Mission Trips in General

(for a month since the trip I have been trying to put on paper my feelings about our mission trips over the past few years. So here goes...)

I wish that I could easily sum up my experience on mission trips the past few years. It would be a ridiculous task to try to explain all of the little ways that I have been touched, and it would be almost impossible to relate to you the warmth I hold for the Native American and Mexican people. However, for a little while I am going to try to explain from within my heart how a few weeks each summer can come to mean so much.

Partly, I think it’s because each destination provides real opportunities to work for the Lord’s renown.

Even though God has brought them together in my heart, the work with the Native American children at AICM, and the Medical Missions in Mexico are compelling for completely different reasons. In Mexico there is a physical poverty that exceeds anything I have experienced before. But the people are not altogether unhappy. There is a warmth and a continent that I have rarely experienced in the US. When I see the gratitude and the smiles shown to us by the Mexican people I am compelled to do anything I can to help them.

The Apache and Navajo children we work with at the American Indian Christian Mission are much more economically fit. Our government, in its inexplicable policy toward Native Americans, has at least held up the standard of living to minimal levels. But there is an emotional bankruptcy that is even more disturbing than what we see in Mexico. It is seen in the alcoholism rates that in some areas rise to 60%. It is seen in the teen suicide rate that is more than five times the national average. When I hear the stories of abuse, and when I when I catch a glimpse of a child with the haunted gaze of hopelessness, I am compelled to shine any light I have into their lives.

The people we have come in contact with over the past few years also provide a significant reason these trips get inside of me.

People like Wade and Dara who gave up lucrative careers to teach Native American kids, and who have let God lead them more than any couple I know. People like Antonio who suffers from a hip defect that caused him to pull himself around on his hands until he was 13 years old. Now, after several procedures in the states, he is a powerful influence for God in Guaymas, Mexico. People like Gene who is a big gruff guy, but when he honks the horn in the big blue bus you can see the size of his heart as the Apache kids come running. People like Nathan, a young missionary we met in Mexico this summer, whose strength and maturity reach far beyond his age. People like Carlos who was homeless and an alcoholic until God changed his life. Now he is a light to the community and a hard worker for God in the church at Guaymas. And there are so many more I could mention. These people are putting it on the line for God every day. They have come to mean so much to our group, so much to me. I am inspired by their courage and their dedication to God, and I hope to be more like them when I grow up.

While on these trips there is a feeling, a sense of urgency that comes over the participants that is difficult to describe. It’s like nothing else matters. You feel as if there is nothing more important going on in the world that what is happening that particular day in that particular place. Few people make any attempt to keep up with news, stock quotes, or sports – it’s just not as important. Would that all of God’s people feel that kind of urgency, that kind of clarity of purpose. Would that we all could experience more often what it is like to totally live in the moment. It is emancipating.

Of this there is no doubt. God works in these trips. He always has. And we have seen amazing signs of his presence.

He has given us a light show at the top of a mountain. He has put together a mission trip in less that twenty-four hours in the most stressful of situations. He has held his hand over his buildings, as there was fire all around. He has built an organization in two countries out of a chance meeting between his people from Huntington and Memphis. He has displayed his glory to us in fireworks and in a sunset over the Grand Canyon.

Truth is, I love these trips. God has filled my life with far more than I have ever given. I can’t wait until next summer.