I first heard about Café 1040 in 2008 when I spent my summer in Philadelphia with the Traveling Team. The year was symbolic for me, a period of new beginnings. If only I’d known then what my future would hold, how much of a beginning that summer would be. God had so much in store for me—a revelation of His kingdom, of every tribe and tongue and nation gathered before Him in praise. He extended a personal invitation for me to join the harvest. I’ve been going to church all of my life, but it wasn’t until that summer—after seeing God’s redemptive plan laid out in full—that the gospel of Jesus began to click. All of the layers started to make sense. By the end of that summer, I was sold out on going overseas.
I went back to college with a soul on fire. I wanted to box up all the information in my brain and make presents of it for my friends—neat little gift-wrapped packages for them to claim. I tried my best to share the vision with my peers in Campus Crusade, but it was a huge struggle for me. No one understood what I’d been through. No one could grasp what a life-changing summer it had been. How my world had been turned upside town. To this day, many of my friends see missions as another branch of ministry, something they can choose from, like whether they should help with music or children’s church or a college bible study. A choice to go overseas instead of a command to, as Paul Washer would say, “either go down into the well or hold the rope for those who go down” because those are the only two options we have. I was disappointed in my friends for not understanding, disappointed in myself for not being able to make them understand, and worried that the vision would end with me.
In Philadelphia, our team had been exposed to many sending agencies with many different opportunities to go overseas. I remembered meeting with a recruiter from Café 1040 because several of my teammates had toyed with the idea of going to North Africa together the summer of 2009. It was when I was feeling so confused and alone back at school that Café 1040 began to solidify as a next step. A way to revive my passion. To refuel the flame that seemed to be dying in my heart. And to give me confidence that the burden I felt for going was truly of God. I also wanted to see if I could hack it. So, a year and a half later, I had not only graduated a semester early, but I had left my friends, my family, and my boyfriend at home and I had boarded a plan to Southeast Asia with a with a handful of strangers.
To describe Café 1040 as an “intensely experiential” journey is absolutely fitting. The Traveling Team and Perspectives had given me solid foundational knowledge about the 1040 window, but Café 1040 let me live that knowledge out. Everything I’d predicted about how I would react—to the country, to the culture, to a new way of life—it was wrong. But that’s kind of how the program is designed. To challenge your way of thinking. For example, I had personally expected to be extremely homesick. I wasn’t. Not for the people anyway. I found a new family in Asia, and for the three months, they sufficed. We bonded and grew together, living in community and fellowship, as we aimed to be the body of Christ in our city. So I wasn’t too homesick for my friends or my family. I missed them, but I was fine. Instead, I was homesick for superficial things, for the materialism I professed so much cynicism toward, and I wasn’t prepared for that. I missed dishwashers and washing machines and hot water. And that really shook me up. I never ever thought that being a little inconvenienced would be a struggle for me. But I learned that, when I’m already out of my comfort zone, inconveniences are magnified. Looking back, I think I just wanted a little bit of home to be with me. Maybe I really was homesick for my friends and my family, and I just didn’t want to admit it; a hot shower would do. Whatever the reason, it’s hard to leave everything behind. And I’ve realized it’s okay to admit that—as long as I believe that the work being done is absolutely worth it. And I do.
All of that said, as time went on, I was surprised to find how much I felt at home in Asia and how foreign home felt upon my return. In country, the community embraced us. Sure, they sometimes pointed at us, they almost always stared at us, and they occasionally thought we were weird. But they also took us in and considered us family. I was amazed at their hospitality, the way they served us and made us feel as if we belonged. It was an interesting thing to see these people, whom we had come to save, living out the gospel more effectively than many believers. Overseas, people have genuine respect for relationship. The priority is always people over time. When I returned, I was amazed at how opposite life is in the United States. Our lust for the American dream—for more power, more money, more prestige—it sucks away our relationships. We’re always pressed for time, afraid of vulnerability, wanting everything to appear perfect. We are afraid to get too close. We hide behind our stuff—buying far more than we give, most of it stuff we don’t need—in order to keep up some kind of an illusion. Or maybe because we think we do really need it. Breaking loose that hold of materialism was a struggle for me in Southeast Asia, but I’m glad for it. What I do have here, I don’t take for granted anymore. And what I didn’t have there, I eventually realized I could do without. I have an African friend back home who owns a little store downtown—a sweet man who teaches me so much about life in such brevity. As he would say, “it is a good thing.” And it is.
But if you’re applying to the program, I’ll say this: be prepared.
Be prepared for an experience that will move you to prayer. Be prepared for a shove that will take you out of your comfort zone. Be prepared to accept a challenge. Be prepared to fall. Be prepared to fail. And be prepared to learn from your mistakes. Be prepared to grow and be prepared to grow up. Be prepared to see life differently on the other side. Be prepared to walk with a different swagger—and by that I mean, be prepared to evolve because you’ll be a different person when you come home. And home will also look different to you. But it’s worth it because it’s an experience you will never forget. I am so thankful to God for pursuing me, for inviting me, and for challenging me to go overseas. I am thankful to my family for giving me up. I’m thankful to my supporters for making a way for me to get there. And I’m thankful to Café 1040 for existing, for catching the vision, and for keeping it going.
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