Lansing Mission Trip, part 2

I'm back from the Lansing Mission Trip that I went on with Ignite! There were 12 of us on the team, and we went for 5 days to serve the people of Lansing. The week was very powerful- we served at food banks, retirement centers, food pantries, churches, gleaning a field, and an outdoor concert event called Bless Fest. It was amazing to see how much need there is in the community surrounding us, just literally 5 miles from South. We stayed in a church directly in downtown Lansing called Christ Community Church. It was quite an experience- we slept on cots/air mattresses in the Sunday School rooms, which were quite interesting. The basement of the church was mold infested, and it was sad to see the church in such disrepair. My favorite service project was probably at Grand Haven retirement center, where we got to talk to many of the residents. I talked with a woman named Dolly (really Delores) for the majority of our time there. She had dementia, which meant that she repeated a lot of what she said. Whenever there was a pause in conversation, she would come up with “I have 4 children. My husband was injured in WWII. Never rust the V.A. – they always lie to you.” which was a little confusing since I wasn’t sure what exactly the V.A. was, but it ended up being really cool to hear her stories about her husband and her kids. She was wearing her 55th wedding anniversary ring, and she was able to tell me all about how he gave it to her, what a surprise it was, what an amazing man her husband was, and a bunch of other stuff. It was sad because unlike some of the other residents, she had never known Jesus as her personal Savior, which meant that she didn’t really have any hope/joy left in the world (or after it!), because her husband died and her children never visit her. Anyway, because of all this, I learned a lot about how God loves everyone, even the elderly that we might not really see as people/active citizens. It was a really cool experience that I’m really thankful for.

Our devotions for the week were on the book of Jonah. We went through the whole book, using a book that the leaders had put together specifically for the trip. My “favorite” day (the one I learned the most from) was Day 2, when we looked at Jonah 2. Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish is quite convicting- reading it and thinking about the situation that he’s in is quite intense. Here are the verses that really spoke to me: “‘Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to You. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD.’ And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” (verses 8-10) The idea of when we choose to follow after things that are not of God causes us to forfeit grace and blessings that could be ours if we just follow God and what He commands is pretty staggering to me. I think that if we as believers fully understood what that verse is saying, then we would (hopefully) choose to follow God with whatever He commands, no matter what the cost. In our devotion book, it also talked about verse 10 as Jonah being saved unto something – that he was saved with a purpose, that his job wasn’t over. The devotional challenged us to think about what we have been saved unto. Why did Christ die for us? Because He loved us, and now it is our job to tell others about His breathtaking, amazing love. It isn’t a mission- you can turn down a mission, choose not to complete it, and failing a mission is an option. It’s a command- you can’t turn down a command or just chose not to follow through. You must complete a command given to you by your master, who is Jesus Christ.

So yep. That’s a large majority of what I learned- I’ll probably think of different experiences (by the way, I can’t ever spell experiences correctly the first time I try) that I want to share with you.

Em