Teach Me Jesus Thursday: Go Into All The World

I’ve long had a dream that our family would spend summers going on mission trips. We have friends who take teams to Kenya every year and I’ve waited for our boys to get old enough to go. That time is coming closer, but not this year.

We decided to do a “soft mission trip” first. We have friends who live in a small village in Nicaragua and we are going to visit them this next week. While we are there, we will be reaching out to the people in the village.

I want my boys to have a heart for the world. I want them to love the lost. I want them to see God’s people as diverse as described in Revelation 5:9 “And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.” I want them to know that the world is different than their middle class experience in South Florida. I want them to hurt for those who hurt around the world. I want them to do what it says in Isaiah, “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). I want them to desire that the gospel be spread through all the world.

In preparing them to understand missions and what it means to care for the lost, we’ve read missionary biographies such as Nate Saint: Operation Auca (Torchbearers)
and Amy Carmichael: Rescuer of Precious Gems (Christian Heroes: Then & Now). We’ve learned about the different people groups around the world in our book Window on the World: When We Pray God Works and how much more work still remains in getting God’s word into the language of those people groups. The boys write each month to our Compassion child in Kenya and learn about his life and pray for his daily provision and spiritual growth in Christ.

But we need to do more.

I haven’t found much locally that our children are old enough to participate in but we recently were able to volunteer at a local Christian ministry who serves the homeless. The boys helped pack up bags of necessities and prepared tables for a dinner that our church hosted for the homeless in our community. I anticipate that as they get older, there will be more opportunities for them to be the hands and feet of Jesus where we live.

We’ve talked a lot about the needs of the people we will meet in Nicaragua. We asked the boy’s dentist and she donated toothbrushes for the children we will meet. We’ve also collected tracts for children and their parents (I even found one by Noel Piper in Spanish for children: Most of All, Jesus Loves You! (Pack of 25) (Proclaiming the Gospel). We collected Jesus Storybook Bibles in Spanish (Historias Bíblicas de Jesús para niños: Cada historia susurra su nombre (Spanish Edition) and hope to read them to the children at a local orphanage and then donate them.

I don’t what will happen during our trip. I don’t know how our children will do or what they will walk away with. It is my prayer that this trip will impact their hearts and that they will leave with a greater love for the world. Will you pray for us to that end?

To be continued…