Waiting On God

This past Saturday concluded our time with our first host families in Jamaica. It was actually kind of sad to leave Annette and her family. They have all been so sweet to us: cooking for us, making sure we have everything that we need, and treating us like family. Annette has five of her own children and a couple grandchildren so adopting two extra girls for a couple weeks was easy for her. She took care of me when I was sick by making me special tea and was constantly giving Tiff and I anything she could. She would have literally done anything for us! And that giving spirit didn't stop at us either.

Her son was recently in the hospital and while she was there visiting him one day, she met this young girl who was about to be released but had been in for a while and was unsure how well she would be able to get back on her feet. Annette gave the girl her phone number and told her to call if she needed anything. A day or two later we were in Montego Bay with Annette and she did receive a call from the girl saying she had no food. Annette didn't hesitate telling her where to meet us so she could take care of her. While she was there, Annette decided to use this chance to mother her by encouraging her to continue to take her medication and get ready for an interview she was having soon. That's what I think great ministry should look like. Annette was not satisfied by just giving this girl what she thought she needed like food. Annette showed her that her need for relationship and people that cared about her was just as important, and Annette was the perfect person to give both of those to her.

As I have mentioned before, our church is a part of a group of about 12 churches all across the island. This week is their youth camp while the kids are on spring break. So this Monday, we got the chance to go to the first day of camp with pretty much everyone else from our church. The first day of camp is a big deal full of races and different competitions. You could just really feel the sense of community between all of the churches which was super cool. They were also super excited to have a group of Americans (and one Canadian) at their youth camp. We were welcomed multiple times over the loud speaker throughout the day's events. The competition part consisted of several categories like spoken word, public speaking, poems, singing, and dancing. Not all of them were exactly in sync or on key, but it was really inspiring because you could tell by the looks of their faces that they didn't really care! They were proud of what they did and in the end, it was all for God anyway.

One thing that is unique about the trip I am on is that we don't really have an agenda. We have done some small project here and there but most of our days consist of just sitting around talking to our host families or walking around visiting with people in the community. It doesn't really fit in with the definition people want with a mission trip. But being at the youth camp the other day really showed me the importance of what just being in a community has. If we were a team that came in with packed days of things that we wanted to get done, there is no way we could have given up a whole day to go to this youth camp. We were invited and encouraged to go by members of our church because they wanted us to go them! Because they knew us and cared about us. It can become easy to become discouraged because I haven't found a cure for cancer while building houses for blind, homeless people with leprosy and cavities and helping them get college degrees and impressing them with my Bible knowledge and converting a whole army for God by myself. (I do realize that's not what any mission trip is like but wait for my point!) We can build orphanages and churches but if we forget to actually tell people that we care about them, then we've kind of missed something very important. We can feed 400 hungry children but if we never ask them what their names are and tell them that someone loves them, they are just going to get hungry again so what's the point? So I may not have a tear-jerking slideshow when I get home but I am working on building relationships and showing love that will last longer than an impressive "This is what I did on my missions trip" presentation.

Before going on this trip, I often got asked the question "Why are you going on this trip?" And I was not hiding the fact that a big reason for me going on this trip was because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life as far as college and basically everything else. So by signing up for this trip I was hoping to get some clarity on that. My hope was that God would show me day one and apparently that's not really His plan. God doesn't work on our schedule and if He hadn't told me what I was supposed to do before I left for this trip, I'm not really sure why I thought He would reveal it right after I got here. Probably because that would be easy and this is supposed to be a learning process. And of course, any time I start to get frustrated with God and not knowing what I am supposed to do when I get home, He reminds me of verses like Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you- this is the Lord's declaration- plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (Isn't it so annoying how God always wins?) So I still have no idea what I am going to do when I get home, God told me to wait and see. Guess patience is something He thinks I need to work on....