Well, we finally made it. Day 8, the last day of the trip. For the five of you that have persevered through this 6+ month long production, you have my deepest gratitude.
Since the eighth day mainly consisted of checking out of our hotel, saying goodbye-for-nows, and traversing a couple airports, I'll just leave it up to you guys to fill in the details of said events. Really, I'd like to take this post to recap the whole experience and relay what I have learned, and continue to learn, from this trip.
I will start by saying, if you haven't deduced already (those of whom this isn't the first blog post of mine you are reading), this was one of the most formative and perspective altering experiences of my entire life. I could risk to say, from my relatively narrow point of view, and based on the sheer density of experiences, it has been the most potent week of life I've experienced to date. I find it funny to hear myself describe this trip in such a way since I am not one to exaggerate my feelings towards something (that is, if I have them at all). In fact, it is much more likely that I'd heavily suppress my feelings rather than hyperbolize them. So, to say something of this nature towards this trip is very uncomfortable for me, but it deserves it.
And you know what? There were a lot of experiences on this trip that warrant a language and vulnerability that I am uncomfortable with -- something that, I think, points to their very legitimacy. I never thought I would be one of those people who comes back from a trip and starts using phrases like, "I just fell in love with the people," and, "I left my heart in 'X' country," when describing their experience. I always thought that those were Christian-y platitudes that people used to puff up their own person by making them seem all kind-hearted and saintly. But after coming back from Colombia, I get it.
The first week back in The States, I was a wreck. I felt like my emotional capacity had increased fivefold and I didn't know where to put it all. It just kept oozing through the gaps between my fingers and running down my arms. My friends had to run for cover lest they be engulfed in an hour long deluge of Colombia-centric anecdotes. I mean, you've seen the amount of web-space just this textual recap has taken up, imagine when my recollect was fresher and I had the more fluid medium of spoken word.
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that during that trip I experienced the Love of God in such a tangible, first-hand way, that it enacted something inside of me. That's not to say I hadn't had similar glimpses of God's love before this trip, and I do not, in any way, debase anything I've experienced beforehand. But there's something about the concentrated aspect of this trip that essentially connected all the elements that God had been putting into place in my life and figuratively plugged them in to a power source.
Like, this love thing, I feel like I get it now. At it's most basic level, I get it. When I looked into that kid's eyes in Cecilia and saw, in some ineffable way, God working in his spirit, was when I understood, likely for the very first time, the very fact that every single person matters to God. No longer was, "Go and make disciples," (Matt 28:19) just an airy notion of conviction applied in some rudimentary attitude toward the general population. No, the disciples had faces now.
That's really one of the biggest take-aways from this whole trip, the incentive behind the universal call of Christians to love. I used to think it was based in conviction -- that a "good" Christian was supposed to show love and share the Gospel because the Bible said so. And I wanted to be a "good" Christian so I manufactured such performance in order to validate my faith. I figured that if I just tried hard enough, I could get to a place where I felt relatively good about my usefulness as a follower of Christ. Very plainly, sharing the Gospel was very much about myself, and only consequently about whomever was on the receiving end.
But once I got a glimpse of the Father's heart, that whole framework fell away, and I saw the true intent behind the mission. We are called to love others because God loves them, because God loves us. Just recognizing this has brought me so much peace. No longer am I acting out of a sense of slavish obligation, out of fear of not acquiescing and wallowing in guilt when I don't. Rather, action now comes from a place of confidence. A place that knows God's love for me is real and immovable and that that very same love is also reserved for every single person on this planet. And that is exactly where our commission comes from. We who have received and accepted the Gospel already have the life it imparts, therefore we do not share the Gospel in order to receive something that has already been given to us, rather we share it because that very same life is also reserved those who have yet to receive it. Only then, does it become truly about God and them, and only consequently about ourselves.
So what does loving people look like? I feel the application is unique to each individual and situation. The key is intent. Are you approaching the situation with that person's best interest in mind? Are your actions toward another motivated by the fact that he or she is dearly loved by the God of the Universe -- The God who gave his very Son unto death in hopes of winning back His lost son or daughter?
C.S. Lewis sheds sobering light on this notion in his sermon, "Weight of Glory":
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”
All this being said, do I still mishandle tons of opportunities to love people? Yes. Am I still amazingly cowardly sometimes? Of course. But I no longer derive my value from how well I adhere to convictions or how righteous I feel at any given moment. And it's in this freedom that I feel God has allowed me a much greater effectiveness when it comes to loving people.
Now, I believe this realization could have very well played out without having to travel to a third world country and immersing myself in an unfamiliar culture. A fervent seeking of The Lord and loving of people should be the focus of our everyday and should play out in and around our homes and workplaces. That is, of course where the majority of our time is spent, so it should be the grounds on which we hash out most of our revelations and breakthroughs, deepening our knowledge of the God who made us. It is also the area in which we have specific influence that others may not have. We are in a position to more effectively and intimately love the people God has placed in our immediate vicinity than those coming from outside a specific idea-set or culture and likes that particular point of relation.
So then, why go on a mission trip when there are people right in our own backyards who need the love of Jesus just as desperately? Three things come to mind:
Firstly, it is an overt way to break a trend of stagnation in which one is simply going through the motions. It causes a jumping of the tracks for a life suffocated in safe complacency and predictable mediocrity. If you desire to go deeper into the things of God, but you can't seem to find any headway and have exhausted yourself within your current environment through various attempts to break a routine you know is lacking in fervor, then a perspective altering trip might be beneficial. However, if you are simply discontent with your current situation and looking for a change of scenery and some excitement in your life, then a mission trip is not a good idea. A vacation would be better suit the need.
Secondly, the nature of a mission trip is very conducive for honing your focus on Godly things. While on trip, almost all distractions of daily life are stripped away, leaving you with entire days to be in constant communication and contact with The Lord through either work, relationship, or quiet meditation. By definition, everything you do will be "on mission." You are there for one purpose, to participate in the work of the Living God. A mission that often plays a secondary role in our daily lives is now primary and solitary on a mission trip. This, with the hope of bringing such a directive and intentionality back into everyday life, one full of distractions, and applying it as we go, rather than just during weeks-long bursts speckled throughout a lifetime. And that can be the beauty of missions, it affords you time enough to see God at work and the intention behind His work -- something you may have been too distracted to see back home. And once you get a glimpse of that, you can't help but to continue to see things through that lens once you get back.
Thirdly and most importantly, is that there are people in dire need that simply do not have the means around them to seek help. Due to poverty, oppression, or isolation there are those, in every single nation, who are both physically and spiritually deprived that require some sort of outside support. I'm not just talking about starving orphans and beggars, but those in abusive relationships, those who are too afraid or ashamed to ask for help and feel they have no worth, those who feel that depression is just a fact of life and that God has just simply forgotten about them. Sometimes, self prescribed isolation is the hardest chasm for help to cross. A need for revival is not just reserved for the impoverished parts of the world. It exists in the most affluent of nations and in the palaces of kings as well.
Again, this is all something we experience in our own cities, but when it comes to mission trips there is a unique element that I have observed and it is somewhat in contrast the notion cultural-centric influence I spoke of earlier. The very foreignness we experience on such a trip, that sensitizes us to God's hand and His revelation reciprocates within the person we are interacting with. The different-ness of someone from outside a person's daily routine and realm of influences can be enough to derail them from their current schema and enact a receptivity to the message you bring. This was very evident with one of our translators. She flat out said that she does not want to listen to what her own people have to say. However, she could not get enough of what our group of foreigners had to say.
Now, this notion kinda makes sense to me. My guess is that she has already built up associations and assumptions based on past experiences within her circle of relationships. We all do this. After getting to know the people around us we can usually predict, with pretty reliable accuracy, what a friend or acquaintance is going to say or how they will respond to a particular situation. We already have a grasp on that person's role and investment in the relationship and weigh it accordingly.
However, when someone completely new, and in this case, likely from a completely different culture, shows a legitimate concern and interest in you as a person, you don't have those assumptions to rely on. You have to actually listen to them in order to gauge where they are coming from. This is where we, as missionaries HAVE to come from a place of love, because the instant a person feel as though they are just another potential client of a door-to-door salesman or the next sequin-clad assistant you are going to practice your saw trick on, you might as well be pushing a vacuum cleaner in their face.
This brings me to my next point. A mission trip should be for the benefit of those whom we have come to serve. I know this should be a given and number one in priority, but sadly, I can attest that it was not for me upon going my trip. Being introspective in nature, I found it very easy to recognize my own needs and where I wanted to grow coming into this experience, but I really struggled to recognize the needs of those I was coming to serve. And it's a very real danger with these types of trips. Someone coined the phrase "volun-tourism" and I think it is very poignant in describing the way in which we tend to us trips like these groom our own character and add to our spiritual tool belt, all at the expense of the very people we came to "serve."
On the other side of the coin, given our sinful nature, I don't think we can come to a place where we will be 100% selfless in our approach to missional work. I know if I tarried until I felt like my intentions were pure enough for me to go, I'd currently be writing my 8th blog entry about how I'm still not quite ready to go to Colombia yet. What I was finding to be the biggest hurdle was that I didn't have a face to put to the people I was coming to serve. They weren't necessarily people yet, just a concept.
Almost immediately upon arriving however, God gave me faces. Like I mentioned in earlier posts, a face for each day. And my heart broke. I love how this is designed in us --that our hearts look for faces. If we can put a face to a name, that name is given a beating heart and a soul and value beyond anything this Earth has to offer. Something as beautifully simple as eye contact covers more than a 300-page biography.
If you struggle with selflessness in this realm like I do, I encourage you to pray it out and press on expecting God to give you faces as well. Just know that this trip cannot and will not be about you. Mission trips are intended to show and instill God's love in areas and situations where it is not readily found. It is profoundly about the lives of those being served. But God, in His goodness, takes the opportunity to work on ours as well.
In conclusion, I want to thank all of you who have given both financially and prayerfully to me in this trip. Please know that every dollar was poured into both the lives of the citizens of Armenia as well as the lives of each Evoke team member. Without your help, I couldn't have experience one of the most formative weeks of my entire life. And if anyone reading this feels any inkling of compulsion towards their own mission trip, I encourage you to go! Even if you don't feel like you have figured out everything motivationally or feel like you aren't "spiritually strong enough," all I can say is join the club. A phrase that is often uttered in Evoke meetings goes a little something like this:
"God doesn't called the qualified. He qualifies the called."
Love you all,
Michael
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