By: Jeremy N.
Living God’s mission.
Unlike yesterday, today was a jam-packed day starting at 6 am (although I slept in for the stair climb). We are actually incredibly thankful for how everything went and appreciate the ongoing support and prayers. We tried our hand at Spanish and hopefully we didn’t totally butcher the language. I even got a chance to run a more social worky type program with the youth in terms of coping with worries. We dropped off the last PILAS students at the bus stop at 6:30 pm.
On the way back to Barb and Gerry’s home, Barb was saying how some of the older students come back to their place to hang out until they go home at around 7 pm. I was pretty tired and hungry, which is probably unsurprising. But I must admit, I would have been totally fine just having dinner and relaxing for the rest of the night. It got me to thinking about how easy it is to say to God, I’ve served you, I’ve done my piece, I’ve done enough, let me just have this time to myself. It’s easy to see church and mission as something you clock in and out of like a job. Especially in our comfortable North American culture, it’s so tempting to want to do things at or for church, but when it takes up too much of our time, we stop. Of course it’s important to have boundaries, but it’s definitely been encouraging to see how Barb and Gerry continue to be a welcoming presence in their community, even when it’s been a long day. I wonder if we need to realize that God’s mission is part of who we are and how we live, not just something we do.