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On my first trip to Ghana in September 2006, I met my friend April. We became Ghana roomates at the Freedom Hotel in the Volta Region. While we have our memories and giggles of meeting for the first time and being roomates far away from Iowa, there is one phrase that I take with me everytime I go back to Ghana. Its now apart of my life, and I work to live it everyday. Waking up each day was a new experience, an awakening to do something great, and a fire to be apart of the change that is needed in this world. We would leave our room each morning on a mission shouting out, "We're going to save the world, one person at a time!"
Each day the team was going out on an unknown adventure: We were a combination of human beings coming together to heal sick bodies by producing medical clinics in empty schoolrooms in rural villages and Christian Missionaries coming into idolatry filled villages to heal sick hearts by bringing the hope and love of Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately we would learn that each mission day had to come to an end. Hours filled with medical intake and sharing the biblical word, hoping not only to mission to a healthier community, but to plant a church for new believers. Our schoolroom medical clinics is the setting where we saw everyone that we could together as a team. Unfortunately there were never enough hours in they day to give medicine to every person that stood in line. Together we would leave a village, driving away and looking back as we became witnesses to a medical waiting line long enough not to be able to see every person. Its heartbreaking, and you have to walk away knowing that you can't save them all. At the same time as medical clinic, together we are witnessing and sharing God's word that brings hope and prosperity to a village of people who may or may not have heard that God exist. Villages that put their false hope in idolatry, we witness their surrender to a promised hope to become Christians. Yet, in one day, we depart a village, knowing that our work is not done, we still have more Christianity to spread, more people in that one village still need to be reached. Yet, at the end of they day, we have to surrender our job for the day and know the seeds have been planted. We have done what we can do and we must push forward.
To take on the mission that we can save the world all in one day, in one week, in one mission trip, or even in years of mission is overwhelming. To take on poverty and disease of this world is a tremendous job. The overwhelming amount of people in this world that have never heard of Jesus Christ is a vast missional task. When you hear the numbers, the statistics, and see the faces of those that need outreached, the idea of saving the world can seem so impossible. However when God puts in your heart the desire to reach out your able hands to people that shouldn't be dying of preventable diseases because of their birth into a severly poverty stricken country, and then God moves your feet to walk on a ground to where people haven't heard His name, the task of being missional doesn't seem so impossible. We become challenged to save the world. With God leading and walking by our side, He gives us a task and breaks our hearts for His people so that we might reach out to those around us. He gives us a mission, and it isn't one to overwhelm us. He gives us what we can handle just at the right place at the right moment. He gives us enough strength and endurance to handle for that one day and that one mission that has been assigned to us. He gives us the eyes to see the one person we are suppose to draw our attention to, and the ears to listen for the one person who might be calling out to us to be saved. Today, if we can be obedient and listen to the One that calls us and draws us near to the one person we need to save today, and be the hands and feet to them, we have done one missional task in itself. Just taking the time to mission to one person and see them as the face of God, love them, serve them, and be missional to make them physically healthy and spiritually abundant, then we are taking on the task of saving the world...one person at a time.
I have found that while doing mission in Ghana, that each day we go together as a team, but we all return at night with a story that happened that day that we all witnessed or know about. However, as we talk and share our sights and sounds of each day, and on each trip, we have all been drawn to someone...maybe it was a mother who brought their child to medical clinic suffering from malaria, or maybe it was a little girl that danced her way to someones heart, or maybe it was witnessing a group of people becoming believers for the first time. That fact is that while on mission in Ghana, we have all been spoken to by God to pay attention to the details of someone else's life, to see someone's face, to hear somone's voice. We all have a story of that one person each missional day that draws us to change the lives of someone else and transform our own story. If we can all just be in tune to that one person, and transform that one life, we are making changes in the world everyday, and together, "We can save the world, one person at a time!"
Each day the team was going out on an unknown adventure: We were a combination of human beings coming together to heal sick bodies by producing medical clinics in empty schoolrooms in rural villages and Christian Missionaries coming into idolatry filled villages to heal sick hearts by bringing the hope and love of Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately we would learn that each mission day had to come to an end. Hours filled with medical intake and sharing the biblical word, hoping not only to mission to a healthier community, but to plant a church for new believers. Our schoolroom medical clinics is the setting where we saw everyone that we could together as a team. Unfortunately there were never enough hours in they day to give medicine to every person that stood in line. Together we would leave a village, driving away and looking back as we became witnesses to a medical waiting line long enough not to be able to see every person. Its heartbreaking, and you have to walk away knowing that you can't save them all. At the same time as medical clinic, together we are witnessing and sharing God's word that brings hope and prosperity to a village of people who may or may not have heard that God exist. Villages that put their false hope in idolatry, we witness their surrender to a promised hope to become Christians. Yet, in one day, we depart a village, knowing that our work is not done, we still have more Christianity to spread, more people in that one village still need to be reached. Yet, at the end of they day, we have to surrender our job for the day and know the seeds have been planted. We have done what we can do and we must push forward.
To take on the mission that we can save the world all in one day, in one week, in one mission trip, or even in years of mission is overwhelming. To take on poverty and disease of this world is a tremendous job. The overwhelming amount of people in this world that have never heard of Jesus Christ is a vast missional task. When you hear the numbers, the statistics, and see the faces of those that need outreached, the idea of saving the world can seem so impossible. However when God puts in your heart the desire to reach out your able hands to people that shouldn't be dying of preventable diseases because of their birth into a severly poverty stricken country, and then God moves your feet to walk on a ground to where people haven't heard His name, the task of being missional doesn't seem so impossible. We become challenged to save the world. With God leading and walking by our side, He gives us a task and breaks our hearts for His people so that we might reach out to those around us. He gives us a mission, and it isn't one to overwhelm us. He gives us what we can handle just at the right place at the right moment. He gives us enough strength and endurance to handle for that one day and that one mission that has been assigned to us. He gives us the eyes to see the one person we are suppose to draw our attention to, and the ears to listen for the one person who might be calling out to us to be saved. Today, if we can be obedient and listen to the One that calls us and draws us near to the one person we need to save today, and be the hands and feet to them, we have done one missional task in itself. Just taking the time to mission to one person and see them as the face of God, love them, serve them, and be missional to make them physically healthy and spiritually abundant, then we are taking on the task of saving the world...one person at a time.
I have found that while doing mission in Ghana, that each day we go together as a team, but we all return at night with a story that happened that day that we all witnessed or know about. However, as we talk and share our sights and sounds of each day, and on each trip, we have all been drawn to someone...maybe it was a mother who brought their child to medical clinic suffering from malaria, or maybe it was a little girl that danced her way to someones heart, or maybe it was witnessing a group of people becoming believers for the first time. That fact is that while on mission in Ghana, we have all been spoken to by God to pay attention to the details of someone else's life, to see someone's face, to hear somone's voice. We all have a story of that one person each missional day that draws us to change the lives of someone else and transform our own story. If we can all just be in tune to that one person, and transform that one life, we are making changes in the world everyday, and together, "We can save the world, one person at a time!"
(Pictured: April and I, with Margaret from Adidome, Ghana)
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