Why spend money on a mission rather than a vacation?

Something seems wrong when you cross the border into El Paso going south.

Most people are headed north, but you are going into Ciudad Juarez.

Walking into the complex where you will spend the next week, you pass people who live there because they are old, physically impaired, or mentally weak.

The bunkhouse style room is large, covered in dust, and scorpions are found in the toilet. It feels so right in your heart, but your head is screaming, "What have I done? Why did I choose to do this? I want out!"

Others fly into a large business or capital city of Central America or Africa. The size of the airport and lack of amenities may be the first surprise followed quickly by the difference in transportation you expected; usually a beat up truck piled high with luggage and strapped down with ropes.

Off through congested crowded streets you go until you arrive at your destination. A high probability exists there is no running water, electricity is questionable, an outhouse is the best but not certain option for relief, and the main appliance likely is two or three pieces of wood beneath a piece of sheet metal heating the pot above it.

Hot, sweaty, dirty, tired, frustrated, fearful and heart-broken are descriptors many would use to describe their summer mission trip.

Why would anyone pay for this?

Perhaps the words of Evelyn Underhill best answer the question. "Yet in all we recognize not frustration, but the highest of all types of achievement."

The negatives, you see, are outweighed by the astounding awe, love, joy and hope discovered in God's presence in these places. Knowing you are a difference maker deepens the richness of life.

Tangible possessions are the first thing most people attempt to grasp. That is the way to spend time and money.

Simon Tugwell said, "If we keep clamouring for things we want from God, we may often find ourselves disappointed, because we have forgotten the weakness of God and what we may call the poverty of God. We had thought of God as the dispenser of all good things we would possibly desire; but in a very real sense, God has nothing to give at all except himself."

Sometimes good people go on a mission trip to find God. Others experience a quickening of their relationship with the Savior that lingers during the ensuing months as it casts a warm glow across every place, person and experience of life.

Of course, the capstone of every trip is Jesus.

How can His presence be enlarged in the middle of communities in a manner which sweetens every individual willing to open to the Son shine.

How can the goodness of God, His love and plans to prosper every man, woman, and child be communicated in word and deed in such a way that people will accept the awesome gift the Father offers through Jesus Christ?

Talk about significant! Why spend all your summertime chilling on the beach when you could experience the sizzle of a mission?

-- Dr. Randy Rowlan is pastor of First United Methodist Church. Comments are welcomed at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.

Religion on 08/13/2014