What is success? Is success measured by the number of people, a good outward response, lots of programs, or how much profit is made? Or is it measured by the ability to push forward, even when it isn't what we expected, and be faithful in doing what God has given us to do? We can use any of these to measure success, but the only kind of success that we ourselves have full control over is the last one. Perseverance. A good attitude. Faithfulness. For the turn out, outward response, programs and profit, we have only little control over.
While praying for this first family seminar, run by Bethany Home, we prayed that God would send us 10 women. God spoke to us in one of our prayer meetings that we shouldn't worry - just do what we could do and He would do the rest. So when only 3 women turned up, we were prepared. Within our team, we had promised each other that we would start at 9am no matter how many women were there. By the last day we understood why God had only sent us 3 even though we had prayed for 10. These 3 women, with their children, were the perfect amount for us - with kids running around and missing their mothers and going in and out of the "classroom", we really couldn't handle a larger group. But here's the funny thing...We had prayed for 10 because we wanted to touch 10 lives - we thought that would be a good start. Well, the 3 women with their children equaled 10. God had sent us the exact number we had been praying for. We just had to open our eyes and see that His faithfulness was complete even if it wasn't in the same way we expected. At our seminar we were able to reach out to 10 people (well, one of them was still in the womb!). We wanted to reach families, and because of God's faithfulness, we were able to spend time with both mothers and children. Along with these mothers and their children, we were also able to have the mothers and children from our own team take part. But this didn't make it a success.
The seminar had teaching on nutrition, parenting, handling money, First Aid, speaking English, sewing, crocheting, flower making and baking. A HUGE variety! But this didn't make it a success. On the last day our MC for the seminar (who is also a single Thai mother on our YWAM team) shared her testimony. The response was overwhelming. That day we had another mother who had joined in for the last day, so we had 4 mothers - 2 of them were young mothers (the group we were targeting). The 2 young mothers responded with tears, shared their struggles and asked for prayer for them and their families. The other 2 mothers asked for prayer for their children. We had this empty slot in the schedule which we weren't sure how we were going to fill (as we couldn't find a teacher for that subject), and the time was filled with this sharing time, prayer time, and a chance to give God's love to the women. We had never planned on doing this, but God had planned the whole schedule right from the start! But do you know what? Even if this emotional sharing time hadn't happened, the seminar would have still been a success. If success was measured by a good outward response, then what hope do we have for those times where there is NO outward response? Similarly, if success was measured by financial profit, then what hope do we have for this seminar and many other ministries, where there is no financial profit?
This has changed the way I measure success. What made this seminar a success was the being. BEING there, allowing God to work, even though things turned out differently to what we had planned. Perseverance. A good attitude. Faithfulness. And how we will use this as a foundation for future ministry.
How do you measure success?
