Well this week we have been in Hilton Head SC during July 4th week leading a short-term missions trip and it is always a joy to see God show up in crazy wonderful ways.
You never know how God is going to use you and this week has been no different. We decided to hand out water on the 4th to bless people on the beach and it was so encouraging to see people’s faces light up when we shared that we just wanted to bless them and did not want anything in return. One man asked laughing heartily; “okay what’s the catch? Are you about to sell me a time share?”
This started me to thinking about how we, in the church world, teach evangelism. We teach that it is important to do acts of kindness for people but we always have an agenda to what we are doing. We want them to come to our church, fill our pews and give to our ministry; when people become a resource for us we stop seeing them with their individual needs and desires. This day our group went out with no expectation except to give away what we had. We wanted to show them that there was a savior that loved them just as they are and He wanted a relationship with them.
Every day we are surrounded by negative news so it was beautiful to see how our kindness encouraged those we came in contact with.
The next day we went to help out at a senior home and while there they had an Elvis impersonator singing and when he sang the old song, “Are you lonesome tonight?” Papa God reminded me of the story of Hosea and Gomer in the Bible and how that story is an image of God and his pursuit of us. His love is so great for us that whenever we stray he always comes looking for us asking, “are we lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?” We are continually looking for something to fill the void inside of ourselves and so many times we buy into media propaganda that says life is only about pleasure and not that there is joy in every and all experiences.
As we sat with the elderly people today and saw the women’s reaction to faux Elvis I could see the girl inside of each one come out. For a moment they laughed, their eyes sparkling while some even hooted and hollered.
After working in ministry for the past 26 years I have come to realize that there are more similarities to us humans than differences. We all want to be happy, we want to provide for our families and we want to be safe. When we choose to see people in our likeness and not in our diversity we find compassion, we find hope we find unity.
Just a few months ago my husband and I were in Greece working with the Syrian refugees and it struck me while handing out water at the beach similarity of what we were doing; going from tent to tent visiting and just chatting with people, listening to their stories and hopefully being allowed to share our own story about Christ. The tents on the beach are taken down each day and the tents in Greece were these people’s home. Reflecting on this though, the people on the beach didn’t seem anymore happier. The fear wasn’t present in their eyes and they knew that at the end of the day they had a place to return to lay their head, but when we were able to go a little deeper in conversations with the vacationers on the beach you could still see the same longing in their eyes for something more, it was just masked with alcohol and denial. The refugees were fleeing from a war-torn situation so they were stripped of all the barriers we humans tend to put up in our lives, but in both circumstances there was an underlying need each one shared and that need was to find hope, truth and love. I am always so thankful that God allows me to be a part of his plan and that there is joy and adventure as we travel the path he has laid out for each one of us.
