Youth Mission Trip 2008
(Part of
the youth-led message presented July 20, 2008 during the Worship Service.)
We extend
greetings from the First Presbyterian Church of Tunica, Mississippi, who graciously opened the doors of
their church to us for rest and lodging, and opened their hearts and
hospitality for nourishment of the body and encouragement of the spirit. Along
with the neighboring Episcopal Church, they have undertaken the local mission
of feeding the elderly in their community with the operation of a 200 bag per
month food pantry.
(Barry
and Gabby enter the sanctuary from opposite sides, not
paying attention to where they are going, but texting
on their phones. They run into each other, apologize
to one another, and then sit down on the top step to
have a conversation.)
Barry: Can you believe we actually survived a whole
week without our cell phones, iPods, and instant
messaging?
Gabby: I never thought I could make it, but it was
actually quite fun getting to know all of those new people face to face, and as
I think about it, I didn’t really miss any of that stuff, except for the cramps
in my thumbs from not texting messages on that tiny
keyboard.
Barry: And how about all of those other ways of
getting news everyday…
(John squirts
the water gun and tosses a message in a bottle to Gabby)
Gabby: Hey look, a message in the bottle… It says here that Mississippi has the worst school system in the United States, and to make it worse, the local
elementary school in Coahoma was closed in 1978, never to be reopened. Do you
know that the building we slept in all week was actually the former school
building?
Barry:
Yeah, I heard that all of the kids we met last week had to be bussed to the
neighboring town, which if you remember was almost 20
minutes away.
(Jacob
rides the Pony Express in to deliver the next message
to Barry)
Hey, the Pony Express… Do you remember the mayor speaking to us and
telling us how the town did not have running water or a sewer system until the
1980’s when Habitat for Humanity assisted getting grants as a part of their
collegiate challenge build?
Gabby: It’s hard to imagine living without running
water in the house. My dad shut the water in our house
off a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I was just
going to die without that
cold water that comes from the refrigerator. Hey, what’s that?
(Lacey
waves the smoke signals…)
Barry: It looks like smoke signals…
Gabby:
Yeah, the signals are telling us that the economy in
Coahoma is almost non-existent. The only business in
town is the Sto’, and the nearest town
that has anything like a Walmart
is over 45 minutes away. My dad was going to run to
a Home Depot to get some tools for our project, and
he would have had to go all the way back to Memphis. Just imagine, the closest job opportunity
is 45 minutes away and you have to have a car to get
there. You can’t buy a car, because you can’t
get a job. A never ending circle.
Barry: Definitely hard to imagine.
Remember our first devotion study about Nehemiah? He
showed us that we should pause and pray. I think I will
head home to do just that.
(Barry and
Gabby get up and walk or the way they came verbalizing as they text their
goodbyes.
Nehemiah
1:2-6a
Response:
Mary, upon
receiving the message from the angel that she had found
favor with God and would be the mother of the Messiah,
responded in Luke 1:38, “I am the Lord’s
servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
God asked
Mary to take a leap of faith, and persevere through a less than comfortable
situation to fulfill his plan. As we consider what her decision really meant,
she didn’t just leap,… She jumped!
As
we arrived in Coahoma that first night, with the long
drive and our annual mechanical mishap with the van
behind us, we turned our thoughts
to what God had planned for each of us in the upcoming
week. As our leaders were hidden away breaking us up
into work crews, there were 40 junior and senior high
students from 4 states meeting each other for the first time. These are the people with whom we would
share burdens, joys, prayers, sweat, and tears over
the next five days. God was planning to use 40 ordinary
people to fulfill extraordinary things for his glory.
Nehemiah was an ordinary man that God had plans to use
to accomplish extraordinary things. As the devastating
news about his hometown was shared, Nehemiah knew that
he had to do something. Our natural reaction to bad
news is act, go, do. But verse 4 tell
us that Nehemiah paused: ”When I heard these things, I sat down and wept.
For days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the
God of heaven.”
Nehemiah
prayed for Jerusalem and the people of Jerusalem, just as Jesus prayed for the same
city in Luke 19:41 where the Bible tells us that he
wept, paused, and prayed. We began our week by pausing,
thinking of the many things the mayor told us about
Coahoma the night before, and making our way through
prayer stations to ask for God’s provision in
the schools, jobs, churches, and lives of Coahoma. Then
it was off to our mission sites…
Ruth
1:15-18
Response:
Naomi and
Ruth had a lot of differences. They were different nationalities,
different generations, came from different parts of
the world, were afforded different opportunities by
the laws of the time, and for a period of time, believed
in different gods. But, in a time of struggle, Ruth
chose to focus on their commonalities to form a strong
relationship instead of allowing their differences to
separate them. Jesus tells us in John 15 that we are
to “Love each other as I have loved you. Greater
love has no one than this, that
he lay down his life for his friends.”
As
we approached our second day of work, it was too easy
to focus on the differences between us and the people
we were called to serve. Surprisingly, they almost spoke a different language; things that we consider commonplace
and ordinary, they cherished; there was a different
moral standard; as many of us work to protect our personal
bubble, many of the people of Coahoma longed to be loved
and simply have an arm placed around their neck; and
let’s don’t forget, what I considered to
be unbearably hot, they let us know was still the cool
part of the summer.
As we departed
camp on this day, it was important that we respond to
the love shown by Jesus and Ruth by putting our differences
aside and praying that God would create in us hearts
that are compassionate, caring, merciful, and clean.
Hearts that are willing to be moved to action so that
others may see hope and together we can rejoice
and praise God as he fills us with gladness.
Joshua
1:1-9
Response:
As
we began our mission work, we were instructed to pause,
as Nehemiah, and pray for God’s intercession.
Then the Bible instructed us to respond to the example
of love demonstrated by Ruth by accepting the differences
of those we are serving, and to love unconditionally.
As we approached our third day of service, there was plenty of things to distract us from the mission God had
set before us. We had all experienced things we had
never imagined, worked in some pretty unlivable conditions,
attempted to show love and compassion to people who
did not know how to receive it; did I mention that it
was hot? I am convinced that Mississippi is six or seven hundred
miles closer to the sun thanMichigan. And I will simply let you imagine
what our bunk rooms were starting to smell like with
20 girls packed in a tiny room, with only one shower
a day and one towel to last all week.
Why am I
here? Let’s get back to 75 degrees and a beach a few miles away to relax. What
difference am I going to make?
God
instructed Joshua, “Do
not be afraid; do not be discouraged;
for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you
go.” We
were being reminded to hold
on. Focus on God. Give glory to God throughout every
circumstance. God assured Joshua that if he would simply
trust God, he would make Joshua successful.
David tell us in Psalm 16, “I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
As we head
to our work sites this third day, we pray, “I
lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does
my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the
maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:12.
Matthew
20:20-28
Response:
Pause,
Respond, Hold On, Descend…
Like
any good parent, this mother in Matthew 20 is looking
to give her boys every advantage to gain
all the world has to offer.
"Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit
at your right and the other
at your left in your kingdom.” It is interesting
to consider if this mother truly understood what Jesus’
kingdom was to be. Most people of the time were still
expecting Jesus to form an earthly kingdom of worldly
power and wealth What a position
that might have been to sit at the right
and left of the most powerful ruler in the world!
As
an adult leader, by the fourth day of service, I could
see the hierarchies that we arrived with start to dissolve
as we built relationships with the people we were there
to serve. Our hearts were pouring out with compassion
and mercy, and I think all of us felt a desire to give
up some of our riches to bring joy, peace, happiness,
and security to the people of Coahoma. We were grateful
to be able to spend a week in cramped quarters, sweating
away 5 or 6 pounds, scraping paint from old houses,
cleaning homes that we would have previously deemed
unlivable, standing side by side in the middle of a
softball field with a young person who needed to know
the person next to them was not out to take what little
they had.
I
can tell you as we pulled into town that first night,
we did not see God. It is not because God was not there,
but because we were not looking for him. We saw blight,
poverty, chaos, and a number of other things that simply
shocked us. Now, those things were beginning to fade
away as we saw God in each and every person we met. Jesus tells us, “…
what you did for the least of these, you did for me.”
Closing
Prayer:
Father
God, we thank you and praise you for working in our
lives and showing us the way to descend. More so, Lord,
we praise you for your presence in our lives, in the
lives of the members of the First Presbyterian Church
in Tunica, and the lives of the people of the Mississippi delta. We praise you that you are
a God that can hear our prayers in Niles, Michigan, and bless the people of Mississippi. Lord, it is
our prayer that you would make yourself known to the
people of Mississippi and that they may be receptive to
you. Amen.
God
wants us to Pause. Then he asks us to Respond.
He knows how difficult it will be to Hold On. At which
time we can allow ourselves to Descend. But God has
one more request…. Move. “If you have gotten
anything at all out of following Christ, if his love
has made any difference in your life, if being in a
community of the Spririt means
anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care, then
do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other,
be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way
to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the
top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.
Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage.
Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.”
MOVE!
