The final part of my recap of the weeklong mission trip is a
deep exploration of just how a group of aliens could control the mind of a
bunch of squirrels to build an unholy army in their quest for world domination.
The twist: Elvis Presley is alive and in charge of the whole thing. That sound
is all of your minds being blown by this revelation.
Naw, I
just felt that the comedy has been lacking from these posts as I have been
discussing some pretty heavy stuff.
These
trips are always weird for me. I always volunteer to go, mainly because I enjoy
hanging out with these kids for the week. But inevitably, about two weeks before
the trip I panic because I honestly don’t believe that I’m going to be able to
help, because there is an element that I don’t think I can provide to the kids
(More on that in a moment), and because it’s a week where my schedule is more
rigidly controlled than something that is extremely rigidly controlled. (All my
metaphors were too offensive. Feel free to make up your own in the comments.)
The
element I don’t think I provide well to the kids (we’re getting heavy again) is
the fact that… I don’t really wear my religion on my sleeve. Maybe it’s because
I’m still figuring things out myself, but I just don’t believe that we are
meant to run around screaming about our faith until we get it worked out. I
believe that actions (like not throwing a can of corn at a person who is
telling you all about how Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future didn’t
involve a President born in Kenya for the ninth time that day) are more
important than words. And I don’t feel that we get that very much at these events.
I think sometimes it becomes a race to wear that “John 3:16” shirt, but the
focus isn’t as much on working hard and showing your faith that way. I
sometimes feel that we can discuss God and His actions without going deeply
into the Bible. I think that it’s more important to ACT like a good person than
it is to TALK about being a good person. I can talk about anything.
The
kids work hard at these events. But I often feel that the reward sometimes is
more church, more discussion of acting like a good person which doesn’t give as
much incentive to work harder. That’s
the part I’ve always found it hard to buy into. Oh, I’m always enthusiastic,
don’t get me wrong. Except for one point when I twisted my knee, then I was
decidedly less enthusiastic about things. (Except ice).
The
thing is, that at the end of the day, I still want to go back. I like helping
people. I want to do more with helping people. I will help out with these until
they tell me to stop helping out. (Or until that Elvis-Squirrel-Alien thing
happens. It’s real, people.) And I will continue to give these kids 100%. It’s
just… not always easy? I guess that’s the right phrasing for it. It’s not
always easy when I see other groups getting a lot out of it, and me, sitting
there hoping I’m giving these kids what they want and what they need from this
experience.
Of
course, I could always go back to saving the world from the evil squirrel
invasion.
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