What I hate (and love) about mission trips

Okay, here is what the Dan stops talking in the third person....you are welcome.

This is my fourth mission trip, which is not that many considering my age (actually, you can stop thinking about my age now). I have been to Mexico twice and the Dominican Republic once.

Here is what I hate about mission trips: you are totally out of control. You take life on its terms. All you can do is respond rightly.

Now, to some degree this is true whenever you travel internationally. But if you go as a tourist, you are free to complain to the motel about the room tempature, you can choose your activities that day, you can decide what you will eat for lunch. On a mission trip, you can do none of those things. Your agenda is set by others. You normally have no choice in your food. And, since you don't speak the language, you are totally dependent on others to communicate for you. In many ways, it is like being a toddler again.

And that is also what I am learning to love about mission trips.

You see, as a pastor and father, I get looked at as an "authority figure". Like it or not (and I do feel a great deal of ambivilance here) I am often the one who is seen of as "in control". A person in this situation is severely tempted to make a classic blunder: to think that they really are "in control."

But I'm not. I get reminded of that when my best ideas fall flatter than Wile E. Coyote right after that 500 pound anvil falls on him. I get reminded of that when words I have spoken have exactly the opposite of their intended effect. I get reminded of that alot.

But on a mission trip, the reminders are constant. I know I am not in control. And I have found that the only way to be reasonably happy and helpful on a mission trip is to embrace my powerlessness. My prayers become less asking God to help me in my plans, and more asking Him to help me respond rightly to His plans for my day.

And that is why I love mission trips. The master said, "unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God". I think that means that child-like faith and trust are essential to living as His children. And it is here, listening to voices I do not understand, waiting for others to help me, and to show me what to do, it is here more than in the pastorate that I feel like the little child I am supposed to become.