Why a mission trip?

My middle son Alex started going on mission trips 7 years ago.  I don't know exactly why he started going, maybe just thought it would be a fun youth group trip.  But somewhere along the line between The Gulf Coast and Nicaragua he had this passion stir up inside him to serve the poor and hurting.


I never thought mission trips were for me.  I've served in many different forms of volunteer work, but never really considered "treading" on his territory.  That is until, he started considering long term mission work in Nicaragua after graduation from college.  That's when the "mom" in me wanted to see where he would be living for a couple years.  So I joined in his May 2010 trip to Nicaragua just to see this place that he had grown to love so much.  It changed my world!


I thought I was going to serve the poor and love the unloved, to make a difference in their world.  What I got back was a change in MY world, a new perspective on life!  A realization that what I am is not what I have, but what I 
do with what I have.  That I, as an American, have more than most of the world has, and these things I have are not what makes me happy.  But loving such plain, unspoiled, simple people could bring me a joy that was different from any I've experienced before.


I hope this blog makes you think about the possibility of joining me on my next trip in 2012!