How was your trip?

We often get asked "how was the trip?" Many times, the emotions threaten to spill over when we're asked this, and it is easier on our hearts to simply make a general reply like "oh, it was really great!" or "It is so wonderful to spend time with the children." It is wonderful to spend time with the children. It is also heartbreaking and at times haunting. The first year I took my teen on a mission trip, after we returned home, she couldn't sleep more than a few hours at a time without waking and sobbing "Who will love our babies now that we're not there?" She had a crash course in giving her cares to Jesus and knowing He loves our babies more than we do.. And when we speak of our babies -- some of them are adults, in beds, unable to function. They are our babies!

A friend who I have had the honor of serving with on some of our trips wrote this heartfelt post after we returned home. If this is your only view of our work, I would tell you this describes my heart better than anything I could have written myself. I'm sharing this with her hesitant permission. As you read, know this is so. very. real...

My daughter, adopted 9 months ago at almost eight years of age, caught me looking at pictures. They were hard pictures to view. Pictures into a world of disabled starving teenage children. Not from the orphanage that I visit, but from one I had been to before. Thankfully it was also a place where we were starting to see some improvements. She began to ask me questions before I put the photos away…

”Why does he not have a bottom?"

” Well, he does have a bottom, he just doesn’t have any fat or muscle on his bottom so you are just looking a bones with skin stretched over them, and It has happened because he is starving. But, he is getting better because they are starting to feed him more.”

“There was a girl like that at my China home. Her arms and legs were very skinny, but her body wasn’t so skinny.”

“If her body wasn’t so skinny, she was being fed more and that’s good.”

“She was really, really pale.”

“Did she ever go outside?”

“No! Of course not! She couldn’t walk!!”

And just like that, I feel the urge to get on a plane, fly to China, take an overnight train, find a small orphanage, walk up those flights of stairs, and see if I can take one special girl outside. It’s what my heart compels me to do. It’s sometimes exactly what I do when I visit China.

Is it enough?

It never feels like enough. Especially after I’m home.

The statements ring in my head, “You can’t really do anything in one week.” and “You haven’t really done anything to change her life.” I hear those both as my own questions and as statements from people telling why they would never go. I understand the truth of that.

Then amidst the clamor in my head comes a quiet voice ringing like a bell, “I was thirsty and you gave me a drink.”

From Matthew 26:35-36 “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me…Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

A peace washes over my heart. Going is the right thing for me to do. It has value to my King, and suddenly the struggle turns into worship. He loves me like that. He loves ME like that. He would get on a plane, take an overnight train, climb flights of stairs to take me outside. He loves me like that. He loves you like that. There is no one like Jesus and His extravagant love. He is the one that can change a life and sometimes he starts with a heart.