Baggage

Well, tomorrow we return from our tour. Somehow, calling it anything less than that which constitutes and indicates combat sells the team short. To say it was a good trip ... well ... just won’t do it.

Have you ever wanted to be a part of something unique? Yes? Then lead a mission trip. I feel that part of my duty, part of my goal is to make this experience profound. To amp it up, drive it through and to run it home. Not disallowing God to be God, but to take my responsibility as seriously as possible. Not myself seriously, but the team.

Part of that involves designing the trip and its purpose and then leading it through. Part of it is getting out of the way so that God can do what He does, and then part of it is getting us home. I feel like God gives me the opportunity to go deep into enemy territory to take supplies to the besieged. I like that. Invasion always sounded better than digging a trench and hiding. We are about God’s work, let us come from the ramparts to take the Good fight. Hooahh.

Within this idea are the supplies we bring. I think that God probably sits back and watches us pack with a smile on our face. It’s the child that packs his suitcase for a trip to the beach by himself for the very first time and has a pile of toys and games, one sock, yesterday’s underwear, and a winter coat. All good stuff, but where is the good stuff ... We brought a lot of supplies this year, too much (as always) and left much of it with Ishy, our local yocal. He’ll use it in many camps and he’ll give much of it to a local church as well. He was pumped - with his six suitcases of gear. We bring it in, use it, break some of it, wear it, paint it, pull it, kick it, and then leave it. Then, we get new stuff (souvenirs) and load that and bring it back. We never bring as much back as we take, but still ...

You know, this is true with our spiritual life as well. Very true. So true, that this kind of event, this mission, this deployment, this storming the gates of Hell with an empty squirt-gun, bears great resemblance to the aforementioned idea (always wanted to use that word!). We bring and leave what we must and replace it with something new that should be permanent, but often is not. We spent today seeing the city - all places that I now can navigate by heart. Then we ate at Pizza Hut (almost as good as Waffle House) and then shopped. We bought trinkets, plinkets, hats, toys, art, and anything else we could get our hand on. Some of it for ourselves, most of it for others. All new things. Even if it’s old, it’s new to us. We then take it back in order to please, bring joy, tell a story, and keep a fading memory kindled.

Is this not true for our hearts as well? We brought our heart (some of us had left a piece behind anyway ...) and we take back ... the memory, the experience, the scars, and the joys. Think about this; we come back different, changed, impacted ... veterans. We come and leave and take and leave. It’s profound. Our families look at the pictures, hear the stories, see the change, but unless they have had a similar experience, won’t fully understand what has taken place. They can’t. We have to bring that back. But what we fill our hearts with should not be trinkets, or toys, or that other funny hat that I waited 4 years to buy; it should be a quickened, refreshed love. Something powerful. Penetrating. Peaceful.

So families, I have so much more to tell you, but it is not mine to tell. Writing it all is simply not possible. But, you must ask your new veterans returning to you. We won this one. We’re battled and bewilderingly tired, but this one, we won. This has been the most exhausting of the four trips I have participated in. But, this battle goes to us because we obeyed by going, telling the Truth, and we won. So ask your loved one about it, but understand the tears may be on their face, but they fall on foreign soil. The empty hands, the shaking, the laughter filled with weeping is not a negative, it is the result. It is the release not of toxins, but of The Spirit. The 2 dimensional image you see of “that child” that stole a part of your son, or daughter, or wife, or husband tells very little because it is but two dimensions of a limitless experience. It is color on paper when we have experienced a stylus upon our heart. It is not the hug, the smell, the feel of the bodies we held. But it is the result of the Body that fell so that we might live. You must see the dirt, hear the wind in the trees, close your eyes and know the voices of “your” children in order to bear the mark. You must dip your hands into Grace’s magic waters and breath deeply. You must experience it. You must believe.

I go to bed now, with the hope of three hours sleep before our journey begins. We’ll look the same, but we’ll be different. We’ll have inside jokes and we’ll stand in church and purposely look for a familiar face that just three months ago was unknown. We’ll share a look, a gesture, something that reminds us that it was real.

That we really did go.

That we really did return.

That God really is that good ... all the time.