Special Post: Maine 2015 Recap

Tonight is the night that I finally get around to talking about my trip in Maine!!

Well, it's been as week since I've been back, but I've been busy or too tired to write a post about Maine until now. We departed on July 25th, and arrived back home late Sunday evening; August 2nd. 

It was an amazing trip. I went up to Maine with my church last year, and again I had an amazing time up there. In addition to the construction and VBS we were able to help out with, it was heartwarming to see the folks I hadn't seen in an entire year. It was like seeing family all over again; I love the people up there so much.

While I could talk about all the things we did, I feel like that be both a waste of my time and yours. If you are interested in hearing about the specific projects, feel free to get in touch with me and I'd be happy to fill you in! But what I want to talk about is how God touched my life. 

Coming home from a missions experience is always difficult for me; the sadness from leaving mingles with the fear that I won't have something good to say. It's the super-Christian mentality that plagues our consumer churches: I need to have this life-changing experience or God wasn't working. 

Not true. God's at work whether I recognize it or not, and as I mowed my yard this evening, reflecting on my trip, I realized just how powerfully God WAS at work without much immediate life-change in myself. And, in turn, by recognizing God's power displayed in our trip, it IS a little life-changing. So there you go.

The first way I now recognize that God was at work might be the most obvious. After returning from a full day of work without breaks (except for meals), we were exhausted and crashed. Everyone seemed to sleep soundly. But God helped us to wake up early, so we could be at the church (our work site) on time and He also gave us energy for the day. The cabin that the men of the trip stayed in was black mold and rodent infested. I have a pretty big allergy to dust or mold or any particle similar, and so it was literally a miracle that I woke up with only a cold that I could shake off. Similarly, God kept the soreness and stiffness away from the team.

I knew that we were working with a wonderful purpose, for God's glory, but what really hit it home for me was what the pastor's wife told me the last day we were there. As we got ready to leave, she explained to the teens (who spent the most time with the youth of the community, especially during VBS) that our smiles, high fives, and words of encouragement might be the only joy they experience all day. And as we fed the community, it struck me that with all the poverty, this might be one of the biggest meals they'll have in a very long time.

Let me tell you about Ashley. She can't be older than 12 or 13. She's got long hair. She's got sad eyes, but she only looks up from the ground when you say her name. She looks malnourished, but is a little on the heavy side, and hardly speaks. She doesn't feel comfortable around other people, and I think physical touch scares her; whenever I went to give her a high five, she just poked my hand and smiled sheepishly. 

I don't know her life story. I don't know what it's like at her home, or what scars lie upon her heart. I remember walking into the darkened sanctuary, as "The Blind Side" played (it was movie night!) and Ashley had sat down in a pew all by herself. Not with the other teen girls who had been in her VBS class, but by herself. Without asking, I sat next to her.

Every time a curse word was spoken, or a scene in the movie that displayed fighting or violence, she shuddered. Sometimes she even looked at me with scared eyes. When the movie ended, I asked if she had seen it before. She said that she had. If she had seen the movie before, and knew when certain parts of the movie were coming, she must have been startled at something other than mere surprise. At what, I can't tell you for sure, but I have a good guess.

I was told later, after we were on our way to the airport, that the people in service (for we left on a Sunday) were mourning our departure. That's God. We were given the opportunity to not just serve the community, but to show them that hope, life, and joy can find them, even in a broken community. In a world where children learn to think of themselves as worthless because of what they hear at school, AND at home, we were able to give them a glimpse of how Jesus thinks of them. One young lady even gave her heart to Christ!! How wonderful!

Jesus wasn't just a good Teacher, or a 'fire and brimstone' preacher. He wasn't just a guy who talked about heaven and hell and grace and forgiveness. When He saw a blind man, He didn't tell the man about his spiritual blindness. No, Jesus HEALED him. Jesus saw a need, and filled it. Simple.

While we were in Maine, we saw an emotional need, in addition to the physical needs. And God, in all His grace, was able to use us to meet that need. 

You don't need to travel hundreds of miles from home to do what we did in Maine. All you gotta do is identify ways you can serve others, then #LiveItLikeJesus.