By this point in the week I’m sure you all have a pretty good
idea of the places and people that we served at and with during our time in San
Diego. With that in mind, I’m going to break the pattern a little bit and talk
about some of the things I experienced outside of our service sites on my first
(and last) GSLC mission trip. I think if
I were to pick one word to describe this past week, I would go with “challenge,”
but I don’t mean that in a bad way. I saw a quote painted on the wall inside
one of the buildings we were in this week (pretty sure that building was a
Jack-in-the-Box, which is why I felt like it was really out of place), and the
quote was: “if it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.” Let me explain.
First off, the first two days of this trip did not go to
plan. For reasons out of our control, the car that I drove to CA in took a
little longer to reach San Diego than the other two groups. We took a detour that
led to us missing orientation on Sunday night and Monday, the first service day. Monday night was overwhelming to say the
least. Some of us were challenged by
connecting to other people at the site, and some of us are being challenged now
in the absence of new friends. Many others were challenged by a lack of sleep,
showers, and their personal electronic devices. As I type, Zayne, Brian, and
Andrew are being challenged by the last rounds of a game of ninja! Sitting in the gym at Trinity Lutheran here in
Sacramento, we just spent time talking about what has frustrated us throughout
this trip and trying to understand each other’s perspectives on these
challenges.
But here’s the thing: we heard in a YouthWorks video on
Tuesday night that “Jesus didn’t say ‘take up your couch and fall asleep,’ he
said, ‘take up your cross and follow me.’” Faith is a challenge! We are sometimes given experiences and people
that we didn’t always ask for, don’t understand and sometimes can’t explain,
but that are so, so important to our personal and spiritual growth and how we
share Jesus with others. It’s a good thing! The challenges that were presented to us over
the last eight days, and will be presented going into the final push homeward, are
challenges that will hopefully change each member of the group, even if it’s at
the most minute level. These experiences are how we grow. So here’s the
challenge that I hope we (including myself) can embrace every day as we go
onward: how can we use our experiences, good or otherwise, to serve and build
up each other? How can we move onward in our faith and as people, using the
challenges that have been presented to us?
I’m so thankful for this experience and all of the things
that challenged me, because even though it hasn’t all been easy, it has all
been important. I hope that my fellow youth feel the same way about that point
(if nothing else), and can continue to challenge themselves to grow as people
and as followers of Christ. I’m excited to share more about this trip when I
see you guys!
-Emma
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