On A Mission From God: Now With 100% More Alien Squirrels

               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.

On A Mission From God: Ione Skye Finds Me Amusing

                One of the interesting things about Mission Trips is that the work you’re doing can be a complete mystery until you show up.

                I mean,you always have an IDEA of what’s going on. Last year I attended a trip where we did a lot of physical labor outside, building wheelchair ramps or yard work or fixing barn doors. (In this case, the showers were located directly next to where we were staying. Sweet, sweet showers. Given the amount of sweat, there really wasn’t another option.)

                This time it was a lot more… abstract. On the one hand we spent some time working at food pantries, ensuring that everything was stocked. I spent some delightful time with a rather nice man who was volunteering who was a pretty big Star Trek Fan. Of course, while he was a nice man (and I would never insult someone’s efforts to just do something nice) he did spend a little extra time telling me all about how he felt that Star Trek was Gene Roddenberry’s ACTUAL vision of the future. And he was not a fan of our President. Not one bit. (That was a longer day than usual.)

                On the other, we did spend some time just helping out at a thrift store. While it was a “Christian” thrift store, I didn’t really see the difference between that and a regular thrift store. Maybe it was just me. But one thing I did learn is if you carry a bunch of clothes around a thrift store, people will just assume you work there, no matter how you’re dressed. (I was dressed in a plain T-Shirt and jeans. I’m like a cartoon character in that I only have a few outfits.) Admittedly,I didn’t get as much out of that experience. I don’t think the kids did,either. I think it was around the time they said, “We didn’t get as much out of that experience.” But you know kids; it’s difficult to figure out what they were saying.

                Of course, the ultimate goal is to just go out and do good for a little bit. The important thing is to carry that back, and instill that feeling of doing good onto the kids. Was I successful? I don’t know. I’d like to think so. The difficult thing about real life is that the music rarely swells while everyone is doing an action that clearly shows they learned something from you. I mean,it can from time to time, but then I’m just told to shut off the speakers on my boombox, sit back down, and no matter how much I want to be I’m not actually John Cusack.  (I could totally be, but Joan Cusack refuses to show up as random characters in my daily life.)

                At the end of the day, you have to do your best.

On a Mission from God: Werewolf vs. Vampire

            When you go on mission trips (particularly where you are chaperoning a bunch of teenagers) you accept a few things. You accept that your time will be dictated to you almost down to the minute. You accept that you won’t be eating the fanciest of foods. You accept that “alone time” consists of those few moments when you wake up and forget why you’re sleeping on the floor. You accept that you will have to work hard to set a good example (I’m not a “setting a good example” kind of guy. I’m more of a “what can we get away with” kind of guy) You also accept that you will not be staying in the best accommodations.

                What is difficult to accept is having a shower facility that is 25 minutes away from where you are staying with a bunch of teenagers that are working and sweating all day.

                Twenty. Five. Long. Minutes.

                For this particular trip we stayed in a church.  I mean, it was a nice church. It was a nice big room that we stayed in, on the floor. All in all, I won’t lie that I was grateful to have a place to stay at all, rather than a tent in the woods as I know some mission trips provide. There was minimum air conditioning. And the carpet was ok to sleep on. Not the best, but I’ve slept on worse. But let’s talk about sleeping in a room full of 30 teenage boys. Let’s talk about how that really starts to smell by the end of the second day.

                And as I’ve mentioned, the showers were 25 minutes away. That’s an episode of Parks and Recreation minus the commercials. If you’re not a fan of Parks and Recreation, that’s an episode of Community minus the commercials. If you’re not a fan of either of those, then I urge you to develop some good taste in television shows.

                It’s important to note that we are all tested at some point. Personally, I was tested by trying to determine the logic of getting 60 teenagers together and telling them they couldn’t shower. Well, they could, but when you dangle “free time or shower “ in front of them, you might as well be asking them to be a mopey teenager in Washington State choosing between a werewolf and a vampire. (Obligatory Twilight reference for the week… check.) The shower, of course, is the vampire.

                Granted, I’m a creative person. You see, they did have showers at the facility we stayed, the kids were asked just not to use them when the church was open, which was pretty much when they were in the church. However, hypothetically you could set your alarm for a certain time when no one is awake, and you could easy to slip down and sneak into said shower. Then you could have a few moments of peace and quiet, a break from the unique aroma of non-showering teenagers, a door that locked, and some hot, hot water.

         

             This is all hypothetically speaking, of course. Far be it from me to break any rules.

On A Mission from God: Now 100% Eco-Friendly!

              So, after a week of mission tripping out to Raleigh, North Carolina, I’d like to say that I’m back with a newfound sense of enlightenment. Or at least appreciation of who I am. Or perhaps the secret of the universe. Alas, at the end of the day no matter how much good you think you are doing, it’s a week. One week out of your life that’s somewhat inconvenienced for the sake of helping others.

                Now, none of this is meant to represent some dissatisfaction with my trip. I had a good time, I helped some people, I hung out with some cool kids. Ultimately, I know I did good, for one week, while I was slightly inconvenienced by sleeping on the floor with 40 other people. So this isn’t meant as some anti-mission trip rant so much as a… reflection of sorts on where I was, and what I was doing.

                I never know how to feel when I attend these things.  I didn’t grow up in the particular religion that I was escorting on this trip, and the place we stayed was a church other than that religion, too.  (I figure I’m covering all my bases.) But it’s always strange for me. Not that I find one religion stranger than another (except, you know that one where we all worship Tom Cruise. I never could quite get behind that Messiah) but I never quite know how to act at these things. Other than just being on other people’s definition of best behavior, not necessarily MY definition of best behavior.

                So, we get there, and we all get name tags… those sticky ones that wear off in a few hours… but we’re expected to keep them for a week. Now these name tags barely cling to your shirt the first time, by the second time they’re being held on by hope, and by the third shirt you’re pretty much looking down and wondering at what point your name tag decided to jump for it and is living the good life floating into a sewer somewhere. Maybe they didn’t expect me to change shirts every day? I was sweating pretty badly under the Raleigh sun, so I’m going to say that it was a public service that I ended up changing my shirt every day.

                There is a lot of recycling that went on this week. Leftovers from every meal were put into a compost pile. Normally, I’m for a compost pile. I don’t know the science behind it, but people who know tell me it’s good for the environment. What it turns out I’m against is a MOBILE  compost pile, that is created in one location and meant to be taken to another. You see, a compost pile, for those who don’t know, is a pile of leftover food and waste that is used to help plants and crops grow. By the third day, it smells a little like my shirt did working out in the hot Raleigh sun. (On a scale of 1-10 it rated close to “oh dear God if you love me you’ll take away my sense of smell right now.”) So, we kept throwing leftovers into this tiny cooler that I prayed would never ever be used to take beer to a concert ever again.

                So that was just the recycling part of the week. There are still many more adventures to cover regarding my week as Missionary.