Centre Church

You should go on a missions trip overseas. There, I’ve said it and we could end this post right there. This is truly something that every one of you should do. The world is not so large any longer. I’m sitting on the floor of a beautiful flat in Berlin, Germany, using a high speed Internet connection to check my Facebook and get caught up on email. I think our team has just ordered pizza, and for lunch I had a nice (European) warm Coke Light. So many of the comforts of home. AT&T has even hooked me up with Internet and phone service on my iPhone.

But the world is still huge. What a tragedy to never get to discover that our little corner of the world (be it in State College or from wherever you read this) is not even remotely a microcosm for the rest of the world. Toilets in Germany are different. German kids don’t rush to shower first thing when they wake up at camp, or to put on loads of make up. Come to think of it, there’s no hour of the day when there is a rush at the camp showers. It’s hard to grocery shop because you can’t read any of the labels. Most adults I have met speak at least three languages. People bike everywhere and recycle everything. More dogs live outside than in America, but at the same time, more dogs travel with their owners everywhere they go – including on the subway and into shops in the mall. People really live in villages, not just parts of a city called “the village”. The little village our camp was in consisted of 10 homes. No joke. That was the entire town. One of the families was mennonite and the teenage girl could frequently been seen riding up and down the brick road (yes, one road) of the village on her unicycle. In a skirt.

But here’s the main reason you should do this: I believe if we never venture beyond the four walls of our American church, our God is far too small. Oh, God isn’t small – please don’t hammer me for that one. God is the Almighty. He is from Everlasting to Everlasting. He is the Creator and the King. At the mention of one word both Heaven and Earth bow down before him. The wind and the waves obey him. He is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. He is three in One, all-sufficient, and all that every human being who has ever lived or every will live will ever need.

I just fear we won’t see THAT God if we never get out.

English camp was rough this week. Sixteen girls and eight boys from all over Germany, all at camp for this one week to improve their English skills and hopefully grow closer to Christ through our nightly meetings at Etwas Mehr (“Something More”).  From the get-go, the staff realized we would be fighting some battles for kids’ hearts this time around. The first night of small groups revealed to us that we were dealing with several kids who were avowed atheists or agnostics. The evaluations at the end of the week were positive almost to a fault… one of the boys who does not believe in God said that my rhetoric as the camp speaker was most excellent. That’s a first.

We had certainly not travelled all the way across the Atlantic to display the excellence of our rhetoric! The last night of camp we asked the kids to write down two questions they had about heaven. We used these questions, particularly questions such as, “Will everyone be in Heaven?” and “What will happen to me if I don’t believe?” into a simple, direct presentation of the Gospel. By the end of the night, emotions were running high. God was present and at work. One boy stalwartly insisted that he had not been impacted at all by the message – his bitterness over losing a close friend continued to block his ears. Another maintained that Jesus was a good way to God, but there had to be others. “What if you are wrong?” Don Jones asked in the boy’s native German. “Pesh.” He responded, which means tough luck. A third boy was obviously shaken by the sincerity and truth of God’s Word. He wanted to share, and he wanted to surrender. He could not, however, informing first the boys’ small group leaders and then Kari Lucas that there was something “blocking” him. He was prayed over, still shaken, but returned to breakfast the next morning insisting that the closer he tried to draw to God the farther away God seemed.

The camp staff felt quite battle weary as the kids climbed in parents’ cars to return home. We had fought the good fight – each of us knows that the fullness of the battle has already been decisively won by Jesus as eternal death and the grave were both thwarted by Him. The battle for these kids’ hearts, however, is just beginning.

Surely someone else will do that work, though. Do Americans really have to come over to the little village of Karshow in order for war to be waged on behalf of these precious kids’ intellects and their hearts?  That’s one of our thoughts, right? Someone else will surely do it. Germany is so far away and a lot of people right here in my neighborhood don’t know Jesus. I don’t like long plane flights, I’m afraid of international travel, and I get homesick. All valid statements, and all things I could say with some honesty, other than fearing international travel. Let’s just say I respect the risks. Last night, for some reason, there was random gunfire outside our house that went on for quite some time! Random, indeed!

Still, I think God wants to use us… and to show us. He is not American. Our ways are not his ways – in fact, our ways do not belong to about 98% of the world. It’s very different to face a co-worker who opposes the gospel, and a fresh-faced teenager or a grizzled villager from halfway around the globe, experience their warm hospitality and eagerness to show you their little corner of world… and the need to rely entirely on God’s power to communicate the Gospel despite language and cultural barriers.

And besides… someone else may not do it. You should go. You should go on an overseas missions trip.