At a missions conference I attended once, we did an in-depth study of the scene in the Bible of the woman at the well. In this moment, the first thing Jesus says to the woman is to ask her for a drink of water; in other words, he asked for her hospitality. True missions, the speaker said, is the ability of us, the 'missionaries', to find others hospitable by entering into their lives where they are, rather than asking them to rise to our own standards. This week, that meant rice and beans ad nauseum and struggling through muddled Spanish, but in all of it, The Lord taught me humility. I read an article once by a stern atheist who wrote about his experience seeing a group of teenagers on a church mission trip in the airport, and how this experience appalled him. The youth wore t-shirts which were emblazoned on the back with the words: "Bringing Jesus to Africa." The author was disturbed by this, because what place did this group have to insinuate that Jesus, supposedly an omnipotent, supreme power, must be transported by some sweaty teenagers in an airplane to a part of the earth the HE created in the first place? What I realized through our journey is that, this week, we did not "bring Jesus" to Costa Rica. We didn't even "bring" him to the children through our lessons. Jesus is in Costa Rica now, and He always has been, and He is always continuing to work. And this is enormously humbling: I am but one small 18-year-old girl and my job is only to point others to my Creator and Savior--not to try and do His job for Him. While challenging me and my faith by placing me in such helpless situations with people who spoke so differently than I did, God taught me to trust in Him above all my own abilities. More than any preparations I can make, more than any financial savings I may be able to store, more than any level of education I can reach, I must first, and above all, trust in the Lord. How can I sum up my trip as briefly as possible? Well, there is no being brief when God has so much in store for you. But suffice it to say: We serve an amazing, awesome, wonderful, loving God. He is working here, and He is working overseas. We may think we have a plan for our lives and we may think we know how and in what capacity we want to serve others. But God has something different planned, and He will see us through. Every day. Every hour. Every moment. Just as He did for us this week. |