Stupid Mission Trip

This begins my journal of my recent trip to Orphanage Emmanuel in Guaimaca, Honduras with our church’s mission team. I will be sharing my honest thoughts and feelings as they occurred throughout the week. It is my prayer that you will stick with them all and experience the Lord as I did.

Day 0 – Before we leave, before I even decide to go….

I am not sure why I attended the meeting. Except that my husband had to attend and we had driven to church together. So I went with him. I didn’t really have a huge inclination to go on this trip. I am definitely NOT called into serving in foreign missions. Even one at an orphanage. Especially not one at an orphanage.

My husband has gone on the Orphanage Emmanuel trip four of the past five years. I just don’t understand what compels him to go. So maybe I’m just a little curious to find out?

The team leaves on a Saturday, the last day of our huge consignment sale – one that I am responsible for. The deck is already stacked in favor of me NOT going as I don’t want to travel alone on Sunday to a foreign country where I don’t know where I am going nor do I speak the language. Then I find out that one of the other team members and her sons are going on Sunday too – so I can travel with them.

I have also been invited to go with the older adults on their fall trip to South Dakota and truthfully, that sounds a whole lot more inviting than Honduras.

My husband has wanted me to go on this trip with him. I have always had a ready reason why I couldn’t go. I worked full time and only had a couple of weeks of vacation and there were other things we were doing that would consume them. But this year, I am not working. So I struggle to justify going to South Dakota over going with him if I go anywhere. I wonder if I am just crazy to even think of trying to go after coming off of what will be a very hectic, very tiring week with the sale. It will either be the craziest thing I have ever done and be my undoing. Or it will be the best decision I have ever made. There will be no in between; of that I am sure.

What is this mission trip about? Loving on the children they say. I don’t understand that. In what way? How? Why does this appeal to my husband who freely admits he isn’t all that great with kids either? My confusion only deepens. I am also just a little afraid. In my mind there is a reason why I do women’s ministry and not children’s ministry. I love my children, but I never thought I was that great mom who was creative and did fun things. How in the world am I supposed to fake that for a week with kids I don’t know and cannot communicate with?

This trip is an obligation to be met. Just go and get it over with to make my husband happy and he’ll quit bugging me about it. Other than just being tired from the sale the week before, I don’t really have any excuses. I get my physical, get my malaria meds, fill out my forms and turn in my money. I’m going. And yes, I used the words “stupid mission trip” in a sentence.

Blessings from Honduras

Denise