Final Thoughts
I just wanted to put down my thoughts and feelings about my mission trip to Johns Island now, while they're fresh in my mind.
I can say with absolute confidence that the Spirit of God has blessed our camp this entire week. I've seen it in the big ways and the small, the spoken and the unspoken, actions and words, new people and old. God is truly everywhere and His glory is a magnificent thing. He has come down and empowered every facet of our mission trip. Here are only some of the ways:
As early as Sunday, in fact, even before we piled into the bus and vans to leave Shannon Forest, I met a new kid named Jacob Carroll. He's going into ninth grade and he'll be enrolling this fall, so this was his first exposure to the student body of Shannon Forest. He's very nice, polite and respectful, but what I remember the most is how many of the other kids went up to him, greeted him with open arms, interacted with him, and made him feel like one of the gang. Throughout this whole trip, the way they just took him in, you never would have known that he was new. He got along just fine with everybody, and he was a terrific roommate. There was another little boy named Milton who is really shy and keeps to himself most of the time. I worked with him last year when we did puppet ministries at the nursing home on the Cherokee Indian Reservation. He was back this year, and again, he was welcomed with open arms. The kids went out of their way to be friendly to him, included him in all of their activities, and they treated him like an equal. He's going to be a junior this year, and I know he'll remember this.
Our first two nights were not spent in the comforts of Saint Christopher Camp. They were spent in the Habitat homes, some of which had only just been finished. The carpets were dirty, there was no TV, radio, or Internet, and many of the bathrooms had dirt and grime accumulating at the bottom. I loved those two nights. Being at those homes freed me from the distractions of the outside world. It gave me the opportunity to get familiar with Jacob and his Dad, along with Milton Crain and his Dad, too. We held conversations that went on well into the night, and we found a lot of common ground. We also got to know Brian, the resident occupant of the House. We ate pizza, played some rounds of checkers, and listened to some fun music as well. Lots of good memories.
The people working at the construction site on the Habitat Homes...there's not enough I can say about them. If you had driven by at any point in the morning or the early afternoon this week, when the temperature was at its hottest (near 100), terrible humidity, and not a cloud in the sky, you'd have seen 65-70 kids out there working. Many of these kids had never done any construction work in their lives. A few of them were middle school age. Yet you'd see groups out there pouring mortar, lifting cement block, digging in the dirt, doing vinal siding, doing furnishing work, fixing up the interior of the houses, hammering on rooftops and unfinished walls (you would not believe how hot it gets on those rooftops, closest to the sun). I saw all these groups out there working together. I didn't hear one person complain about the heat or the work. I didn't see anyone get sick or pass out from heat exhaustion, and quite a few went without water breaks for lengthy periods. That's God's Spirit at work. There's no getting around it; you just had to know God was assisting us out there, giving us strength when we needed it, encouraging and supporting us through our co-workers. Not only did we finish our assigned tasks, but we went beyond them. The vinal siding people got out there an hour earlier on the morning of the last day, after a whole week, to finish the job. Nearly the entire bottom layer of cement was layed down for one house's foundation. The interior furnishings of three houses were completely done by the end of the week. Think about that: three houses! The Habitat people gave us great praise for our efforts, and were so appreciative that we came there.
The nursing home ministry may seem like it's a "behind-the-scenes" deal while the real work gets accomplished in the outdoors. I'm telling you, it's not. What we do for those elderly people who may have to spend the rest of their lives in those homes is just as important as building a house for a family that needs it. It is called reaching out to others and spreading the love that Jesus taught all throughout His ministry and continues to empower us with today. There were so many opportunities to do that in the residential homes. We made lots of new friends who smiled when they saw us coming toward them, shook our hands, told us they were glad to see us. I'm not saying every elderly person there was like that; many of them were just the opposite. I heard an older lady yell at me during Bingo, and a man named Oscar got upset because he thought we didn't get him a card (even though we did). But even so, when you see people like this, and get through to them that you're not there to hurt them or to bother them, but to love them by sitting down, talking and listening, I promise you, it will feel like you're in Heaven. It is that good. That is, as Alvin Sell calls it, the fire from Heaven. We got to make clip-on visors for the adults, memory boards, tote bags, and cards telling them how much we enjoyed being with them and that we couldn't wait to come back and see them again. We took 15-20 of the adults to Chuck E. Cheese, which gave them a chance to get out of their everyday surroundings, and go out and have fun, see a show, and play games. I'm feeling it even as I type this. When you take the time to make someone's day like this, then you're making an investment for Eternity. They feel it, and you feel it too. God blesses you both abundantly in that same love.
You want more proof of that? The director of the larger residential home stopped me and the adults yesterday, and she pulled us into her office. For 15 minutes, she went on and on about how grateful she was that we had come, the way we had impacted the lives of the people living there, doing arts and crafts, singing their favorite hymns and praise songs and all of that. She said she was so moved by our approach to the project that she wanted to implement our style into another nursing home located elsewhere. She wanted to make it feel less like a "nursing home" where the adults are surrounded by nurses and workers everywhere and things like that, and more like a living place where they can play games, do fun activities like we did, and interact more. We listen to this and are just in awe. That's a blessing from Heaven that our work made that kind of impact. God be praised!
The re-sale store was the third major component of our service work. I was only there on our first full day, but I know they had the smallest group out of our 88 people, about 9 or 10 I think, and with a few exceptions, their roster was subject to change every day. Yet these people worked just as hard, if not harder, as the rest of us. I can quickly remember one day this week when the manager of the store got hold of our crew in early afternoon. She told them it was blistering hot outside, the construction crew had already gone back to camp for the rest of the day, and that they were free to leave too. But our group wouldn't leave. They didn't want to quit even though by all counts they would've had a justifiable reason to. They wanted to finish the work they began. I just loved to hear that. These people lifted crates and boxes down from shelves on old ladders that had paint stuck to them, they had to set up the actual store and re-set it every morning, which meant moving heavy furniture, doorframes, and all sorts of material. They set up a "Christmas in July" area and had to hunt through bin after bin of stands just to get the Christmas tree to stand upright. They piled into a dirty, sweltering truck and made back-and-forth deliveries to bring these supplies back to the store and set them up. And they worked outside, in the heat, and made sure the trash was dumped or kept in check every day. This small group did their own lion's share of the work this week, and they had some great stories to tell during our nightly assemblies.
All of that goes without mentioning the other details, like nightly worship meetings and other such gatherings. We met in the Kimbel Chapel each night, and every single night, the Holy Spirit came down and showed its power in a new way. The praise band, the speakers, the testimonials from each crew, even the opening announcements had that power. It was great to come back from a hard day's work, exhausted and dead on my feet, and just be lifted up by a supernatural power greater than my own. Hearing the testimonials, most of them coming from the kids themselves, and just listening to the power and conviction behind them was especially encouraging. The trip has done just as much good for us as it has for the people we're helping. As much love as I had for this assembly before, I have even more of it now. God's love; it never fails, and it never dies. It does nothing but survive and grow stronger and wider. We are even more of a unified body of Christ. Never have I felt that more than I have this week. I love these kids, I love these adults, and I just love what we're doing down here.
I'm glad to be going home tomorrow, but I'm sad at the same time. I miss my family, of course, and I'm anxious to get back to my job and all the daily rigors of life. Still, it's so great to be able to just leave all that behind for a week, to be around a whole school of people in love with Jesus Christ, and to come back feeling refreshed and inspired all over again. I only pray that I won't let that feeling fade away with time. We always have our ups and downs in our faith; it wouldn't be faith if it wasn't tested like that. But it's important to know that God wants us to be on fire for Him every moment of our lives. We need to live each day in the love of Christ, ready and willing to share it with others who need it so much, because we can never give enough. We need to live each day never forgetting the One who gave Himself for us so that we could live in Eternity with our Lord and Savior. We need to live each day as a servant, humble and prepared to put the next person ahead of us and leave our own needs and wants aside. We need to live each day as models of how God's love works and changes lives, and how His truth stands tall and proud against the ridicule and persecution of a secular world. I wish I could do that all of the time, but I thank my God for forgiving me when I fall short, and for replenishing my spirit like He did this week.
What a tremendous week! Praise the Lord!
Song of the Day: Selah - "You Raise Me Up"
Verse of the Day: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." - Joshua 1:9
I can say with absolute confidence that the Spirit of God has blessed our camp this entire week. I've seen it in the big ways and the small, the spoken and the unspoken, actions and words, new people and old. God is truly everywhere and His glory is a magnificent thing. He has come down and empowered every facet of our mission trip. Here are only some of the ways:
As early as Sunday, in fact, even before we piled into the bus and vans to leave Shannon Forest, I met a new kid named Jacob Carroll. He's going into ninth grade and he'll be enrolling this fall, so this was his first exposure to the student body of Shannon Forest. He's very nice, polite and respectful, but what I remember the most is how many of the other kids went up to him, greeted him with open arms, interacted with him, and made him feel like one of the gang. Throughout this whole trip, the way they just took him in, you never would have known that he was new. He got along just fine with everybody, and he was a terrific roommate. There was another little boy named Milton who is really shy and keeps to himself most of the time. I worked with him last year when we did puppet ministries at the nursing home on the Cherokee Indian Reservation. He was back this year, and again, he was welcomed with open arms. The kids went out of their way to be friendly to him, included him in all of their activities, and they treated him like an equal. He's going to be a junior this year, and I know he'll remember this.
Our first two nights were not spent in the comforts of Saint Christopher Camp. They were spent in the Habitat homes, some of which had only just been finished. The carpets were dirty, there was no TV, radio, or Internet, and many of the bathrooms had dirt and grime accumulating at the bottom. I loved those two nights. Being at those homes freed me from the distractions of the outside world. It gave me the opportunity to get familiar with Jacob and his Dad, along with Milton Crain and his Dad, too. We held conversations that went on well into the night, and we found a lot of common ground. We also got to know Brian, the resident occupant of the House. We ate pizza, played some rounds of checkers, and listened to some fun music as well. Lots of good memories.
The people working at the construction site on the Habitat Homes...there's not enough I can say about them. If you had driven by at any point in the morning or the early afternoon this week, when the temperature was at its hottest (near 100), terrible humidity, and not a cloud in the sky, you'd have seen 65-70 kids out there working. Many of these kids had never done any construction work in their lives. A few of them were middle school age. Yet you'd see groups out there pouring mortar, lifting cement block, digging in the dirt, doing vinal siding, doing furnishing work, fixing up the interior of the houses, hammering on rooftops and unfinished walls (you would not believe how hot it gets on those rooftops, closest to the sun). I saw all these groups out there working together. I didn't hear one person complain about the heat or the work. I didn't see anyone get sick or pass out from heat exhaustion, and quite a few went without water breaks for lengthy periods. That's God's Spirit at work. There's no getting around it; you just had to know God was assisting us out there, giving us strength when we needed it, encouraging and supporting us through our co-workers. Not only did we finish our assigned tasks, but we went beyond them. The vinal siding people got out there an hour earlier on the morning of the last day, after a whole week, to finish the job. Nearly the entire bottom layer of cement was layed down for one house's foundation. The interior furnishings of three houses were completely done by the end of the week. Think about that: three houses! The Habitat people gave us great praise for our efforts, and were so appreciative that we came there.
The nursing home ministry may seem like it's a "behind-the-scenes" deal while the real work gets accomplished in the outdoors. I'm telling you, it's not. What we do for those elderly people who may have to spend the rest of their lives in those homes is just as important as building a house for a family that needs it. It is called reaching out to others and spreading the love that Jesus taught all throughout His ministry and continues to empower us with today. There were so many opportunities to do that in the residential homes. We made lots of new friends who smiled when they saw us coming toward them, shook our hands, told us they were glad to see us. I'm not saying every elderly person there was like that; many of them were just the opposite. I heard an older lady yell at me during Bingo, and a man named Oscar got upset because he thought we didn't get him a card (even though we did). But even so, when you see people like this, and get through to them that you're not there to hurt them or to bother them, but to love them by sitting down, talking and listening, I promise you, it will feel like you're in Heaven. It is that good. That is, as Alvin Sell calls it, the fire from Heaven. We got to make clip-on visors for the adults, memory boards, tote bags, and cards telling them how much we enjoyed being with them and that we couldn't wait to come back and see them again. We took 15-20 of the adults to Chuck E. Cheese, which gave them a chance to get out of their everyday surroundings, and go out and have fun, see a show, and play games. I'm feeling it even as I type this. When you take the time to make someone's day like this, then you're making an investment for Eternity. They feel it, and you feel it too. God blesses you both abundantly in that same love.
You want more proof of that? The director of the larger residential home stopped me and the adults yesterday, and she pulled us into her office. For 15 minutes, she went on and on about how grateful she was that we had come, the way we had impacted the lives of the people living there, doing arts and crafts, singing their favorite hymns and praise songs and all of that. She said she was so moved by our approach to the project that she wanted to implement our style into another nursing home located elsewhere. She wanted to make it feel less like a "nursing home" where the adults are surrounded by nurses and workers everywhere and things like that, and more like a living place where they can play games, do fun activities like we did, and interact more. We listen to this and are just in awe. That's a blessing from Heaven that our work made that kind of impact. God be praised!
The re-sale store was the third major component of our service work. I was only there on our first full day, but I know they had the smallest group out of our 88 people, about 9 or 10 I think, and with a few exceptions, their roster was subject to change every day. Yet these people worked just as hard, if not harder, as the rest of us. I can quickly remember one day this week when the manager of the store got hold of our crew in early afternoon. She told them it was blistering hot outside, the construction crew had already gone back to camp for the rest of the day, and that they were free to leave too. But our group wouldn't leave. They didn't want to quit even though by all counts they would've had a justifiable reason to. They wanted to finish the work they began. I just loved to hear that. These people lifted crates and boxes down from shelves on old ladders that had paint stuck to them, they had to set up the actual store and re-set it every morning, which meant moving heavy furniture, doorframes, and all sorts of material. They set up a "Christmas in July" area and had to hunt through bin after bin of stands just to get the Christmas tree to stand upright. They piled into a dirty, sweltering truck and made back-and-forth deliveries to bring these supplies back to the store and set them up. And they worked outside, in the heat, and made sure the trash was dumped or kept in check every day. This small group did their own lion's share of the work this week, and they had some great stories to tell during our nightly assemblies.
All of that goes without mentioning the other details, like nightly worship meetings and other such gatherings. We met in the Kimbel Chapel each night, and every single night, the Holy Spirit came down and showed its power in a new way. The praise band, the speakers, the testimonials from each crew, even the opening announcements had that power. It was great to come back from a hard day's work, exhausted and dead on my feet, and just be lifted up by a supernatural power greater than my own. Hearing the testimonials, most of them coming from the kids themselves, and just listening to the power and conviction behind them was especially encouraging. The trip has done just as much good for us as it has for the people we're helping. As much love as I had for this assembly before, I have even more of it now. God's love; it never fails, and it never dies. It does nothing but survive and grow stronger and wider. We are even more of a unified body of Christ. Never have I felt that more than I have this week. I love these kids, I love these adults, and I just love what we're doing down here.
I'm glad to be going home tomorrow, but I'm sad at the same time. I miss my family, of course, and I'm anxious to get back to my job and all the daily rigors of life. Still, it's so great to be able to just leave all that behind for a week, to be around a whole school of people in love with Jesus Christ, and to come back feeling refreshed and inspired all over again. I only pray that I won't let that feeling fade away with time. We always have our ups and downs in our faith; it wouldn't be faith if it wasn't tested like that. But it's important to know that God wants us to be on fire for Him every moment of our lives. We need to live each day in the love of Christ, ready and willing to share it with others who need it so much, because we can never give enough. We need to live each day never forgetting the One who gave Himself for us so that we could live in Eternity with our Lord and Savior. We need to live each day as a servant, humble and prepared to put the next person ahead of us and leave our own needs and wants aside. We need to live each day as models of how God's love works and changes lives, and how His truth stands tall and proud against the ridicule and persecution of a secular world. I wish I could do that all of the time, but I thank my God for forgiving me when I fall short, and for replenishing my spirit like He did this week.
What a tremendous week! Praise the Lord!
Song of the Day: Selah - "You Raise Me Up"
Verse of the Day: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." - Joshua 1:9
posted by david @ 8:52 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home