Jesus People USA.

It’s been a few days… it’s time to recap the missions trip.

My youth group went to Chicago, Illinois where we worked with Jesus People USA, a community of Christians that live out the infamous Acts 2 example of Church. While most of the JPUSAs were putting on Cornerstone Music Festival (the Woodstock of the Christian world), our team held down their fort.

Our jobs: Cooking for the remaining JPUSAs, working at their homeless shelter, serving their senior citizens, cleaning their main building, and, of course, showing people the light of Jesus through our actions.

Honestly, it was one of those missions trips that the focus remained on the service rather than the outreach. And after talking to my friend Amber, I realized that these are probably the best kind of missions trips (short term anyway). We get to show God’s love which will make a greater impact than simply befriending people for a week then leaving them.

And so that’s what we did. And truly, it was though that service mindset that we BUILT relationship and potentially CHANGED lives.

On the last night we stayed at JPUSA, we had planned a game night with the seniors. Only a few showed up (sad, sad) so my friends and I just played a rousing game of Pictionary by ourselves. Well, then there’s this nice man named Jim (who wasn’t really that old, but have Elephantiasis) asked if someone would like to play a game with him. Well, sure. That was why we were there.

Carlee, Nathan, and I played Hearts with him. It was amazing. We just had fun, laughed, made small talk, etc. I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t feel like I was working or trying to proselytize.

The next day at breakfast Carlee, Nathan, and I got a card from Jim thanking us for playing cards with him. Just a game of cards. (That I nearly lost both hands of.)

Before we left Chicago he told Sarah to thank us for treating him like he was normal. Normal.

I find that ironic. Playing cards with someone is one of the most “normal” things you can do–and he did that just fine. He may have a disease, but he was still a man. He was still a sacred human being, formed by God.

And we got to bless him.

I learned from this trip that it’s not the big things you can do that solely make impact in people’s lives. It’s the little things. It’s the scraping of grease off a pan. It’s the playing cards with a lonely person.

*Ezek.

July 9, 2008

Posted in Nonfiction and tagged love.