Sunday, July 2, 2016
We've safely returned, full of memories of new experiences and affection for our new friends; however, this return to our "normal" lives presents its own set of challenges. I pray that our mission trip will not become the "typical, church camp-like" experience, where we sing "Jacob's Ladder" and "Kum-bi-ya", rededicate our lives to God, return tired, but excited and uplifted by our closer walk with Christ, are unable to talk about anything else with our families and friends for a week, only to be followed by the next week, in which our major concerns are the jean sale at Old Navy, and whether or not we like what we're having for dinner.
Obviously, our current sense of euphoria can't last forever, because the mundane facts of life intrude, but I challenge all of us to take this mission experience and tuck it into a special place in our hearts. Then, when some kid is being picked on at school, or a co-worker makes a racist statement, and we know we need to act or speak up, but our tummies feel like frogs are holding a convention in there, we can release that mission experience from our hearts and do the right thing, knowing that Jesus is standing right there with us and 16 fellow mission trippers are right behind Him, loving and supporting us. We were never promised that being a Christian would be easy, check out the lives of God's prophets and disciples; indeed, being a Christian in our increasingly secular world, will probably be the most difficult undertaking we will ever face, but we know God is on our side, and this old world doesn't stand a chance against the Creator of the Universe.
All of you will continue to be in our hearts, and your names will figure in our every prayer. May God be with all of us as we go about our daily lives, guiding, protecting and, when necessary, giving us a boot in the seat of the pants to spur us on to continue to do His work in His world, and to quote Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one."
A work team of 17 people from five churches, organized and led by Old Union Presbyterian Church, travel to Ocean County NJ to help with the continuing rebuilding from Superstorm Sandy
Sunday, July 3, 2016
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Final Friday
At approximately 3:00
AM, which is when I usually do my best thinking, I realized I allowed the tenor
of the this log to become too serious. (I never claimed to be quick). Make no mistake, the work we are doing is
nothing short of life changing, but the moments within the experience itself go
from heart wrenching to those filled with nothing but pure fun. For example, before viewing AJ’s moving,
awesome video of our week’s experiences, complete with appropriate music, we
discovered that Ashley possesses a giggle that could really use a major shot of
WD 40, followed by inspiring testimony by home owner, Michelle. And speaking of major (pun intended), we’ve
spent our week on tour with Elvis, thank you very much! One evening, Sharon devised a "choose
your own utensil” dinner, in which each individual had to eat using only a
serving utensil. We all enjoyed watching
Pete slurp his mac and cheese from open-ended tongs. We’ve discovered that Katie and Dralynn
suffer from a severe, but highly treatable, sock-matching disease, and that
Mrs. T in a towel is a fast moving object.
Kyle has learned an “interesting” new sound effect, and we’ve all
increased our vocabularies- “skeewonkered” ( a Tori-ism) and “sgooch.” (I forget whose gem that was). You may want to ask Carmen about his icy,
poultry “bed buddy.” The week was filled
with so many “stories” it would be impossible to explain them all, but I know
we will all be expounding upon them for weeks.
The joys we’ve experienced
have been twofold, the joy of interacting with Hedy and Michelle, and the joy
of interacting with one another. We have
so mutually benefited from sharing, with like-minded individuals, our love for
and understanding of our Lord and Savior.
Every individual’s personal faith has been greatly enriched through the
sharing of everyone else’s ideas and testimony.
I don’t think any one of us truly wants to leave Bayville, because it
will mean, in many cases, that we will be leaving behind so many new friends
and the fellowship of just being together.
We marvel that God brought us here to live and learn and share His
message, and we will always be thankful that he did so. We pray he will grant us a safe journey home
and allow us to continue to do His work.
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