Today was our last full day of our CityServe mission
trip. We will be going back to our homes
tomorrow, but we will be taking everything we’ve seen, heard, experienced, and
learned with us. Even though this
mission trip was only two full days, we have all been changed by the people we
have encountered and the acts of love and service we have done.
We had an amazing opportunity to sit and talk with some of
the guests of St. Luke’s feeding program this morning. We were able to ask them about their lives, their
hopes, their dreams, and hear their stories.
Our youth learned a lot during these conversations. One of the questions they asked was, “What is
something you want that you don’t often get from people?” Many of us were expecting an answer like
socks, money, or food – something tangible.
As important as these things are, each person we spoke to said they
wanted something intangible. They wanted to be treated like a normal
person. They wanted someone to notice
them. They wanted someone to listen to
them and look them in the eye. That is
exactly what our youth did and, as we reflected on our experience, one of the
biggest things we are taking away from our experience. Those are simple acts that we can continue
even after we’ve gone home.
Two of our youth talking with "Mr. President."
After our time in conversation with our new friends, we had
some conversation about this whole concept of “mission.” We call these trips “mission trips” – but what exactly is mission? What are we doing? The Bible gives us a clue. And because we didn’t have time to read the
whole Bible, we read the beginning and the end.
Have you ever picked up a book in bookstore or the library and read the
first and last chapter to find out what the story is about? Well that is exactly what we did. The first words of the Bible tell the story
of creation and the way the world was when it was exactly the way God
intended. The last words of the Bible
give us a picture of the way the world will
one day be. The beginning and the end is
the same. In between these two pictures
is us. And as we thought about the way
the world is now – the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly – we
noticed that something has gone wrong…the world is not the way God intended it to be.
There are times of beauty and peace and wholeness and love. There are also times of conflict,
hopelessness, homelessness, longing, fear, and brokenness. The plot of the story, the trajectory of
history, is the action of God putting a broken and hurting world back together
again. As Christians, we talk about the
Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God isn’t
a place…or isn’t just one place. The kingdom of God is a state of being – the
way the world God intended it to be. The
story of the Bible is the story of God’s kingdom breaking into a broken world. Our petition in the Lord’s Prayer – “They
kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” – is answered. Whenever we experience wholeness and beauty
and hope and love, we are experiencing God’s kingdom. And the whole idea of mission is to partner
with God to put a broken world back together again. That is what we have been doing this week. Our youth have participated in the kingdom of
God coming on earth as it is in heaven.
And that is what we are called to do, not just on mission trips, but all the time.
This afternoon, we saw the kingdom of God at another Union
Gospel Mission facility. We went to
Riverton Place in SeaTac to prepare and pack sandwiches for UGM’s Search and
Rescue Vans that go out into the city every evening to find people sleeping on
the streets. They give them blankets,
pillows, and food to get them through the night.
We packed over 300 sandwiches that will be distributed on the streets of Seattle tonight.
We spent some time at Alki Beach in West Seattle after we
were done working for the day. It was a
fun time together as a group to laugh and play.
We grilled some burgers and enjoyed the sun. As we always do on our mission trips, we
ended our day with Compline – praying specifically for the people we have met
and the places we have visited.
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