminent departure added up. There were days when the patience of our volunteers was tested not just by our patients but by my own lack of self-awareness, moments where I made comments or decisions, or snapped when snapping was unproductive.
That week was an incredible one. Despite the tough moments, I ended the week and my time on the vessel with a memory of one of the most successful surgical outreaches I’ve been involved in. Peoples’ sight was restored, lives were committed to Jesus, grace was seen and experienced, kindness was given and received, and we saw the goodness of God in action.

A few days later I walked along the dock before dawn and by the end of the day had travelled through three different airports on a week-long return to Vanuatu. I was tired, I was grateful, I was sad. This was the peak of a season change and I didn’t really know what would come next.
That is so often the way seasons change.
Despite high emotion at times, despite the sadness of leaving behind what is known and comparatively comfortable, I knew that moving on was the right thing to do. I knew that stepping into the unknown would be good: I had a new vision to help grow, and the right person would step into the gap on the ship, taking that vision to higher heights.

By the time I reached Vanuatu I’d talked with the leaders of Marine Reach. We decided that I would finish working with them. 8 years after arriving for a 5 month course, I was landing in Vanuatu looking back on memories which can’t be summed up in a single blog post. The change of seasons was far more significant than I realised standing on the bow of the ship months earlier.

God was in the middle of it all. He always is. A change in life’s seasons can be hard, it can be scary, it will often highlight our least attractive character traits, our ugliest insecurities, our most absurd fears. As we navigate season changes more, we must either learn how to deal with them, as I am beginning to do, or do the less-excellent thing by choosing to avoid season change at all cost. Don’t do the latter, I promise you that it is neither possible nor healthy. Don’t be the person who refuses to do something new for fear of the unknown; nor the person who tries to control everyone around you in order to assure your position in the world. Neither of those people succeed, and when it comes crashing in, it always hurts more than simply accepting that change must come.
Seasons will change, for me that means I get to help start some amazing projects. It also means that I have the responsibility to hand them over before I’ve stayed too long, before they’ve reached their potential. My place is in the starting, and it hurts to leave when good people are still working their butts off. But I must move on to the next thing before I break the thing I’ve given my best to. God gives us the grace for what He calls us to, and He gives us the ability to step into the new, secure in the knowledge that He IS with us.

What season are you in? How do you navigate season changes in life?

Since finishing with Marine Reach, I’ve been working for V2 Life Association, a tiny charity running a growing primary school and missionary training campus in rural Vanuatu. It’s not what I thought I’d be doing…you could say that about every season since I started in missions 10 years ago.
One thing remains constant: no two days are the same.