Strange title, you might say. “MSMT07” is the name of the directory where I am storing all the pictures and videos I took last week during “Middle School Mission Tour 2007”. It was an amazing trip and one in which I grew more than any previous mission trip.
This year was different in many ways. Bill Bray is the high school minister at our church. He’s also the missions coordinator and since our middle school minister quit, he’s also covering that role. The problem was that Bill and our previous middle school minister had planned this year’s mission trips back to back. It made lots of sense as long as we had two youth ministers to handle the task. By the time the trips got here, we did not have two youth ministers. Tammy and I took the lead roles in getting the middle school trip off the ground. Bill, who spent the previous week in Mexico with the high schoolers, only drove as far as San Antonio on the way back and met up with us there. Thus Tammy and I were the defacto youth leaders for the week before the trip and for the drive down to San Antonio.
On top of that, the rest of the high school group pulled into the church parking lot during this year’s dinner theater. We were obviously too busy to perform in the theater this time, but we did serve as wait staff for the event. Tammy had to sneak out during the play and intercept the high schoolers, collecting the supplies that we needed for the middle school trip, which departed the next morning. Busy busy busy.
We focused more on evangelism this year, teaching our youth the key Bible verses to use and how to explain the path to salvation. When Monday night came and we did our usual night on the Riverwalk, we equipped the kids with tracts and instructed them not to “throw them around” and shout “Jesus loves you!” Instead they were to talk to people. Find out their stories. See what they believed. The kids did great, but, naturally, they were nervous and unsure of what to say. So, they asked me to “go first”. I witnessed to our waiter at dinner and later “backed up” the kids as they talked to venders in the mall. I honestly surprised myself with how easily I was able to convey the message of salvation to perfect strangers, answering their questions and leading them with questions of my own. I’ve witnessed to friends before, but these were my first “cold calls” and they went very well.
Tuesday, Bill told us we were going to feed some homeless, so I had been telling the kids all week that we’d be at a soup kitchen. Boy was I wrong. We worked with an inner city church and actually set up folding tables under a bridge in the midst of our society’s forgotten souls. There were drug deals going on all around us. In any other situation, I would be scared to death to have 50 14-year-olds in that kind of environment. But when you’re serving God, peace reigns. I was never scared. Even my germophobia disappeared as I loved on people who were crusted with disease and smelled like… well… like hobos.
As the week went on it became more and more painful to me to realize that all the good work we were doing in San Antonio could just have easily been done in our own back yard. As a friend of mine put it, it’s just like people who go to church on Christmas and Easter (a.k.a. C&E Christians). For them church is an “experience” that is part of their holiday. For us, witnessing and doing God’s work is part of the “experience” of the mission trip and that’s just as wrong as the C&E’s. We should be living God’s work every day, feeding the homeless who live under bridges meer miles from our own church, witnessing to the lost all around us. I have not been doing that and I am strongly convicted to change.
After every mission trip or church camp, I warn our kids that Satan will attack you and try to break down the convictions you gained, the joy you felt, and the lessons you learned. It’s such a regular occurrence that we have a name for it. You come home with “camp high” and within two weeks it’s gone because “real life” has beat you down and stolen your motivation. My “camp high” was under attack even before the week was half over. While I was still on the trip I got some bad news from work. Dave, my good friend and mentor; the “go to guy” for everything I work on, had given his two week notice. When I got back to work, I’d have only a week and a half to try and absorb five years worth of knowledge before I became that “go to guy”. Talk about stress. I managed to finish the week without thinking about it too much, but now that I’m back behind my desk, “real life” is hitting pretty hard.
If you know Christ, please pray that my current “camp high” will not fade, that my convictions to live a mission trip lifestyle will have permanent effects.
I’ve got my pictures from there trip uploaded and will have the video edited soon. While you’re at it, you can also check out pictures from MSMT05 and MSMT06.
God bless you all.
