Mission
“Missions
are an investment in the lives of the world's people, regardless of
how few or seemingly insignificant.”
Louis
R. Cobbs
I've
been helping my friend, Ellen, edit a book about the Journeymen
Program, the Baptist version of Peace Corps. She was among the first
group to join when it began in 1965. Most were fresh out of college,
twenty-one or two, and some had never been on an airplane, much less
traveled to another continent. They did everything from teaching
missionary kids in Philippines, to providing occupational therapy to
lepers in Nigeria, to nursing in Jordan. They spent two years
immersed in circumstances they never imagined, and returned with wide
open eyes, changed hearts and minds.
We
think of mission that way, don't we? People travel to distant
places to win people over to whatever religion they espouse, and in
the meantime teach a few usable skills. As it turns out, it is the
missionaries themselves who are changed and who learn new skills.
Each of these young people left America believing that being on the
mission field would be a mountaintop experience day after day. They
found instead that life there looked a lot like life anywhere; the
laundry still had to be done, the food cooked, children taught,
personalities managed, only with far fewer resources. They
experienced disillusionment and loneliness. They grew up a lot in two
years. Reentry into American culture was not easy.
You
don't have to go to a foreign land to engage in mission. Just look
around you, see where there is need and do what you can to make a
difference. The people around you are also the world's people. You
may touch only a few, but helping a few at a time over a lifetime
adds up to quite an impressive number. Whatever your mission, it is
an investment in the world's soul, and an even bigger investment in
your own.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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