I recently signed up for my fourth mission trip in four years. Here's the question most people would ask: Why? Why sign up for a week of no watching Friends on Netflix, no scrolling through my Facebook feed, taking time off of work, leaving behind my family, getting my hands dirty in service projects, giving little kids piggy back rides, and sleeping on the cold church floor (usually) every night? Because my past two mission trips (Revolution trips to New Orleans, Louisiana and Dallas, Texas) were life-changing.
On the mission trip to New Orleans I got the opportunity to see a beautiful city full of beautiful people and also a city of devastation all at once. I saw God working. I saw light in the darkness. I got to meet people on the streets and was by changed by what they said. I will never forget Daryl, a homeless man I met who didn't know where his next meal would come from. Despite his problems he told us God would take care of him. His prized possession was the Word of God. My encounter with Daryl changed me. I couldn't and didn't go back home the same.
When I came home I had a lot to think about and process. Over the course of the next year I started volunteering in the middle school ministry, Ground Zero. I took a leap of faith and became a small group leader for 6th grade girls. I still lead those same girls and I love them so much. I am so grateful to God that I not only got to meet them but that I also get the privilege of spending time with them every week. I wouldn't have that if I hadn't decided to go to New Orleans on that trip. It was also because of that trip that God revealed to me a greater calling than I could have never dreamed of for myself. On the Revolution winter retreat the following January we were asked where God was calling us. I knew in an instant: New Orleans. God was calling me to plant a church in New Orleans. I look back in awe of how much that one trip changed my life.
After such an experience as that, how could I say no to a trip to Dallas? I couldn't. And so last summer I headed off to Dallas and had another wonderful trip. I experienced new people and faced new challenges. I was in awe of how God had used one church to change an entire community. I hope to put social justice programs like theirs into place in my future church. I also learned more about love. My team and I worked a VBS in a Hispanic community. Many of the kids only spoke Spanish yet only two of us spoke Spanish so many of us couldn't communicate verbally with the kids. So instead, we communicated non-verbally. We showed love. We played with the kids and colored with them and smiled at them and spoke kindly to them. After 4 days of this, we learned something very important: "though we may come from different countries and speak in different tongues, our hearts beat as one". Albus Dumbledore (from the Harry Potter series) told us the same thing but it is with these kids that we knew it was true. I also learned about the power of our stories. I learned many people's stories on our prayer walk in Dallas. Not only that but I learned a lot of my team members stories. Pasts involving depression, drugs, pornography, suicide attempts, abuse, and alcohol surfaced. I was shocked. These people were my friends. How could I have not known? They all looked so clean and perfect from the outside. But they aren't and neither am I. None of us are. But God uses us anyway and that is the beauty of it. When we start hearing stories we became curious and when we become curious we start asking others for their stories. Other people's stories can change the way we live. I never would have started asking other people deeper questions if it weren't for Dallas.
Next year I plan to join a program called Streetlight, which ministers to the homeless. That's something I never would have done if it hadn't been for New Orleans and Dallas.
I learned so much and experienced so much in New Orleans and then again in Dallas. I can't imagine not giving Chicago the chance to change me in incredible ways. Imagine if others did the same. What if, instead of watching Netflix and going shopping all summer, everyone gave God a chance to change their lives?
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