Musings: Notes From My Daybook

A week has gone by since our return from Honduras (and my internal plumbing system has been normal for the first time today!). Tomorrow, Kyle Huhtanen will be at Northlake. Kyle is operations direction for Predisan and is one of NL's missionaries. It will be a good day and a good week as we anticipate Honduras Day (Kyle will preach) on April 24.

As I think about my experiences in Honduras, I find myself continuing to think about opportunity. Every day in the second poorest country in our hemisphere, a long list of ministry opportunities stare at you in the face--sometimes they literally stare at your face.

At first I thought that it was because the need is so great that one could see so clearly what needed to be done. Certainly the needs are great. And yet, upon reflection I think that there is something else at work. Maybe the reason that I saw the need and was drawn to respond with action was more to do with my mindset and less with what I saw.

Frankly, there is great need right here. Poverty, homelessness, and persons suffering from all manner of mental and emotional distress exist--sometimes next door. The problem of sin is no less here than there. Ironically, as one Honduran doctor who is a devout believer put it, "what is going on in America? Why can't you Christians in America respond to all the materialism and the destruction of families in your country?"

I think the difference in the mindset is simple. When you go on a mission trip, you mind is focused on mission. You are willing to put up with different food, sleeping on cement floors, dealing with bugs, working long hours, wrestling with another language and culture and so much more. You are on mission and you have checked yourself at the desk. You left your selfish self behind.

However, once we come home, suddenly we fall back into life as usual. We expect our cars to be air-conditioned, to sleep on thick mattresses, and to eat salad anytime we want to. We begin to live again as if what is important is my own pleasure and my own interests. We are glad we went on a mission trip. But it is good to get home, take a hot shower, and get on with our lives.

Herein lies the struggle. The concept of mission must move from a one week a year mindset to a life-style change. Mission is not something I do for a week of vacation; mission becomes a whole way of life.

When I get a hold of mission, or better yet, when God's mission gets a hold of me, there will be no shortage of opportunity--even and especially in Atlanta.