Almost the Final Thoughts

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...

Beach trip

One night, when the work was over and dinner was done, we headed to the beach for some play time.

When we got to the park which would give us access to the beach, we quickly realized that our beach time would be limited because the park was closing very soon. We headed to the shore as quickly as possible. Our plan was to hang out on the beach and play some games together. We didn't bring a towel or a bathing suit of any kind...

In retrospect, what in the world were we thinking? Taking a bunch of kids who love the water to the beach and then telling them to stay out of the water!! You can see by the pictures that our resolve to keep them dry didn't last for long and most of the kids were completely soaked, but smiling from ear to ear!!

That is until they realized they had a 45 minute drive back to the Running W with out a towel or a change of clothes. So exactly what to you do with 8 sandy, wet kids with no way to dry them off? Well, you rinse them off and pile them in the van with the "pleather" seats and head back to the ranch, of course!

Just for the record, I am considering covering all seats in my home with the same child proof "pleather" found on the seats in the van. What an amazing material!! It may be incredibly ugly, but it sure holds up to water and sand, and probably anything else you might want to throw at it! Just wipe it off and it looks like...um...let's see. What does it look like? Okay, clean "pleather".

These Baptist Like to Dance!

Don't get me wrong...it is done in the most respectable way with the most amazing purpose!!

It is true. Music is a universal language. No matter how hot or crazy things got, we could always count on music time to be a hit with everyone! We used the songs from our home church's summer spectacular.. They were a hit at home, and they were a hit here...and to top it all off they were great way to teach kids the joy in worshiping God through music.

Kudos to our men who joined in music time and made the boys realize that real men do praise out loud! I loved watching my own amazing husband!! He was just too cute!

Just Call Me Justin

All the kids at the apartments were special, but there were a few that really just got in to our hearts in a big way...kids that made the kind of impression that will always be there!

So let me tell you about one of those kids...his name is Marvin. He was just plain cute and had a smile that would light up a room. He was sweet, good natured and loved to be held or to have a piggy back ride!

Immediately Marvin took to our son, J3. Literally we were hardly off the bus that first day when Marvin attached himself to him. But the funny thing was Marvin couldn't remember J3's name. He kept calling him Justin.

J3 just let it go...he didn't correct him or get frustrated with him. He just hung out with him and responded to every call to Justin. As the week progressed, we all started calling him Justin. It just fit!! And was really great fun!

One of my favorite moments came when we were doing a skit for the kids. It involved some of us knealing at the cross. It is a rather sentimental skit, done to Chris Rice's Untitled Hymn, also known as Come to Jesus. Well, right smack dab in the middle of it all Marvin marched right up to the cross and pronounced "I am going to be up here with Justin". He knelt down beside him and when the right time came, JM, Dr D's precious wife sweetly told Marvin (as she always does...she is so sweet!!) to reach up to the cross. He did it, just like he was supposed to be in the skit from the very beginning! It was so cute! (If you look closely in the pictures you can see him in front of the woman with the yellow shirt!!)

The Week Continues

The next day went remarkably well. Several of the kinks from the day before were worked out and overall it was really just a great afternoon. Here are a couple of things I learned or noticed along the way...

1) Our own kids can be amazingly entertained by bunk beds and a long pathway between them. They made up a game called The Guinness Book of Ridgeland Records where they competed in classics like who could hold themselves up the longest between the bunks.

2) Kids still like to do song and dance games like Little Sally Walker and Rock N' Roll. Rock N' Roll required some adjustments though to receive our desired and required G rating!

3) When you are doing a backyard bible club in the south in July bring water, water and more water! Water to drink, water to spray, water to play in...whatever form you can think of...just have plenty!

4)Also, regarding water - there are kids out there that think of water bottles to be as much as a treat as a bag of candy!

5) It is a sweet moment when a child that you are holding relaxes and puts his head on your shoulder, whether it is your child or not! I was holding a little boy, who was probably 3 or 4 years old. I started kind of swaying back and forth...you know what I mean...it is just an instinct when you are holding a young one. The little fellow just put his head on my shoulder and started singing quietly. I couldn't understand his words, but it didn't matter! It was still precious.

The BBC

I have started writing this post several times, only to get stuck or be at a lost for the right words to describe what went on the first day at the back yard bible club. As I get farther away from the events of those days, the details all start to run together. What happened on which day? what all did we really do to fill those hours each afternoon? How did God work and what was accomplished? Whenever I start to put it down in type, my words don't seem to paint an accurate picture of how God moved in our hearts and in the hearts of those we served. So, I'll try again and see if I can get some organized thoughts about our first afternoon at the apartments.

Our BBC leaders, CF and AW did an amazing job getting things prepared. It was a really big job! They made our daily plans for everything from crafts to story time to object lessons. They gathered all the supplies and had everything organized by days so that we only had to take the supplies we needed for that day. They were truly a gift from God!

That first day, we were immediately greeted from kids running from their apartments in mass to our vans. Even before we opened the doors, they were there and ready to go. We started by going into a room adjacent to the manager's office, which was where in our planning we thought we might do a lot of our activities. It was large enough to hold 30 people and it was air conditioned. What we didn't already know was that it was going to be filled with desks. We also quickly discovered that it was also very dirty and quite loud when you put thirty or more people in it. But we thought we would give it a try. Some of us worked on name tags for the kids, while others began setting up for the other activities. Fairly quickly we were ready to begin.

My job on day one was to tell the bible story and truly it was quite a fiasco! The room echoed every noise and people were coming and going in every direction. I went on way, way, way too long (where is John with the prayer music to signal me to wrap it up when I REALLY needed it!!). One bright spot in the story time was that the Baytree kids did enjoy being covered with "spot" stickers and wrapped in police tape! See, we were doing the story of the 10 lepers and we put spots on the kids who had "leprosy".

However chaotic and crazy some moments of the first day where, though, I must say that day was overall very successful. Yes, if you had been there to assess the effectiveness of our organizational structure or our systematic methods you would have not used the word "successful", or anything close to it. Yet, God is much more interested in the heart of those who do deeds in His name and the level of love and kindness shown. And in those areas, the mission team received an "A+" for the day!

Our own kids jumped right in and served and loved those children as though had been friends for years. They endured heat and craziness and helped where ever they could. Our adults hugged and loved every child they could, showing patience and compassion every where you looked. And each child that came to the BBC had a great afternoon of fun! (By the way, day two went much, much smoother! Our expert leaders knew what we were dealing with and adjusted to our environment with great success!)

The most bitter sweet moment came when it was time to leave. We packed our supplies and loaded up. I never ever expected our exit to be so complicated...the kids, on that very first day, did not want us to go. They hugged us and hung on to us. Kids climbed into the van we were in, refusing to leave us...asking to go with us.

As soon as we would get three out of the van, two more would find their way in. One little girl held onto the bumper and wouldn't let go. At one point, a young girl, maybe 5 years old had climbed into the van. I looked down at this little girl who looked back at me with her arms up as she cried "I want to go with you". Almost immediately an older child helped this little one out of the van, the door shut and my heart broke into pieces.

Oh, how these kids longed to be loved and wanted! The true mission of our trip was never more apparent to me than it was at that moment. We were to love them the way that Jesus Christ loves us...we were to treat them the way He treats us...we were to look at them the way He looks at them...we were to do everything we could, through the power of the Holy Spirit to use our remaining time to point them to the hope that we have, not because of what we have or where we come from, but because of who we belong to!

Sappy I know, but it is the truth.

Morning - Day 2

The next day we started off right with a hot breakfast, devotion and then some preparation and practice before packing up and heading back to the apartments...

Do you like the condensed version of the morning? Some great friends gave me major grief at lunch today about rambling on, and on, and on in detail (all in good fun!) so I am trying to be a little less "wordy"! Enjoy it while it lasts... I am sure I can't do it for long!