Missions Build Bonds and Memories
Let’s take a trip on a true life mission to help people of another culture, another country. A group of missionaries paid $150 each of their own money to cover their personal costs for the trip. They then had to raise donations for vacation bible school supplies and building materials. Getting the volunteers to go on the trip was the easy part. Talking people into donating was a little more of a challenge.
Limited lessons in Spanish were given to aid in communication efforts. Plans took several months to finalize. A Christian church encampment provided shelter and meals for the volunteers of the mission. The missionaries stayed nights in the camp and traveled across the border early each morning for a week, toiling in the heat of the summer and working under crude conditions. They learned to adjust to the different ways of doing things in the other country, a much more basic experience than the comfy ways of the United States! They spent a week away from their families as they gave whole-heartedly to people they had not even met previously.
This missionary group was made up of mostly newcomers who had no idea what they were about to experience. They had a vague idea of what to expect; they just knew they were going to help a struggling church and its congregation.
There were people living under loosely built tents near the area dump. These people had tiny babies, small children, illness, lack of proper nutrition, and the most meager of incomes. There was no transportation. The father would have to walk miles each day to town to try to sell things he would make from the materials at the dump.
The church the mission group was helping had outdoor toilets with leaky wooden frames. The smell was horrendous. The little children who came to the church to experience the games and gospel of these strangers would walk miles in the mud, often taking turns carrying the younger siblings. The parents were unable to attend, having to work to provide the small incomes for the families.
The men in the mission group worked beside male volunteers the church pastor had rounded up. The women helped inside, working to provide water and lunch for the working men as well as the children who visited the bible school. They also made crafts with the children with the aid of an interpreter. These children had never seen bubble soap or plastic straws, things our children quickly grow bored with. The church had no running water.
This is only one example of many missions taken in the world. Hopefully it can help signify the importance of the donations needed.