Honduras 2016

The Team

Last summer I was given the incredible opportunity to co-lead a missions trip with the pastor of The Source, a contemporary congregation at First Methodist Houston.  We led a team of 12 young adults, including ourselves, to serve with our ministry partners Jeremiah 29:11 Mission in Santa Elena, Honduras.  As much as I've enjoyed working with local missions, I was thrilled to be able to go internationally again and get to get to know Chuck and Joyce and learn about their ministry in Honduras.  This ministry serves and empowers the community near Santa Elena, Honduras in many ways including providing housing and schooling during the week for children in surrounding rural communities.  Most of these children come from difficult and impoverished situations and they stay at the mission during the week so they are able to get an education.  Others are orphans and live at the mission full-time.  We had an incredible time traveling to schools in the area where we sang songs, performed Bible stories, passed out and read books explaining the gospel, did crafts, and played games.  We got to hold a church service at our hotel, remove lice for everyone at the mission, take the kids at the mission to a pool, hike up and down the mountains, swim in a waterfall, and just spend time getting the know the kids that this ministry serves.  We heard many heartbreaking stories, but were encouraged to see how God is using Jeremiah 29:11 Mission to shine hope and light into these stories bringing healing and glory to God.  Overall, it was really an incredible experience.

Missionaries Joyce and Chuck

God doesn't seem to reveal the lesson in an experience to me until way after the fact.  Or maybe I'm just horrible at listening.  But, last Sunday God started to stir in me and show me His lessons for me in this experience as I listened to three of my teammates share during church about the things they learned from our time in Honduras. It was amazing seeing this experience through their eyes.

Stephanie challenged me in my faith as she talked about how God never fails us, even though we may feel at times that he is.  She talked about not being afraid to say yes and seek God even when it seems crazy or out of your comfort zone.  David spoke about how God provides and we just need to trust Him and have faith.  Nick reminded me of God's incredible love and how His kingdom shows up in such simple ways we can almost miss it, but when we see it it is SO powerful.

They all spoke with passion and sincerity showing how meaningful and truly life changing this experience had been for them.  As I listened to their hearts and saw the twinkling in their eyes I was  reminded of a young 12-year-old starry-eyed dreamer coming back from Nicaragua in 2006 with great ambition to be a missionary.  They reminded me of a passionate barely teenager who jumped on a plane by herself to go to Honduras in 2007.  I thought of an ecstatic college sophomore taking a step further by planning a summer where she'd travel to Thailand and Cuba and stay for a whole month by herself at each place serving in ministry.  Listening to them share stirred up memories of an adventurous young adult navigating the airports of Munich and Budapest on her own to make her way to Ukraine for a 9 week internship.  And it reminded me of a terrified hoping-to-be graduate preparing and defending her dreams in a senior seminar presentation.  It also made me think of a scared and excited young adult moving to Houston excited to see what this new opportunity held for her.  As I was reminded of each of these times in my life I became nostalgic and began to search myself ...

As I listened  to these "fresh perspectives," I wondered why I wasn't feeling that familiar feeling that each of their words was dripping with.  This question had been bothering me since I got home, but I was never able to articulate it until last Sunday.  Part of me became afraid that I've lost some of the wonder and passion and whimsy I used to have now that I'm settling into regular american young adult life, paying off loans, renting a house, feeding myself...  I can no longer save and raise all year just to empty my bank account for the next adventure placed before me, and I miss that freedom.  I'm afraid I've become too anxious and worried and weighed down by the world to dream and trust and actually do like I did before.  

Honduras 2016 for me was not what I expected.  There were small moments where I felt the "in my element" feeling as I interacted with the kids and sometimes as I did some directing of the activities we were involved in.  For me, this trip was a challenge to lead others, focus on the team, and provide them with a good experience where they could grow and learn and be challenged and experience God in new ways.  It was a trip where I learned a lot from my teammates.  It was also a time of connecting more with the missionaries instead of those the missionaries would lead us to minister to.  I was able to talk with them and learn more about their lives and needs and struggles and get ideas for what a real beneficial ministry partnership can look like as well as simply learning what it was like for them to do ministry in Honduras.  It wasn't an "in-my-face fun crazy heart warming and affirming feel like a fire had been lit inside me" kind of experience that is easy to get addicted to when going on missions trips, but it was a trip where I learned some really valuable lessons about ministry, leadership, and God.  I still have some fear and disappointment in myself for not having that feeling, but I also know that that's not the experience I needed.  I know God is teaching and maturing me and preparing and training me for His plan for my life, and, just as Stephanie and David both reminded me, I need to trust God that He knows what He's doing and as Nick reminded me to really believe that the Kingdom of God is here and now in Houston just as much as it is in Honduras or Guatemala or anywhere else.  As much as I'd like to have that "new" feeling I know that God has more planned for me (this is not to discredit that feeling or belittle it.  That is how I started down this path towards a calling to missions).  And as much as I already want to be "arrived" at "the place" already and skip the training and waiting and hard lessons, I know that God has more work to do on me.  Oswald Chambers, in his devotional book My Utmost for His Highest, says that "talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while in the trenches of the battlefield-- you will be killed trying to do it." He also compares this to trying to walk the second mile with God, but getting worn out in the first ten steps and saying we will just wait for then next big crisis in life or the next opportunity.  He says that "if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes."  If I do not strive to serve and learn and minister to the best of my ability now where I am at, I won't last a day when the "big opportunity" comes.  As John 16:10 says, I must first be faithful with little before I can be trusted with much.

So I try to wait patiently caught in this awkward in-between of longing for feelings and things past at the same time as wishing I already had the things of the future.  I pray that I soak up all God has to teach me in this time and I pray that I don't become to anxious and worried by the cares of this world to miss it when God calls me to what's next.  

So here are my thoughts and ramblings as try to piece together the things I am learning.  I hope in some way they can be encouraging to you and I would also greatly appreciate your prayers for me as well as for Jeremiah 29:11 Mission in Honduras.  

Thank you and God bless!