Often times when I would tell people about my trip their response would be, “Wow you are traveling the world!” or “you are going to see so much of the world in one year” or even, ” I want to travel the world like that!” I think sometimes people were so fixated on the fact that I am traveling the world that they missed the whole purpose of what I am doing and why I am doing it!
Dont get me wrong traveling the world is definately a bonus to this trip, but let me take a few minutes to tell you what makes this trip so much better than traveling the world!!
Its spending our thursday mornings feeding the men, women, children, and babies of Lavender Hill knowing this might be the only hot meal they get today. Its spending our thursday afternoons helping kids with their sports or giving them rides on our shoulders for hours even though we are all sunburnt, as they scream, “Giddy up horsey.. Giddy up!!!” Then providing them with a hot supper before we send them home!
Its also spending our friday mornings at a nursing home just visiting while they tell us story after story and recieving knitting lessons! Its going to church on sunday and telling our testimony to encourage others even if you feel a little uncomfortable. Or it could be spending our mondays walking door to door in a very poor community asking if there is any needs we could help with, or coming across a little boy in a full body cast because he fell playing soccer and broke his spine. Where we then got the chance to pray for his healing. It could even be the little things like spending our tuesdays planting trees and pulling weeds to bless our ministry hosts!
I am more than joyed to get to be traveling the world and seeing so much of Gods beauty and thrilled that I was given such an amazing oppurtunity! But when I look at my trip I see so much more than where I am going, I see all the people in the countries I am going to, the ones I get to bless and invest in. When I think about this trip I will remember the words of wisdom our amazing ministry hosts Ivan and Bronwyn have shared, and the way every person is so eager for me to enter their home, or the way the church congregation truly worships god and it is never a performance!! I will remember seeing the happy faces of kids as we serve them a hot meal, and I will remember the way I know God is going to perform miracles! Every life that I invest in is worth far more than any view I will encounter! Gods creation is truly amazing but the people he has created is far more precious!!!
