Some one once said to me that mission trips are sometimes more about the people that go on the trip than the people that they go to serve. I agree...in some ways.
Truly I believe that God gives us a call to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth to tell others about salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.
However, I don't think that His call for us to go just has to do with the people that we are going to serve and witness to. God knows that in order to be effective tools for Him we need to be changed. God looks at our hearts, my heart, and knows that we are far from who he intends us to be. Our perspective needs to be altered...our hearts softened...our comforts gone...And I believe that sometimes we need to leave the place we come from in order to really be able to let go of all the junk that hinders us and just be moldable.
For me, it took totally getting away from the demands of daily life. I needed to go to Jasper County so that His voice wasn't being drowned out by the sounds of my busy world. I needed to look into the face of children that I barely knew and feel love so deep that I knew it could only have come straight from God. I needed to be reminded that in a world that is filled with hopelessness that I have a God who is mighty and worthy of my hope. I needed to have the priviledge of being a part of the body of Christ...being His hands and feet. I needed to witness a young girl so desperate to be near to God that she would literally carry a wooden cross around in the heat of the day for two hours, somehow feeling His presence by having that cross on her shoulder.
I am so thankful for the opportunity that we had as a family to be on mission together. How blessed we are to have a church that values missions and provided our family with a way to be a part of something like this. I pray so much that it will be a spiritual marker in the lives of my children. The kids were amazing and we were all incredibly proud of each of them and immeasureably thankful for what God did in their hearts. I am so thankful for my husband too. I know that there are not a lot of men out there who would have done what he did through the week. He is a godly man in a difficult world and I am blessed to be married to him.
I am thankful for the friends we served with on the trip. Some were long time friends who really are more like family and some are newer friends that we are growing to love more every time we are with them. Some are friends that are harder to keep in touch with...there may only be a quick hey in the hall at church now, but they are still dear and close to my heart and prayers.
One of my new friends had to leave early when she lost her mom while we were on the trip. When we left, her mom's health not good at all, but she stepped out in obedience and faith and went on mission. It had to have been amazingly difficult at times for her to even be there, but she was a strong woman and an inspiration in the way that served, during one of the most difficult times in her life.
So, back to the thought that mission trips are more about the people who are going than those who they serve I will say this... I am certain that God worked in the lives of those people we met in Jasper. Not because of who we were or what we did, but because of who God is.
He allowed us to be a part of what He wanted to do and for that I am forever grateful. And that is just the kind of loving God we have. That He would say "Go and tell", knowing that if we would be obedient that He would reveal a powerful and mighty Saviour who would take care of every detail and use all things for good. And some who truly had no clue about how to have a relationship with our Lord would come to know Him more.
As for those precious people at Baytree, my prayers for them are frequent and my desire is that they will find the hope and the way out that they so desperately want, which truly will only be found not in a change of address or circumstances, but through Jesus Christ...
As for our team, I will never forget the examples set by the women and men that I went on that trip with. What humble spirits and loving hearts! Adults and kids combined, it was an incredible group of people to be on mission with!
As for me and my family, I pray that God not allow the impact made by the mission trip to just become another one of those feel good moments of the past, but instead be the beginning of a work that God will do to make us more eternally minded, more mission focused, even in our own backyard...
