Trip - Day 10, Feb 20

Short night with not that great of sleep. 6:00 am the alarm goes off, a.k.k Jerry knocking on our door. Pack up and head to the airport. Mano drove us in his van, whoa what an experience. Our first flight left at 10:00 to San Juan. So we had breakfast, with Duane helping everyone order one last time. We said goodbye and off we went. Everything went fine on that flight. We cleared customs in Puerto Rico, we quickly grabbed something to eat. The next flight was scheduled for 12:45 left at 1:15. No problems as we arrived in Dallas a few minutes late. After a nice meal at T.G.I. Fridays we wait again as our plane is a bit late. It will be a late night again.

As I am flying, I finished the second book of the trip and try to sleep. It just isn't working. As I sit here I begin to reflect on the trip even more. I begin to think about the questions Kyndra asked me, "So, did you enjoy it?" This will be a question I am sure I will be asked a lot. The easy answer is yes, I really enjoyed it. The hard thing to do in my mind at least, is to answer - why? What about the trip really made it enjoyable? As I think about this more, I think it really has to do with the fact I can truly see what Paul is talking about in Galatians 4:26-28, we are all "one in Christ Jesus." We spent a lot of time talking about how in our culture, money talks. When frustrations ariseon the jobsite, it is easy for us rich North Americans to want to buy our way out of those frustrations. What I mean by that is that we can buy more supplies, we can buy more equipment, etc. But is this the right thing to do is the real question.

This trip has stretched me. I feel I was blessed in my upbringing of having a lot of diversity around me in the suburbs of Los Angeles. But this trip got me out of my little bubble that I was comfortable in. This trip allowed me to see brothers and sisters in Christ in a whole new way. Often times we can become complacent, comfortable in our faith, in our way of doing things. This trip has helped me to see how passionate people are for the Lord even though it appears as if they dont have anything.

The question I posed to the group is: "What can we take home from this experience?" Does this change how we live? Or do we jump back into our materialistic mindset and culture? Or do we challenge that mindset, do we challenge our families and friends who have this mindset?

The thing I wonder about is how do we as a group, or me specifically as a pastor, challenge our church to see as a reality we are in fact one. That even though there are differences in culture, race, skin color, worship styles, etc, that we all worship the same Lord. This trip sort of reminded me that in North America we are very self-centered in everything we do. If worship doesn't meet my needs I will find a church that does. But we are putting the focus on ourselves rather than on God. At their church service, we were like honored guests. How do we treat others in our churches? We are one, but we tend to put our needs first in North America.

I definitely learned a lot on this trip. I am glad I went. I am sure I will add more thoughts in the days and weeks ahead. I hope to have the group over and talk about these things again in a few weeks.