Going in to the Atlanta mission trip I was extremely excited to be doing relational ministry, but I was also extremely nervous. Thankfully I was put in the green group, which was full of amazing examples and friendly and encouraging people. It didn’t take long before we began to connect and open up with each other.
I think that I speak for all of the green group kids when I say that we weren’t exactly comfortable going into the unstructured side of mission work or homeless ministry. Talking to people who we didn’t know and who’s way of life was completely different from our own was way out of the comfort zone and definitely took a lot of courage and faith. But in accordance to God’s kingdom of opposites, as we spent all of our courage and faith, the amount inside of us grew rather than shrank.
My group got to speak to many different people and got many different reactions. While some were very receptive and were grateful for our prayers, we were also greeted by other less positive responses.
One that really stood out to me was meeting a literally crazy woman who was in the middle of converting from Christianity to Buddhism. This happened during something called ATL (Ask The Lord) where my group spent a while in prayer waiting for God to instruct us on how He wanted us to serve him. No one in my group was really hearing much of anything so we ended up going to the nearest grocery store to help people carry their bags and stuff. Since no one really wanted to be helped we decided to visit the near by shops and pay for the person behind us. I ended up a Starbucks and bought my leader Amy some coffee but instead of getting no cream I accidently got extra. When we arrived back to the group they were talking to the woman I mentioned earlier. After a long conversation we ended up giving her the coffee that my leader obviously didn’t want and my group began to realize that what we took as “bad connection,” disappointment, and accidents were actually signs that God does indeed work in the ways we least expect and what we thought were our decisions was actually His plan.
Another example of God working in us this week is more general but just as meaningful. As we persevered through the un-comfortableness of asking people if they wanted prayer and praying aloud for those we didn’t know much about, we realized how powerful talking to God really is. It’s so cool to join hands with a stranger who you may look at as less than yourself only discover that before our King we are all labeled as “my children” and that is all that matters. Situations like these served as wonderful reminders from God that His way is higher and the awkward, uncomfortable, scary situations we often look at from the world’s point of view and see as bad are actually just ways to expand His own love and grace; not only in the world but in us.
