.jpg)
The new year of 2008 began with a joint trip to the MOWA Choctaw Friends Center in McIntosh, AL with Young Adults from North Carolina and Western Yearly Meetings. Here are some reflections about our time in Alabama from Jason White, a sophomore Pre-Med & Spanish major at Anderson University, from Sandcreek-Azalia Friends Church in Western Yearly Meeting.
"Sounds like fun, I've never been to Alabama before." That was my first reaction to Katy's proposal for a joint mission trip between North Carolina Yearly Meeting and Western Yearly Meeting to the MOWA Choctaw Friends Center in Alabama. I got more than just a road trip with friends, though; that trip was an eye opener for me, both to the poverty and pain in that area and to a new way of looking at how Christians should approach and try to amend social injustices and still keep our focus on our personal growth with God.
Going south was like going back in time for me. I was born in Iowa, and spent the first ten years of my life in the Midwest, but my family lived in North Carolina for my middle school years, so a part of my heart will always be at home in the south. I had such a fun time reminiscing at the sight of red dirt, or the sound of the unique southern drawl (and even redeveloping a little southern accent of my own after a while). Some of us from Indiana also took the opportunity to visit the gulf coast and walk on the beach for a short while one afternoon. I hadn't seen the gulf or the ocean in years, last time was probably one of our family's vacations to the Outer Banks, so that experience was one of the highlights of the trip. The road trips there and back, around fifteen to sixteen hours in the van both ways, were filled with games, songs, jokes and quotes, and, of course, sleep. I was exhausted and stiff after each travel day, but the trip was unforgettable.
But, I am not writing this, and you are not reading this because a bunch of college kids from Indiana came down and went sightseeing for three days. The real reason I will never forget that trip, and the real reason we went in the first place, was to serve and grow. Serving I can do, I like to serve; growth is different, growth usually involved some sort of discomfort or pain. The end product of growth is worth it, every time, but that does not make the process any more fun; but more about that later.
I have been serving since I was old enough to recognize that I could. Usually in those early years I wouldn't do more than run errands for Dad around the church before service or Sunday school, but I started young. And let's be honest, as a PK, I was kind of expected to; everyone in the congregation would look at me and my sister to be the examples for the other children. So we learned to serve; and with maturity and age I learned to love it. I've always felt awkward about witnessing to someone about Jesus in words only, if I can serve them and show his love that way, I get the feeling that I am actually sharing my faith and love of God. So this trip, with its opportunities to do hard, physical labor, was right up my alley. I am used to hard and physical labor, I've worked at Quaker Haven for two summers now, and anyone involved in summer camps and camp programs can testify to a hard day's work. So our jobs of cleaning out old storage rooms full of dusty heavy books, digging a pit or two, and tearing down and rebuilding a playground in Alabama were what I had been looking forward to for all of December. One added bonus came in the form of children, and many of them in the Friends Center's after-school program. We played games, helped with school work, and had fun devotionals with the kids. Service is a wonderful thing and I want to bed exhausted and happy every night that week.
But where would we humans be if all we ever did was serve, serve, serve? The world would probably be a better place on the whole, and we would feel good about ourselves, but would we be any closer to God? Would we be as responsive to his calling if we kept ourselves in our little bubble of service, always content and happy? No, to be a Christian is not only to serve, but to grow and change into a new creation, a creation crafted by God's hand to be more like him. I personally, groan when I feel God nudging me to start facing a new challenge or when I realize that he is using the circumstances of my life to teach me a new lesson. The lessons never stop coming though, and neither do the patience, love, and mercy. Thank the Lord.
I have always struggled with the idea of Christians becoming active against social issues. To me, being a Christian is more about the relationship between God and me, and while religion in society is not unimportant, to focus on it and what it does, seems to me like a shift of focus off of our personal growth. So when the theme for our trip was announced to be about Christianity and social justice, I groaned internally because I felt God smile on me with that look of, "Just wait till you see what I have for you!" As the week went on and we talked in depth about Micah 6:8, I started to realize that my ideas about where Christians should keep our focus were correct, but so were those who spoke in favor of our becoming active against social injustices. (Isn't it wonderful how God can pick both sides of a disagreement so they are both right?! I wish we humans could master that trick.) We as Christians are to look to God, always run to him and where he leads. He won't lead us on a lifeless path, however, because we will always find those in our lives to love, comfort, and heal on his behalf. That is how we fight social injustice, when we find it we do the right thing, no more. Humans will not save the world; we can be the source of improvement if anything. All that is good for this world comes from God; all we can do is be his hands and feet. We can follow his lead to fight the good fight when he brings us to it, but he never intended for us to make our own campaigns against poverty, sex enslavement, or destruction of the environment. I always feared getting caught up in my crusade, but all I am supposed to do is wholeheartedly become obsessed with his crusade.
It is hard to put how this trip changed me into words. This trip was not the defining moment of my life, but I can't say that I left 'Bama the same way I arrived, either. I saw not only the need of the people; I also saw in new light the continuing need of Christ in my life. I now have more knowledge, wisdom, humility, and sore muscles than last year, so I think the lesson about growth which God was smiling about when we started the trip as been passed on to me. Now, on to the next one.