More Than a Mission Trip

“Ministry is life and life is ministry” it’s the motto that gets brought up a lot on the World Race which is very truthful. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. I didn’t grow up in the church and been lukewarm in my faith most of the time. So I’m even still learning how to live Christ-like. I accepted Christ into my life at 15 years old and have been learning and growing. I’ve been going through a process known as sanctification that everyone who becomes a believer in Christ goes through. I used to be a porn addict, since before leaving for the World Race and have been growing like crazy recently and have had no inclination really to view that stuff which is also great as I’m doing life with 30+ people for a year and viewing that stuff would be a stumbling block for myself and those who may have delt with that as well throughout their life.

“Ministry is life and life is ministry” has been hitting deeply as what I’m doing is more than a mission trip. The quote above means that everyday we should be living Christ-like. Having the intentionality to actually look for ways to minister to people everyday. Could be as simple as helping someone move a fridge (something that I ended up doing in Albania as I saw 4 people struggling to put it in their work van. So I walked over to help). It could even look like trying to help an older lady cross the road who doesn’t speak the same language as you. It could be praying for people at work while you’re working. It could be as simple as building close relationships with someone from work (and being intentional about it) so you can start talking about Jesus with them. It could be as simple as showing respect to others and being kind to people (something I always try to do and also did while working at circle k and didn’t realize the impact I made until I was about to leave for the World Race).

“Ministry is life and life is ministry” I mention it again because it’s soo good and soo true. I read this book recently about ministering to people on missions and it talked about being immersed in their culture such as learning the language of the people they were ministering to and learning and respecting how they functioned so they knew how to best serve them and tell them about Jesus. I bring this up because my team gets to do just that, during this month while in Kosovo. We ended up staying in Restelicë, Kosovo of a 100% Muslim population. All speaking multiple and different languages. Serbian, Albanian, Italian, German, Bosnian, Turkish and many others and only a small portion of people speak English.

It’s been an amazing experience so far being in Restelicë trying to communicate with those in the community and learning the languages they are speaking to the best of our abilities. It’s been amazing to not have access to much wifi as well. Being able to focus more on God and pursuing who He is. Also I post this blog ahead of time asking for you to join us in prayer as we pray for those in Restelicë. That those we are reaching out to will receive visions and dreams from God while we are here so we may have amazing conversations with them about Jesus. My team is personally staying up late at night to pray for those in Restelicë to receive those visions and dreams from God. Also pray that while we are here that we will build amazing relationships with those we are meeting with. The men hang out in the coffee shops. So I’ll be drinking lots of coffee and tea to minister to others and it looks like so far ministry is looking like lots of hard working labor (for the men at least). Stay tuned for my next blog when I talk about how ministry went in Restelicë from the guys perspective and from the ladies perspective.