Glad to have served, thankful God paved the way to make it all happen, and consider it to have been a worthy experience.
Am still hesitant to classify what we did as "mission work". We had to have been a burden and hindrance to Carlos and his team. They could very easily carry on without us. I am thankful for the care and hospitality they showered on us. We were treated with such love and our comfort was a high priority.
Definitely felt my personal spiritual relationship with Jesus become more real and less an exercise in theology but more meaningful. My emotions (usually held firmly in check) were a bit more free in their movements and my thoughts were quite often residing in the spiritual plane. This was not necessarily because of any significantly sad or heartbreaking conditions I witnessed. It was, I believe, more a result of the atmosphere I continuously found myself in. We spent so much of every day praying, worshipping, studying, serving, witnessing for, praising, and loving God. Our very existence was to point others to Jesus...all day every day. So many of the cares, concerns, and distractions of the American world were absent in Juarez and it was so easy to have our thoughts dwelling on Jesus.
Will I be running off to the Mission field? Definitely not...though I would not be too upset if God were to transplant me and my family. No, my mission is my family. I am appointed unto them to care for them physically and spiritually. So many people in Juarez have been abandoned by their fathers and husbands and Amigo Fiel steps into the gap to show them God the Father and His love. My primary mission is to provide this for my family. I must not fail them. But from here on I want to be more sensitive to sharing the Gospel and serving others in whatever ways, big or small, The Lord directs. There is so much need out there...need for Jesus.
I look forward to filing this all away for now, to moving forward, and to waiting on The Lord and His paths He has prepared for me.
I look forward to His coming soon and rescuing us and all the innocents who suffer so badly out in the world.
Sounds like a great time. I wish I got to go with you. (You took my place with the juggling and hacky sacks.)
ReplyDeleteI went through that same feeling when I got back. It was too fun to be a Mission's Trip. I don't know how much of a help I actually was. But you know what, those kids were told that Americans were coming to give them gifts. You were the freak show that got these kids to come to hear the Gospel. Every one of those little hands (and big hands at night) that went up are accounted to you because you participated in the work that God did there. God didn't need you. He never does, but He uses you because it blesses you. And it changed you, even if the only change was to appreciate what you have a little more.
Thanks. I selfishly hope we get to tag team a mission trip one day. I can't think of too many things I would rather do!
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