Yesterday I got a call from Pastor Gary at Rush Creek Bible Church, the church I grew up in and the one I still consider my "home church," though I've been gone for years, it seems. Since tonight is the Men for Missions Steak Fry, they asked me to come and share a short story about what God has been doing in Puerto Rico. I told him sure, I'd be happy to - After all: Public speaking is no longer a big deal for me. (Sidenote: Public speaking is still a big deal for me.)
And so I immediately started to think about what I would share. I get one story, one anecdote from the summer, and I need to make it count. And as I cycled through my memories from my time so far in Puerto Rico, I started to realize that most of my big impressions have to do with my personal growth. I need to get up in front of these guys and share something about the ministry, a story about where I saw God doing big things in the lives of the kids, counselors, others around the ministry.
And the thing is...
I'm struggling to come up with one.
That doesn't mean God didn't do big things. It just means I didn't see a lot of them firsthand. Maybe there's a disconnect somewhere. I know our counselors have some big things they would share, and I wish they could be here to do it. As a program director, especially in my first year, I spent a lot of time planning, putting out fires, preparing the next thing, processing the last thing, recovering, sweating, cleaning, thinking. And that doesn't leave a lot of time to be actively involved in the present. In other words, not a lot of time in direct heart-to-heart perfect-for-a-story-back-home ministry. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure everything was right for others to do that, but not a whole lot doing that myself.
To some extent, that is the job of the director - you're supposed to make sure that the goals are met, let others handle the tasks. I would be a terrible micromanager. But I still think that somewhere along the way, I would have gotten a pretty good anecdote to share.
There are anecdotes. There are naughty kids, crazy games - and confusing ones, the kid who puked during Fear Factor, the darnedest things kids said, and other summer camp anomalies. Generally, the stuff that goes wrong makes for better stories. It's low-hanging fruit when it comes to reflection. But it doesn't always make for inspiring stuff for the folks back home.
And so I think, in the 2-3 minutes I get, I won't be sharing just one small touching anecdote, but one big one - that we had a good summer, that kids learned that they need to live fearlessly as followers of Christ, that a few made decisions to turn their lives to Him for the first time, and that they had a lot of fun doing it.
And, of course, that nobody got seriously injured in the process.
Showing posts with label missions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label missions. Show all posts
August 18, 2011
January 10, 2011
Someplace Else
We were in Mississippi a few months before Hurricane Katrina hit. There was a big group of us led by a friend of mine, with our trip commissioned by Campus Ministry at GVSU. We had been doing work in a neighborhood in a small city, painting houses and shingling roofs and laying tile floor for some nice, poor folks. One day, a few of us drove far away from the freeway to a small farmhouse where an elderly couple lived. A car or two that had lost a battle with nature were sitting in their yard, along with a few bags filled with thousands of beer cans. There were steps without a railing leading up to the porch, which was lined with a tattered screen with several holes that let the bugs in. Inside the house, a wood-burning stove filled the air with smoke and lined the walls with soot. It looked like the sort of house you picture people living in during the 30s, in the Great Depression. They had closets with dirt in the bottom where a floor used to be. In their living room was a small TV and an ancient couch, and propped up in the corner was a musket that stood at least half a foot taller than me. When the owner wasn't looking, we took pictures with it.
We did what we could in a few hours. We put a railing up on the steps and patched the screen around the porch. We put a floor in the closet and put boards over gaping holes in the side of their house. When we were finished, we drove back through the countryside, to the freeway, to the city of Jackson and back the camp where we were staying. Along the way, we rolled through some beautiful suburbs and stopped for groceries at the world's largest Walmart. There were neighborhoods like any other back home, people of the same social standing, the same religious conviction, much the same as me. (Except they call pop Coke.)
I wondered how it was that people could live in such strange, desperate poverty near people just like me, how people who lived so close to each other could have such glaring differences. I wondered why we had to drive across the country to help them when there were people right nearby who were fully capable of helping out.
Naturally, I thought about West Michigan where I lived. I wondered if there were people living in poverty like that near my home. I know there are. I know there are kids in West Michigan who sleep without blankets on cold nights.
I went on Spring break trips each of my four years at Grand Valley. And I'm pretty sure that on each one, we all went home swearing up and down that we were going to get involved and be missionaries back home, too. Some of us made really good efforts at it. Some of us didn't. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. I've learned and forgotten the importance of being a missionary at home several times.
One of the best ideas I ever heard was when a friend of mine took his youth group on a mission trip from Hudsonville, Michigan all the way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Round-trip, it's about 20 miles. I can't say I would have been very excited about it had I been in the youth group. Actually, I'm certain I wouldn't have been. In college when I chose my Spring break trip destination, the order of preference was: 1: Warm; 2: Big crazy city on my bucket list; 3: Wherever my friends were going.
Our generation dreams big. We want to fix the world. We love the causes with the most buzz and the ones that, hopefully, no one else has heard of yet. We'd love to get out and go somewhere far away and exotic and just serve – they don't have to pay us! Seriously, Just get us somewhere far away from boring old here and we'll do whatever they want!
There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people in far away places. But I wonder sometimes if the reason that the world stays the crappy, broken place that it is might be because we're all too busy dreaming about fixing someplace else. We all want to fix hunger and save souls and bottle-feed orphans someplace else, even though there are hungry, lost, and hurting people at home too. While we dream about finding a way to make a difference someplace else, we neglect to find our mission field at home.
The irony of me saying this from thousands of miles from my home isn't lost on me. I'm glad I'm here in Puerto Rico. I'll do my best to serve around what is, for now, my home. But if nothing else, I hope that when I go home, I'll be a better missionary there, too.
We did what we could in a few hours. We put a railing up on the steps and patched the screen around the porch. We put a floor in the closet and put boards over gaping holes in the side of their house. When we were finished, we drove back through the countryside, to the freeway, to the city of Jackson and back the camp where we were staying. Along the way, we rolled through some beautiful suburbs and stopped for groceries at the world's largest Walmart. There were neighborhoods like any other back home, people of the same social standing, the same religious conviction, much the same as me. (Except they call pop Coke.)
I wondered how it was that people could live in such strange, desperate poverty near people just like me, how people who lived so close to each other could have such glaring differences. I wondered why we had to drive across the country to help them when there were people right nearby who were fully capable of helping out.
Naturally, I thought about West Michigan where I lived. I wondered if there were people living in poverty like that near my home. I know there are. I know there are kids in West Michigan who sleep without blankets on cold nights.
I went on Spring break trips each of my four years at Grand Valley. And I'm pretty sure that on each one, we all went home swearing up and down that we were going to get involved and be missionaries back home, too. Some of us made really good efforts at it. Some of us didn't. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't. I've learned and forgotten the importance of being a missionary at home several times.
One of the best ideas I ever heard was when a friend of mine took his youth group on a mission trip from Hudsonville, Michigan all the way to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Round-trip, it's about 20 miles. I can't say I would have been very excited about it had I been in the youth group. Actually, I'm certain I wouldn't have been. In college when I chose my Spring break trip destination, the order of preference was: 1: Warm; 2: Big crazy city on my bucket list; 3: Wherever my friends were going.
Our generation dreams big. We want to fix the world. We love the causes with the most buzz and the ones that, hopefully, no one else has heard of yet. We'd love to get out and go somewhere far away and exotic and just serve – they don't have to pay us! Seriously, Just get us somewhere far away from boring old here and we'll do whatever they want!
There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people in far away places. But I wonder sometimes if the reason that the world stays the crappy, broken place that it is might be because we're all too busy dreaming about fixing someplace else. We all want to fix hunger and save souls and bottle-feed orphans someplace else, even though there are hungry, lost, and hurting people at home too. While we dream about finding a way to make a difference someplace else, we neglect to find our mission field at home.
The irony of me saying this from thousands of miles from my home isn't lost on me. I'm glad I'm here in Puerto Rico. I'll do my best to serve around what is, for now, my home. But if nothing else, I hope that when I go home, I'll be a better missionary there, too.
November 30, 2010
Living with open windows
Category: Things Jim hasn't figured out.
Turns out this is a broad, broad category with many, many things of various shapes, sizes, and importance. Importances? That can't be right. Add basic grammar to the list.
One of these things is Puerto Rican weather. It's still very hot. It is the tropics, after all, but I don't know if this is going to last forever. Maybe it gets comfortably cooler someday. In Juana Diaz, the average high drops from 91 in summer to 87 in winter. Apparently, that's enough of a change for Puerto Ricans to shy away from the beaches and buy jackets at Old Navy when they put 'em on the racks. But: I'm learning what it's like to live with your windows open, all the time. I sleep with the windows open, the atmosphere creeping in through the shutter slits.*
When people nearby are burning things, I smell campfire. When someone starts their car in the morning just outside my window, I get a deep breath of exhaust. And each morning, there comes this point shortly after I come out of deep sleep but long before I need to get up, when my sense of smell brings me out of my dreams and back to the reality that I'm living by the ocean, and as I lay there I can smell the salt in the air and there's a peace about it. And I hear everything: The ocean, the cars whizzing down PR-1, cats fighting mere feet away from my sleeping ears. Turns out the Marshall cat is a bully.
Add Going to the Movies in Puerto Rico to the list. Yesterday, Julio and I went to see Unstoppable. Fantastic movie, by the way. A timetable:
2:05: We sit down, and there's nothing on the screen. iPod touch time.
2:15: Posted showtime. Still nothing on the screen. No music. Nada.
2:17: Commercials/previews begin. They're mixed in with each other.
2:48: AFTER 31 MINUTES OF COMMERCIALS AND PREVIEWS THE MOVIE FINALLY STARTS. I thought maybe something was wrong. I wanted to go find someone and ask them why there was no movie, why we were only seeing previews and commercials when I had paid $3.50 to see Denzel Washington race against time to stop a runaway train carrying toxic chemicals in this non-stop thrill-ride also starring Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson. All the while, we were freezing. You would people living in a tropical culture would prefer keep the thermostat a little higher, like out of the 50s. People bring sweatshirts and coats to the movies. Maybe ones they bought at Old Navy. Also, it was too loud. But I don't want to complain.
Really, I don't.
I am not a curmudgeon. It's a Grace Adventures-ism to choose your attitude, because when you begin to be cynical and skeptical, you can only view the world through that lens, and everything gets flavored a little more sour than it really is. I feel compelled to tell you I like it here a lot. But it's the peculiar stuff that is worth mentioning. After all, no one wants to hear that I spent Sunday afternoon lying in a hammock between two coconut trees, reading the Hobbit. Without a fruity, frozen beverage.
People who get to come here for a few days or a week usually can only take a handful of reactions home. A few that are easy pickins': The people are really crazy, dangerous drivers. They only eat rice and beans. It's so hot. There are lots of fast food places, and they're not fast. There are lots of bugs, and some of them are really big. The movies start late and they crank the AC so you freeze. There are mangy dogs everywhere. Some of the cats are mean.
Those might very well be the first things on kids minds when they return home and are asked about their mission trip. But I hope they've had much deeper reactions than a few natural and cultural oddities. That's not why they come, that's not we host them, that's not what missions are about.
Hm.
Missions.
Speaking of things I don't have figured out... But that's a topic for later.
*Not to be attempted as a tongue twister, ever.
Turns out this is a broad, broad category with many, many things of various shapes, sizes, and importance. Importances? That can't be right. Add basic grammar to the list.
One of these things is Puerto Rican weather. It's still very hot. It is the tropics, after all, but I don't know if this is going to last forever. Maybe it gets comfortably cooler someday. In Juana Diaz, the average high drops from 91 in summer to 87 in winter. Apparently, that's enough of a change for Puerto Ricans to shy away from the beaches and buy jackets at Old Navy when they put 'em on the racks. But: I'm learning what it's like to live with your windows open, all the time. I sleep with the windows open, the atmosphere creeping in through the shutter slits.*
When people nearby are burning things, I smell campfire. When someone starts their car in the morning just outside my window, I get a deep breath of exhaust. And each morning, there comes this point shortly after I come out of deep sleep but long before I need to get up, when my sense of smell brings me out of my dreams and back to the reality that I'm living by the ocean, and as I lay there I can smell the salt in the air and there's a peace about it. And I hear everything: The ocean, the cars whizzing down PR-1, cats fighting mere feet away from my sleeping ears. Turns out the Marshall cat is a bully.
Add Going to the Movies in Puerto Rico to the list. Yesterday, Julio and I went to see Unstoppable. Fantastic movie, by the way. A timetable:
2:05: We sit down, and there's nothing on the screen. iPod touch time.
2:15: Posted showtime. Still nothing on the screen. No music. Nada.
2:17: Commercials/previews begin. They're mixed in with each other.
2:48: AFTER 31 MINUTES OF COMMERCIALS AND PREVIEWS THE MOVIE FINALLY STARTS. I thought maybe something was wrong. I wanted to go find someone and ask them why there was no movie, why we were only seeing previews and commercials when I had paid $3.50 to see Denzel Washington race against time to stop a runaway train carrying toxic chemicals in this non-stop thrill-ride also starring Chris Pine and Rosario Dawson. All the while, we were freezing. You would people living in a tropical culture would prefer keep the thermostat a little higher, like out of the 50s. People bring sweatshirts and coats to the movies. Maybe ones they bought at Old Navy. Also, it was too loud. But I don't want to complain.
Really, I don't.
I am not a curmudgeon. It's a Grace Adventures-ism to choose your attitude, because when you begin to be cynical and skeptical, you can only view the world through that lens, and everything gets flavored a little more sour than it really is. I feel compelled to tell you I like it here a lot. But it's the peculiar stuff that is worth mentioning. After all, no one wants to hear that I spent Sunday afternoon lying in a hammock between two coconut trees, reading the Hobbit. Without a fruity, frozen beverage.
People who get to come here for a few days or a week usually can only take a handful of reactions home. A few that are easy pickins': The people are really crazy, dangerous drivers. They only eat rice and beans. It's so hot. There are lots of fast food places, and they're not fast. There are lots of bugs, and some of them are really big. The movies start late and they crank the AC so you freeze. There are mangy dogs everywhere. Some of the cats are mean.
Those might very well be the first things on kids minds when they return home and are asked about their mission trip. But I hope they've had much deeper reactions than a few natural and cultural oddities. That's not why they come, that's not we host them, that's not what missions are about.
Hm.
Missions.
Speaking of things I don't have figured out... But that's a topic for later.
*Not to be attempted as a tongue twister, ever.
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