Mission trips are hard.
There are a lot of positive things that happen on mission trips: visiting other nations, experiencing other cultures, seeing God at work. Most mission trips I’ve been on have featured some really good food as well. You get to meet a lot of great people both on your team and in the place where you are working. There are always great stories to tell.
But overall, mission trips are hard. There’s travel, being away from home, working hard in uncomfortable conditions, unexpected obstacles, and usually a financial cost as well. That’s why a person needs to pray seriously before deciding to go and continue to pray as the trip unfolds. There is a cost to be counted (Luke 14:25-33).
The picture above was taken as our team gathered at the Greensboro airport to begin our trip. See how clean and energetic we look? I wish we had taken one when we arrived in Ukraine after our travel day or taken one when we got back to Greensboro at the end of our trip. I imagine our expressions might have been quite different.
I’m not pointing this out to complain or garner sympathy. Overall, this trip, like the other mission trips I’ve been on, was a fantastic experience that makes all of the challenges seem small in comparison. But the obstacles teach us to rely on God as we seek to do what he has called us to do. The difficulties are proof that we are being opposed by spiritual forces who would like to discourage us or cause us to shrink back from our mission (Eph. 6:12). And the challenges help us to appreciate the little ways that God encourages us to keep going along the way.
On the day we left, we arrived at the airport around 9am. Our team, along with family members and pastors from the church prayed as a group before we went through security. One of the Delta desk workers came over and joined us in the prayer because she “wanted to be a part of our trip.” That was a great way to get started. Soon after that, we went through the security checkpoint only to have problems with two items in our carry-on luggage that were being considered impermissible liquids. After some discussion and explaining the reason for our trip, the security officer did something I’ve never seen or heard of before. He allowed a couple of members of our team to accompany him to where our checked luggage was ready to be loaded onto the plane and they put the items into the checked baggage! He explained that he had been on several mission trips himself and wanted to make sure we had what we needed. Two blessings and we hadn’t even left town yet!
Our flight left at noon on Saturday and we traveled through Atlanta and Paris before arriving in Budapest at 11:30am CEST (Central European Summer Time) on Sunday, twenty and a half hours since we had met at the Greensboro airport. The long flight from Atlanta to Paris had gone through lots of pockets of turbulence which made it hard to get much uninterrupted sleep. At Budapest, we found that two of our bags had not made the trip from Paris – my guitar and a bag that was full of craft supplies for our camp (more on these in a later post). We stood in line for a long time to report the missing luggage and then had to drive to Ukraine. The drive ended up taking longer than expected and the border crossing from Hungary to Ukraine took over two stressful hours in itself. We finally arrived at the hotel we were staying at in Ukraine at 11 pm CEST – a total travel time of thirty-two and a half hours! We had to meet at 8 am the next morning to get ready for our first day of camp.
As I woke up the next morning, my New Testament reading was 2 Corinthians 7. God had a pep talk ready in Paul’s words found in verses 4-6: “I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy. For even when we came into Macedonia (Paul’s own mission trip to share the gospel), our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn – fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus.” God was reminding us that mission trips are difficult and although we felt like we needed rest, he would comfort us. He gave us the energy we needed for a great day of camp with the chance to impact around a total of 80 kids split over two locations.
Mission trips are hard. But they are so worth it.
I’m so enjoying learning of your travels in spreading the Good News! Looking forward to learning more how of how God has touched life and the life of those you met on the trip.