Reveal and Release on Mission Trip ’09

Reveal. That one word was the theme of my mission trip. All the shirts, posters and everything around my youth group seemed to blare the simple message as we walked into the church where we’d be staying. Reveal? Seriously? We all seemed to be asking, “What is that supposed to mean?”  We would find out soon enough, and not just an understanding of  the word Reveal, but a realization about  life.

Soon we were assigned to work crews for our jobs  (i.e., food bank, thrift store, nursing home, neighborhood VBS, paint and repair homes). I was assigned to a  food bank crew, but I was separated from my youth group friends. All my fellow crew members were older than me and were from different churches from around the U.S. (Massachusetts, Louisiana and Colorado). I was intimidated at first, but I decided to just be myself. Together, we worked at Capital Area Food Bank in Austin, one of the largest food banks in Texas.

Each day had a different message for Reveal, based on Jesus’ words in Mark 4:14-21. Sunday was: Hope For The Poor; Monday: Release For The Captives; Tuesday: Sight For The Blind; Wednesday: Freedom For The Oppressed; and lastly, Thursday: The Day Of The Lord’s Favor.

Our routine started at 6:45 to wake-up call, sometimes to the camp counselors obnoxiously serenading us. At 7:00 we had breakfast. At about 8:15 we had our Morning Program that included worship and a brief introduction to the message of the day.  We departed for our site after that (about 9:00). We returned from the food bank around 3:30 and had two hours of free time. At 5:30 we had dinner, and then more free time. The Evening Program was at 8:00, and youth group devotions started at  9:00. We had more free time till 10:30 when we had to get ready for bed. Then, after a long day, the lights went out around 11:00. Every night we prayed, “God, reveal yourself through me.”

There were sooooooo many great and powerful experiences I could share. They were all amazing, but there was one that I really want to share.

It was Wednesday. The theme for that day was Freedom For The Oppressed. In church, my youth group and I always sing and clap, but I always feel like we could do more. On Wednesday, however, my whole youth group put their arms around each other and we swayed and put our hands in the air. For the first time we all found freedom in our worship. The barriers were torn down! After worship, the leader of the work camps came up and talked about the story of the paralyzed man  that was lowered through the ceiling by his mat to Jesus’ feet. He talked about how the man was restricted to his mat.  He named things in our life that symbolically restricted us to our “mat.” For each restriction in our lives that he named (relationships, self image, mistakes, etc), we wove a strand into our paper mat. Once he was done talking he said, “Now, I encourage you to pray to God and talk to Him about giving up your mat, and all the stuff in it, whatever it may be that is weighing you down. It will be hard to give this up because this is what you are used to, but God will help you. Let God carry you and not this mat.”

We went and put our little paper mat at the foot of the cross, and then we kneeled and prayed. My whole youth group broke down and cried. We were all crying and praying for each other, hugging each other and trying to make each other feel better even though we were crying ourselves. It didn’t matter that we were guys and girls. It didn’t matter who the other person was, we were united as the body of Christ. It was the most beautiful sight ever as we sat under the cross that night. After the service all of us were still weeping but, we had our devotion and talked about it. We had a huge used tissue mountain! We talked about since we had given over our mat, and decided to let God rule our life, we were released and he was revealed!

That was a very long story, and if you’ve read this far…WOW! 🙂 Sorry! I have a lot to say! I could say so much more, but I thought I would tell you about God being revealed because that was the theme this week. He changed our lives. What a week! Praise God!

Below are some pictures from the mission trip. Enjoy!

-R

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