Seeing the Larger Story
Wise and patient leaders invite their group to look for the larger human story unfolding on a mission trip. Seeing the larger story helps mission-team members connect their travel experience to their ongoing life of faith. Instead of viewing their lives as a series of random, disconnected episodes—some good, some bad—Christians are challenged to view their own activities in relation to God’s activity, their own stories in relation to God’s story. Guiding folks into this way of thinking about life is at the heart of leading mission trips that matter. Consider why this is so.
On the same day, a mission-team member loses his passport; another member gets an upset stomach; and the team gathers with its host group to celebrate Communion. A trip leader may be tempted to view the Communion service as the real Christian activity while regarding the other two matters as interruptions, inconveniences that have to be managed. What if we view all three events as woven together into the very fabric of the life of faith?
Eucharist remembers profound loss and unexpected gain. At this meal, no human loss is minimized or discounted. No small talk or happy-face stickers distract participants from the pain of loss that everyone encounters in this life. A lost passport reminds us of our many losses, including the ways we can lose touch with an abiding sense of self. Identity theft, job loss, divorce, the death of a loved one—they pull the rug out from under us and send us scrambling to regain our footing.
Everyone who comes to the table brings a legacy of loss, and we gather as a community that acknowledges these losses. Yet no one is barred from the table because of his or her losses. Paradoxically, our losses are the main course we bring to the table and contribute to this unusual meal. Every loss is gathered up, blessed and broken, and transformed for the sake of the world. No passport? No problem! At this table, citizenship is defined by God’s kingdom through the global church—not by any national boundaries. All are welcomed to this table. The undocumented are guests of honor, for they remind the rest of us that Christ honors all equally at this feast.
Someone with an upset stomach may not feel up to joining the group for evening worship. The Eucharist invites us to pray for and tend to those who are absent from the meal. We who gather remember those not present, and the Spirit binds them to the fellowship all the same. In an age of power lunches, this meal lifts up the powerless, the vulnerable, the ones who struggle with their bodies and their health. Jesus’ own body is broken at this meal as it was broken for the disciples at the Last Supper and for creation on the cross. Such a strange meal that sustains so many with so little food, that always makes room for one more guest, that never updates the menu, that sends us away hungry yet satisfied, that nourishes even those who cannot ingest the food fragments in person.
A lost passport, a sick team member and a Communion service—do we see three disparate, atomized events with worship as the only definable Christian activity? Or do we see the larger story in which these three events interconnect with threads of sin and grace, fracture and healing, discouragement and hope? The more our hearts and minds are shaped by biblical and liturgical imagination, the more connections we notice as the larger story of our mission trip unfolds; and the more we notice as leaders—especially in relation to our bodies—the more readily we invite all participants to weave together daily events into the warp and woof of the life of faith.
Sturdy Backs: Traveling Light in Guatemala
The day we embarked on our trip, a flight delay caused our mission team to miss a connecting flight, and we had to spend the night in Miami. The airline assured us that our 16 duffel bags would be transferred aboard our early-morning flight to Guatemala City. You can guess what happened next. We landed in Guatemala to discover that all our carefully packed bags were still sitting in the Miami airport.
Our mission team needed to get under way, so one member stayed at the airport, while the other 15 set off with day packs. “Traveling light” indeed! We were eager for a change of clothes but not anxious, confident that our bags would soon catch up to us. When the bags arrived three days later, we flocked to the delivery van to claim our belongings. Well, most of us claimed our belongings. My own carefully packed bag had been lost or stolen in transit…
Before realizing that my bag had gone missing, I was feeling safe and secure, even in this faraway land. Faced with the sudden loss of all my clothing and equipment, I now seemed strangely lost myself. Without my sure supply of stuff at hand, I felt vulnerable and exposed. What would I wear each day? How would I protect my body from the blazing sun, frequent downpours, swarms of disease-bearing insects? How would I equip myself for work and play, for worship and fellowship with the Jerusalem Church, our partner congregation in Coatepeque?
Planting Good Seed
I thought of Jesus’ disciples as I reckoned with lost luggage in Guatemala. They, too, entered villages where people were struggling to make ends meet. Instead of showing up with a bag of ready-made solutions and a take-charge attitude, disciple teams arrived with open hands ready to receive, open hearts prepared to stand in solidarity with their hosts. This must have felt risky to those newly minted disciples and slightly bewildering to those who took them in. Yet by traveling light, disciples and their hosts were able to shift perspective from glass-half-empty to glass-half-full. Together, they accomplished marvelous works in Jesus’ name.
Coming from positions of privilege, we tend to view the Third World from a glass-half-empty perspective. We survey the scene and see mostly problems and predicaments. We don’t notice a community’s strengths and assets. We need to unload the glass-half-empty frame of reference from our backpacks and set it aside. Instead, we can ask, “What unique gifts has God given these people? What signs of God’s abundance are evident in this place?”
For the Journey
As a leader, you will be advising team members about what to bring and what not to bring. As you present rules and guidelines, consider this an opening to reflect more broadly on our relationship to stuff, especially as North Americans. In what ways are we attached to our stuff, even defined by it? What stuff can we not manage without on our trip? What stuff do we grieve to leave behind?
Strategize how to counter and subvert consumerism at every turn. Find ways to enlist folks as creators, not just consumers of culture. For example, don’t prepackage the experience for your group. Invite team members to design a T-shirt during or after the trip.
When a mission team member breaks or loses something, commiserate; but don’t pontificate. Don’t minimize significance or throw Mark 6 in the person’s face right away. Affirm feelings prompted by the loss. Pray for God to protect and defend; pray for discernment; offer a silent prayer, and if fitting, a shared prayer within the group. Address whatever immediate needs the loss presents, allowing the lesson of the loss to emerge organically in time. Then invite group reflection on this and other losses by asking: “What are our losses teaching us about ourselves and our faith? How have they influenced our relationship to one another? To our hosts?”
