Remember this line from the Blues Brothers movie, “It's 106 miles to Chicago, we have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses... HIT IT” Jake and Elwood are on a mission from God. They’re ready to head for Chicago to pay the orphanage’s taxes. Well, we’re a little closer to Chicago than 106 miles, I have half a cup of tea (non-coca😊), we a non-smoking office, and it’s a bright sunny day. Beside those minor points it’s just like the Blues Brother. We’re all on a mission.
The University mission is in Sucre, Bolivia. The Navajo team just started in the Navajo Nation this last weekend. We are looking for medical folks for the Uganda mission and the press release for the Philippines was just sent out. June is a month for Sharon, Nancy, and I to catch up on paperwork of the previous missions and start to look ahead to the next round of missions. Just like any improvement thinking company, we look to review and learn from previous missions, and to implement those ideas.
Of course, the logistics of mission are always something can be improved. Was each mission team properly prepared? Was travel smooth? Are meals reasonable? Are we staying at a safe and comfortable location? Was the In country travel on time? Are we finding enough patients? Were building supplies delivered on time? Were the villages we went to, informed of us coming and were they ready? There is a whole host of other things that need to fall in place to make a mission outstanding. It is Just like driving to Chicago: the best laid plans don’t always work out as expected.
Logistics aren’t the only part of a mission. There’s also the people. Not just the people of the Mission team, but the local people with whom we work at the mission site and the people we come to serve. It’s definitely a two-way street of giving. Aside from the physical things we bring, or purchase at the mission site to accomplish our mission, we bring ourselves. We bring our gifts, talents, treasures, and time to our mission partners. In return we receive the satisfaction of knowing that the people have benefited from the mission. Their lives have been touched by us and our relationship with the local people has gotten a little closer.
But there’s another gift that is available to us if we would want to receive it. But to do so you must be willing to be daring. You must do something that is very counter to being on mission. That is to stop doing. To stop being the working missioner. To stop being busy. To become invisible and quiet and see the people. To sit on a bench, wall, to walk through a crowd of people and let them, their culture, and their lives touch you. To feel their sense of being. Not to analyze or solve their problems, but to become vulnerable enough to let them touch your soul.
If you can embrace this gift and stories of the people, then the pictures and things that you bring back home will be held in a different light. When you tell the story of mission after coming home you won’t be just showing pictures, souvenirs, and telling stories of the mission. You will be Proclaiming the Gospel as you experienced it on mission. The passion of the Holy Spirit will be in your words. You’ll be sharing not just stories of the people who you met on mission, but you will be talking about family, your brother and sisters. About people that are now very close to your heart.
Yes, our mission is a two-way street. We go to help the poorest of the poor, but we come back and tell others about the mission. How you interact with the people will define if you talk about experiences of mission or if you tell the stories of mission. The closer you get to the people, the more you embrace the culture, the more your experiences will become stories. You will have passion in your words.
As we prepare to move into the 2018 mission season and start the formation for each of the mission consider how you are called to mission. Will you join us on mission? Will you let the people into your soul and spend time with them without working? The opportunity is there: go for it and spend the time to get to know the people whom you love will serve.
Bruce Carlson
