Texas Mission Trip Day One

The Texas Mission Trip: 4/13/09

Devon, Jerad, Sam, Ryan, Robert, Mike, Erik Anderson & Kari, Don Z., Nate, KB, Paige, Katy, Melissa, Danielle, Stephanie, Megan Foster…….and B. Todd.

Today was the first day on the work sight. It was a pretty typical day one. We rolled in to a church, stood around in a room for a while, waited for instruction, and then we got the move on. Me, KB, Devon, Robert, Jerad, Mel, and Danielle were sent to an individual house and the rest of the group stayed at the church.

The house: owned by a man named John. John is in a wheel chair. John’s house was flooded with 4 ½ feet of water from Hurricane Ike. John’s brother Steve is awesome. Steve is staying with John and is helping to get his house back to a livable state again. Steve has this glow about him. Even though his house was mangled, he really didn’t care, he just takes life as it comes. I’m thankful to have met Steve.

So here is what stumped me today. Steve was telling me the story about how his house was flooded, and how insurance covered nothing, and then he began to talk about all the past groups that had come to help. He said a 7^th day Advent group came, a Korean church, A Buddhist community, a Baptist group from Arkansas….and so on. And hearing that just crushed me. This made me question some things. Who are we? What are we doing? What do we represent? Are we just another church group that goes down in the books of Nehemiah’s vision?

The Challenge of the Day: As a group we sat down after dinner and debriefed the day. We went around and shared our rocks and Rubies. After that I closed the night with the challenge of the day. I told everyone what Steve told me about all the other groups that came before us. The challenge is this. The challenge is to look deep down inside of ourselves and figure out what is driving us on this trip. Are we here to just be “another” group that was “nice” and came to serve? If we are truly focused on reflecting Christ and His love then there is no way we can just slip through the cracks and just be another group. If we are reflecting Christ to the best of our ability then I truly believe that the people who cross our path on this trip will never forget us and more importantly, what we are all about…..J.C. They will never forget the authenticity of our faith. The challenge this week (and every other day of our life) is to reflect Christ to the fullest extent.