I have been on a few mission trips, and I have taken young people on a number of them as well. I understand that they can be intimidating and scary. You are headed to a new place, a new culture and you are being asked to connect with the people and try to make a difference in their lives, THAT’S PRESSURE!!
Well, I have a friend who loves to go on mission trips, he loves them so much he doesn’t wait for some organization to send him, he gathers up Bible’s and goes. Here is a guy who loves to talk about Jesus and share his passion for Jesus with the people around him. When I first met him, a couple months ago, he told me about a mission trip he had done, where he hopped in a canoe and paddled down the Red River, across Lake Winnipeg and to a Reserve to hand out Bibles, he stayed for a while, prayed with people and paddled back home.
One time I noticed I hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks, and the next time I saw him he declared, “I went on another mission trip!” He spoke emphatically with his whole body. “I got my Bible Dealer to give me 100 Bibles and I hitchhiked my way up to the Brokenhead Reserve. The Holy Spirit was so present with me through this whole thing, which is such a good thing because there was so much darkness up there. I was just surrounded by it! The drugs, the sex, the sniffing, you name it, it was happening, all around me, I had to get out of there.” “You wouldn’t believe it, I wound up staying with a believer, she took me in and fed me for the whole time I was there!” “Did they know you were coming?” I asked. “Oh no, I just went up there on my own, once I got all of the Bibles distributed, I needed to get out of there.”
A few weeks later I asked him if I could buy him lunch, when we met he told me that he was headed on another mission trip up to a Reserve that afternoon. He talked and talked about these discipleship programs that he had been to all over North America, that had given him all this training that lead to this moment. I asked him what kind of programs they were. He started telling me about 6 or 7 programs he had been to…they were all addictions programs. He said, “I am trying to get people to follow Jesus, because if they follow me, they will fall!”
I asked him how long he had been clean and sober, and the look on his face told me I had asked the wrong question, or at least made the wrong assumption. He mumbled something about being sober for a long time, “but I drink every now and then.” “The last two times I went on a mission trip, I had a real hard time trusting God to help me through it, so the night before I left, I GOT TOTALLY HAMMERED!”
I think that’s what they call, liquid courage.
I think it’s amazing though, here is this young man, who truly loves Jesus, and is an imperfect human being, but is being used to do amazing things! Sounds like pretty much every Christian I know.