I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a mission trip before, but I’m going to be real honest here. I sort of fell into this one. I had the time available and a grant covered most of my expenses, so hey, why not go, right? Besides, my grandparents were career missionaries so it was about time I put a foot on foreign soil in the name of Jesus. Well let me just tell you, no matter how sideways you think you are moving into God’s plan, He is never casual about it, and you will never be the same.

It was an unusual week all the way around. I traveled with a group of about a dozen coworkers and other friends or associates from my company. This alone was a special part of the trip, because while some of us work together daily, we do it by phone, IM, and email, so it was a great opportunity to get to know each other better. And we sure did, with the laughter (snorts) (mine) starting right off the bat.

We went with SCORE International, and I can’t say enough about the amazing work they do there and the thought and care they put into making sure our experience was a good one. The plan was to go out to the villages and cities during the day for service projects, and then regroup for a women’s conference in the evenings. I didn’t really have an image in mind before we left of what the country and people were like, but it was certainly eye opening. While there is extreme poverty in most of the country, the people are far more open to strangers and to talking about God than Americans. Here, we hesitate to use any words that show a blatant belief in sin and consequences. There, if they know you are a Christian and didn’t bother to talk with them about it, they would be offended. We played games with school children, hosted a ladies event for a village (where I shared the devotion I posted earlier), painted a church, and shared testimonies and prayers at a girl’s juvenile detention facility.

All along the way, we asked people how we could pray for them, and it was amazing how few mentioned improving their physical situations, but all asked us to pray for their family members, that they would be saved. Hot, dusty, and sweaty, we’d pray, take pictures, and then get on our air-conditioned bus to go back to our hotel. Scrubbed and refreshed (back in our comfort zone), we’d gather with the other teams for our evening service, with Ginger Millermon as our speaker and singer. If you have a chance to go hear her, do it! The theme of the week was “Rescue”… from idols, self, fear, sin, or anything else we’ve fallen into. And while I was cool again, I can’t say I was entirely comfortable. Each night, God worked on my heart over the contrast between my cushy life with the resources freely available to me and the desperate needs of the people we’d met that day, physical and emotional.

What I’d thought was simply a trip that made sense I came to see as exactly where I needed to be. Amidst all of our luggage, clothes, and ministry items we took to donate, I had also carried along my own broken heart. It’s only been a couple of months since my miscarriage (posted about here) and the sorrow is still sometimes overwhelming. As Ginger shared her own amazing story the last night, she sang several songs, including “Speak Peace To Me”, with the lyrics:

I don’t know how much longer
I can carry this pain
I need You more than ever
To get me through this thing
I’m past the point of breaking
It’s more than I can take
Will you

Speak peace
Speak peace
Speak peace to me
I am weak
Oh, Jesus, speak
Speak peace to me

By that point, I couldn’t do anything but let the tears flow, and when we were invited to kneel in prayer at our seats at the close, I poured out my heart to God and begged Him that if my heart was going to hurt, that He would please use it to make me more aware of the hurt and need in others. If out of something bad He could work the good of becoming less complacent, less arrogant to tell God what was unfair to carry in my life, less lazy to find reasons not to get my hands dirty caring for another’s need, He was welcome to it. And oh, did He speak peace, right by my side at that chair. I’d come to fill needs of the Dominicans, but I was the one who was rescued.

I have much more to say about the trip; about the specific ministries SCORE works out there, what it’s like sticking to a food revolution overseas, and pictures to share, but that’s for other posts. For now, I’ll end with Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Believe it, friend, He truly does, but it’s the “love him” part we can so easily fade away from. So that’s the question of the night. Whether you’re on this side of the world or that, whether you’re successful or desperate, healthy or suffering, happy or sad, will you let Him teach you how to truly love Him?