"Love God. Love People." Such a simple mission, but one that comes as more challenging than we'd all like.
Mission Year's motto is one that I have thought about constantly since I heard it. It's one of the biggest reasons I was drawn to the program. And while I know I don't practice it nearly as much as I should (more on that in a later post), I'm so excited to be challenged to be more loving in the upcoming year of my life.
I've known I wanted to do a long-term mission trip ever since 2014, when I served in Tunica, MS for the second time. I realized that I loved helping people, but it went beyond that. I loved showing them love. I loved showing them God's love. Through a work project of painting a church, and VBS with some incredibly sweet, loving kids, I learned so much about myself, my friends, and God himself. I learned that mission trips are about the work... but they also aren't. They're about relationship and spreading His word. That's the main thing. Yes, mission trips are about painting churches, fixing leaky roofs, picking up trash in a cemetery... but they're more about loving God so much that you can't hold in the love He has shown you, and you want to tell everyone about it. Loving people can be done in so many ways, but telling them about God and His love for us is the best way to do so.
Francis Chan said, "God's definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love." Sure, I bet God likes when we do the physical jobs. But what does it matter if we don't tell of the One who made it possible?
I'm happy to spend the next year in Chicago, volunteering my time at a school (most likely) and an after-school program, to do things like shovel snow or paint a fence or whatever else we are asked or feel called to do in the physical sense. But the most exciting part to me is showing love to my neighbors who might not feel so much love. To show them that we (my team) care for them, but so does the creator of the universe. And how awesome is that?
My thoughts are so scattered, but I'll end with another quote from Francis Chan. "Do you know that nothing you do in this life will ever matter, unless it is about loving God and loving the people he has made?” It's almost scary to think about that, but it's true. Nothing is more important than loving God, and loving people.
