It’s been just over two weeks since I have returned from my mission trip. I have a mix of emotions, and a different take on retuning home this time. This was my third time going into this community, and for me it was a turning point in regards to how I am feeling about our partnership with El Mirador. My mom, who has also now been three times, said it best. She said “this time I didn’t feel like I was even on a mission trip; it felt like I was visiting family”. I feel that in ways I can’t even fully describe.
It’s interesting that when we go on trips like this, we think of all the ways we can impact the “receiving community”. We definitely do! However, their ability to impact us is just as real. I have learned so much from my El Mirador family these last few years. They have so little, but their level of gratitude far surpasses mine on any given day. I have also learned what it really means to be in and embrace community; something I find time and time again that people here can’t fully understand. Even at my own church, many find it hard over the years to fully feel connected. It’s hard to embrace community in a world that often defines it as a distracted coexistence with the people around you. That’s not community to the people of El Mirador; and it’s not community to Jesus.
After returning from a trip like this I often get asked “what did you do?” While this is a completely rational question to have, I think it’s important in those moments to point out that most of our “doing” was actually just BEING. When people come together to simply just BE present, both people are changed and built up. There’s a fine line between coexisting and truly being present with each other. When we figure that out, that’s where we find community. What we are “doing” for these people in El Mirador, is giving them a simple yet powerful gift. We are acknowledging that no racial, political, financial, religious, language, or lifestyle differences are going to stand in the way of us taking the time to walk alongside them as equals. Being with them is enough. Why then, is this so hard to embrace here in our own country? We have so much, and yet we are actually the poor ones. We have lost site of how important it is to just love without limits, listen without judgement, and BE without distractions. When we focus on what really matters, we will be able to rest in the truth that God is in control. This takes our focus off of how we are different or what could go wrong. What is it that really matters? Well... Sharing hope.
I’m aware that if you attend my church, then that last statement may seem cliché to say. It’s how I would describe in the least amount of words though, what I believe the world needs most right now from Gods people. This isn’t just an American thing, or a mission trip thing. This is a radical, Jesus like, whole world thing. If you think of Jesus’s mission when he walked the earth, his mission was to spread the gospel through sharing hope; and he did it everywhere. So when my church decided to create another mission statement of “Share Hope”, I was immediately on board!
It was only a couple months later that I sat in a meeting with thirteen other people from my church, in an off the grid community, and listened to men and women tell us that we have “given them hope”. One of the pastors in El Mirador actually uttered those words after saying they felt forgotten before we came... until we gave them hope. Some of us sat there wearing our churches share hope shirts while we listened to their gratitude of that very same hope. Incredible! So you see, this is the call not only within our church, but for all of Gods people. When we share hope, we allow the Lord to fill the uncomfortable gaps with love and acceptance; something the world needs a lot more of these days.
My church has been in a season of transition for about four years now. Four years ago we lost our pastor. Since then it has been a rollercoaster for our community. It’s easy to loose hope when you can’t seem to navigate where we are headed and who is our leader. However, when we are anchored in hope and decide to choose faith over fear, we remember that we have a very important call. A mission you might even say! You don’t have to get on a plane to enter the mission field. You only have to walk out your front door to encounter it. Unfortunately though, the mission to share hope can be easily distracted by our ability to over complicate the gospel.
If you are part of my church community and you are reading this right now, listen up! We cannot share hope with a broken world if we have lost hope within our own community. Our churches main mission statement since I have been attending is “helping people find their way back to God.” Well fourteen people from our church went to a different country for only a week, and we made an impact. So I assure you, we are still helping people find their way back to God, and we are still sharing hope! We are still on mission. In fact, we are doing these things better and more often than we were when I first started attending Harbor nine years ago; before the ship got rocky so to speak. Same ship. Same mission. Same destination. Detours and stormy waters? Sure. All things that bring us back to that one thing that’s needed. Hope.
I share that bit about my church because I find that we can all relate in our own lives and communities. How easy it is to become sidetracked in a world full of panic and distractions. When we allow God to speak peace over our panic, and we worship instead of worry, we silence the lies that tell us to give up. “Loose hope” the devil says. The people of El Mirador felt forgotten, but we gave them hope. If they can receive hope while having so little, then what’s our excuse?
I’m grateful for these trips because it reminds me that the same needed hope that we shared in El Mirador, is needed here in our own country and communities. This trip has taught and reminded me that we are all more alike then we think. At the core of every human being is the desire to have hope in something or someone. The world will tell us a thousand different things that we should put our hope in. Therefore our voices need to be louder! What we put our hope in is what navigates our entire life. Don’t give up or give in to fear. Stop over complicating church, faith, community, and the gospel. When you have found that hope in Jesus, simply share it.
Everywhere.

No comments:
Post a Comment