Mission trips are a time for new experiences. They are a time for you to try new things. They are a time for you to have conversations with people you don't know. They are a time for you to get deeper with people you've known for years. All that sounds great, but it also sounds uncomfortable.

 

"If we never get out of our comfort zones, we can't grow into the places God has prepared for us."

-Seth Barnes, Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

 

Here's a story from one of our participants on a previous trip to Atlanta:

We boarded a random subway in groups of 6-7 people and started to talk to strangers. I prayed to God that whomever He wanted me to talk to, He would sit the person on that seat. On the 3^rd stop, a man with two beautiful paintings in his hands boarded the train. He sat next to me, and my first thoughts were: “God, is this really the person you want me to talk to?”I was reluctant to talk to him because I was still a little nervous and afraid of speaking with the homeless people.

 

Submitting to God’s will, I began to talk to him about his paintings. I told him about how God had specifically prepared our meeting, and he began to tell me more about himself. Unlike my assumption, he was not homeless. He had bought the paintings to decorate his house. Now that I think about it, if I had given more thought about the paintings I would have known myself, but I was quick to judgment. He’d had very decent jobs previously in his life. He even had worked for the former president Jimmy Carter. He sincerely believed in God. When I asked for his prayer request he said that ‘just to live today, tomorrow, this week and the next week” is his desire.

 

His simple prayer convicted my heart of the wrong assumptions I had made about him. God really taught me to be careful in judging others by outlooks.