On Mission, Here and There

South Africa. THAT's where I was going. It was my first vision of mission and the first trip my little church ever offered as a possibility. A woman in our congregation started a small personal ministry where she would buy little bits of clothing here and there and ship them on her own dime to some organization in South Africa. Her heart burned to go visit and I imagine she wanted others to share her passion so it became a short term mission trip. I signed up immediately at the age of 14. I don't remember what primed my heart that led me to that decision, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that's what I where I was "destined" for. After church, I told my dad and pulled out my old globe, well worn from my fingers gliding across the bumpy topography and gazing at the world 'out there.' We located South Africa and as I touched the spot of my destiny, I imagined what it would be like. (I dare not describe those visions because my naivety then would betray me, but I think you get the picture.) South. Africa! 

A year later, I would step foot on the ground of my destiny, in CANADA. What's that, eh? You read it correctly. Canada. We drove (we didn't even get to fly!) 12 hours to Ontario to spend the week at Mattagami First Nation, the home of the Objibway and OjiCree people. Now writing about our time spent with these beautiful Native American peoples, I realize this was just as cool of a trip as South Africa. If only I recognized that as a teenager! Admittedly I was a bit dissapointed when my dream destination fell through, but my heart burned for missions, and I was up for any of it! 

I was entranced by a cute guy with his dark brown hair, torn hippy sweater and cool swagger when he walked.

Little did I know, but Ontario really was my destiny. Once there, I did what most short termers do: played with children, conducted a VBS, hung out with "natives." Honestly, I was terrified most of the time. I had no clue what I was doing so when a "native" talked to me and I felt all this pressure to witness to them, but it was lost on me how to do that. So, I mostly went silent. During the rest of the time, I was entranced by a cute guy with his dark brown hair, torn hippy sweater and cool swagger when he walked. When he started paying attention to me, I'm pretty sure I could have cared less about the 'mission.' He wrote my name artistically in the sand on the lakeside beach us teens hung out at and he got upset with me when I hopped on the back of a twenty-something native's dirt bike to go for a ride. The reason for his ire? I didn't wear a helmet. Puh-lease. I knew he was just jealous. No worries. We overcame our first fight by sitting on a picnic table sharing his head phones and listening to Rage Against the Machine. No doubt Mattagami will forever hold a special place in my heart, but I'm not sure how much of an 'impact' I made for the Gospel. At least I got my husband out of it. 

Can you spot us?

Though that trip would go on for many subsequent years, I never returned. I did however take that passion for missions to Mexico, but there something began to change. Again, I did what most short-termers do. We walked the streets of the colonia and stopped at each house to talk to people, pray with them. I got bolder, using my translator (I hadn't learned Spanish yet!), I asked questions, I prayed for families heartfelt prayers that I now wonder if they were answered. I sat in one woman's home, a pieced together building half the size of my kitchen today, held together with Lord know's what, with her five kiddos dancing around me, playing with a litter of kittens that looked half dead. She told me about her eldest girl. Cute little thing. She wanted her to go to school. She needed $50 for the tuition. Feeling ashamed, I realized I had brought more than that for my souvenirs. I began to understand my weight in the world. My have. Her have not. And I began to realize that this life was not about me, but where I was involved was to further the mission of Christ and care about folks like her and her family. Looking into her deep brown eyes, I felt awful. I had been warned not to make promises. But you better bet I begged and pleaded with my leader to get her the money I was willing to give. God spoke to my heart so much on that first trip. I remember going home to my jalopy of a farmhouse and thinking I lived in a palace compared to what I had just seen. I would return again and then again and that third time I went back as the leader of the trip in my freshman year of college and it would be that same year that I would dedicate my life to the mission using my college education and my career. I studied ministry, culture, communication and graduated with my heart and mind now in alignment. 

Bad mane in Mexico!

I haven't gotten to use the Spanish I've learned much since then because we've been captured by Haiti since 2010. It really hasn't even been useful at all since the romance language doesn't seem to line up too much with Haitian Creole. But the tides are turning. Our mission's committee has been discussing our future short term trips and praying over the intentionality and purpose of them. We support many missionaries fiscally but want to know them more personally and have been seeking ways to support them above and beyond monetary giving. SO we are aligning our short term trips with that purpose in mind- to know our missionaries and their ministries personally and to bless them and encourage them in our visit. Knowing that short term teams can often be a burden more than a help, with the agendas and extra work they bring, we are gearing our trips so that this is not the case. Instead, we have decided to allow the missionary to tell us how we can help them further their already going ministry. We also desire to employ the old saying that "Good company isn't really 'company'" Meaning more people in their week ought to mean more hands to help, more hugs to give, more love to cherish, and more folks to tell others about the good work going on there. Our first stop is in Thailand this fall. We are sending an ambassador couple to get to know our missionaries there (No, it's not us, darn it!) We will be heading to Italy in January 2017 though, where a missionary couple ministers to families on a military base. Then in June of that same year, we hope to send one more group internationally, destination TBA. (Haiti???? Pretty PLEEEEse!) 

Still on mission with that hunk from Canada...

I have read enough articles about why not to go on short term missions to make my head explode and my heart sink. What have I spent my life doing anyway? And though I find those articles to be thought provoking and am thankful for them if only to make us wise in our short-term methods, I do not think that these types of trips should stop. I do often wonder what might happen if we heeded the advice of ceasing all short term missions. Would we see less long-term missionaries in the future? Would we see more greed in the world because less people were less thankful rather than more after seeing what they truly have and others do not? Would people be less inclined to give to missionaries, give to hunger relief, give to anything that they could not see? How about the spiritual consequences? We are quick to disregard the changes that take place in the hearts of short-termers. Aren't these good changes? Are not people drawn closer to God? Isn't that worth taking a million short-term trips?  

Allow me to step off my soap box... 

The greater reason to go on any mission is because it is not a reason at all but a compulsion. Compulsion is defined as "an irresistible urge to behave in a certain way." An urge?? When was last time you had an urge? I'm pretty sure most of my pregnancies were one big urge to eat cupcakes. I love that first Corinthians 5:14 says, "For Christ's love compels us..." Something about knowing Christ, experiencing love, hope, and renewal in relationship with him gives us "an irresistible urge." To do what?? Study the Bible? Go to church? Sing in a choir?

We ought to be compelled 

by God's love 

for God's mission that all would know 

of God's grace

 "And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again." (Verse 15) We are no longer to live for ourselves... But for him. So, that might mean reading your Bible, going to church and if you can sing, singing. But all of that is diddly squat if you are ignoring the cause of the needy, the vulnerable, and those with out hope (Is.1:12-17 for another blog post altogether!). 2nd Corintians tells us God reconciled our broken relationship with God, not so that we could solely study Him and feel good about ourselves, but it says he gave us the ministry of reconciliation, and has committed to us telling others that Christ died so that humanity might live in hope. (Verses 18-19) We ought to be compelled by God's love for God's mission that all would know of God's grace. 

That mission is for both here and there. If you needed a reason rather than a feeling to be on mission for God, Matthew 28 and Acts 1 ought to give you what you're looking for, because as believers we are all called to "Go and make disciples of all nations."(Matthew 28:19) A smart man once told me the word "go" in that verse was translated in the Bible's original language as: "as you are going" showing that our mission of making disciples is to be occurring in everyday life, wherever we are. As we are going to the grocery store, we are on mission (and not just for a frozen pizza). As you are going to walk your dog, you are still on mission. (I say 'you' 'cause we're not dog people...) At work, at home, at the mall, on the farm, we are still on mission. And if we are to reach "all nations" somebody is also going to have to "go" to another nation. 

In light of the scripture, is the value of my compulsion for the mission not dictated by location?

Acts 1:8 also commends us to this good work and gives us the hope of the power of the Holy Spirit to be God's witnesses here and there, as the disciples are told to do so in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Jerusalem was where they were! Christ could have just said "and to the ends of the earth" but saying Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth let them, and us, know that this mission is for here, and there, and everywhere in between. 

I worry. I worry that in going on all these short term trips, in doing ministry of any kind, I am not making a blip of difference or that as one article put it that my trips are "useless." I worry that if my heart for caring for others is useless in another country that it is equally useless in caring for my children at home in the Lord's mission. Is one greater than the other? Or, in light of the scripture, is the value of my compulsion for the mission not dictated by location? Let us be encouraged to "be strong and immovable."  May we "always work enthusiastically for the Lord" both here and there and everywhere in between because we know "that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless." (1 Corinthians 15:58) Our mission for the Lord can be crippled by a distraction of self-absorption by worrying how little we can give as well as how much we can get. Let's not let either be a stumbling stock to our true destiny of being on mission.