Mexico Mission Trip Reflection, part three
Q: How did God encourage me during my trip?
Q: What was the hardest thing for me during my trip?
The next two questions from Dave's reflection time I grouped together (hey, I think its called poetic license... but since I'm the blogger, we can call it blogger's license). I wanted to touch on these questions together because for me, my answers to them are related to each other. Let me explain...
Not knowing Spanish, during the youth camp I was relegated to the sidelines. Being in some form of ministry for the past ten years or so, I've grown to understand that there is a level of narcissism and ego that becomes an embodiment of ministry... being up front... being responsible for the lessons... being the one people come to for help... Henri Nouwen described it perfectly in one of my favorite books, In the Name of Jesus. He calls these temptations the "temptations to be relevant and significant." I know how easy it is to fall prey to these temptations... I could easily point my finger at so many pastors who I feel fall in either of those categories... but I probably just need to worry about myself. I'm not saying it's bad to be needed or counted upon, but what Nouwen is suggesting is that there's something about the power dynamic of being a shepherd of people that can easily lead to developing a Messianic complex.
To fight against this, Nouwen suggested meditation and contemplation. To this, I could add serving a week in Mexico, or any foreign country where you don't know the language and are relegated to the periphery. To this, I add a story of my contribution for the week!
So the first day of the camp, to help alleviate the first day awkwardness, I decided to jump into an impromptu soccer, er, football match that had started up. of course, a bit rough to get into the match with my communication limited to a thumbs up or a thumbs down and pointing to which side to play for, etc... but it worked! Two and a half hours later, we were all getting along, they were calling me Japon, I was calling them Chicharito, Dos Santos, etc., and I had the worst farmer's tan in the country of Mexico.
Now the downside of that happened the last day, when the kids were making their bracelets to help remind them of the Bible lessons they learned during the camp... you know, the black = sin, red = Jesus' blood, etc. Now, you gotta applaud the creativity of the footy kids, but they decided to use craft time to make bracelets exhibiting their patriotism after a week of Japon/ Mexico madness... so they all made bracelets, not with the five colors they learned in Bible lesson time, but of El Tri! (Green, White, and Red). So that was it, my major contribution for the week long youth camp was strengthening their bonds with Mexico.
So that ties in directly with the encouragement that I received that week. It was awesome how the rest of the team connected with the kids. It was cool seeing Jonah connect during the Bible lesson time. It was great seeing the girls connect with Rosie, Yesenia, and Becca... coming up to hug them with such frequency it seemed like they were the best of friends.... and coincidingly, it was cool hearing about the closeness that the team were feeling with the kids too. It was encouraging hearing about the deep conversations that Pablo was having with the older kids after lights out. And it was great seeing how generous Ike, Terry, and Joe were with their expensive camera equipment as they helped the kids dream of being photographers (at least for the duration of the camp).
It was just a great experience seeing a team truly operate as a unit, working together to really accomplish the objective of providing a special week for the kids. And that experience was that much more important for me with the knowledge that I'm gonna be a part of a group that will be planting a church. In many ways, we're gonna be trying to re-write the rule book, so to say. Why does a church need to have a central leader, a figurehead?
Much much more on this in later posts, but for now, the youth camp provided a real glimpse of the possibilties and potential that shows me what could be!
And for the closing picture... just cuz I can.
Q: What was the hardest thing for me during my trip?
The next two questions from Dave's reflection time I grouped together (hey, I think its called poetic license... but since I'm the blogger, we can call it blogger's license). I wanted to touch on these questions together because for me, my answers to them are related to each other. Let me explain...
Not knowing Spanish, during the youth camp I was relegated to the sidelines. Being in some form of ministry for the past ten years or so, I've grown to understand that there is a level of narcissism and ego that becomes an embodiment of ministry... being up front... being responsible for the lessons... being the one people come to for help... Henri Nouwen described it perfectly in one of my favorite books, In the Name of Jesus. He calls these temptations the "temptations to be relevant and significant." I know how easy it is to fall prey to these temptations... I could easily point my finger at so many pastors who I feel fall in either of those categories... but I probably just need to worry about myself. I'm not saying it's bad to be needed or counted upon, but what Nouwen is suggesting is that there's something about the power dynamic of being a shepherd of people that can easily lead to developing a Messianic complex.
To fight against this, Nouwen suggested meditation and contemplation. To this, I could add serving a week in Mexico, or any foreign country where you don't know the language and are relegated to the periphery. To this, I add a story of my contribution for the week!
So the first day of the camp, to help alleviate the first day awkwardness, I decided to jump into an impromptu soccer, er, football match that had started up. of course, a bit rough to get into the match with my communication limited to a thumbs up or a thumbs down and pointing to which side to play for, etc... but it worked! Two and a half hours later, we were all getting along, they were calling me Japon, I was calling them Chicharito, Dos Santos, etc., and I had the worst farmer's tan in the country of Mexico.
Now the downside of that happened the last day, when the kids were making their bracelets to help remind them of the Bible lessons they learned during the camp... you know, the black = sin, red = Jesus' blood, etc. Now, you gotta applaud the creativity of the footy kids, but they decided to use craft time to make bracelets exhibiting their patriotism after a week of Japon/ Mexico madness... so they all made bracelets, not with the five colors they learned in Bible lesson time, but of El Tri! (Green, White, and Red). So that was it, my major contribution for the week long youth camp was strengthening their bonds with Mexico.
So that ties in directly with the encouragement that I received that week. It was awesome how the rest of the team connected with the kids. It was cool seeing Jonah connect during the Bible lesson time. It was great seeing the girls connect with Rosie, Yesenia, and Becca... coming up to hug them with such frequency it seemed like they were the best of friends.... and coincidingly, it was cool hearing about the closeness that the team were feeling with the kids too. It was encouraging hearing about the deep conversations that Pablo was having with the older kids after lights out. And it was great seeing how generous Ike, Terry, and Joe were with their expensive camera equipment as they helped the kids dream of being photographers (at least for the duration of the camp).
It was just a great experience seeing a team truly operate as a unit, working together to really accomplish the objective of providing a special week for the kids. And that experience was that much more important for me with the knowledge that I'm gonna be a part of a group that will be planting a church. In many ways, we're gonna be trying to re-write the rule book, so to say. Why does a church need to have a central leader, a figurehead?
Much much more on this in later posts, but for now, the youth camp provided a real glimpse of the possibilties and potential that shows me what could be!
And for the closing picture... just cuz I can.
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