Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Sharing the Burden

August 15, 2013 will always be a special day for me. It is the day that my family of six arrived in Mexico City to begin our ministry among our brothers-and-sisters in Christ to the lost of the city. Troy and I first received our calling to serve in Mexico in 1999. Later, God changed the organization--and location--where we would serve to One Mission Society in Mexico City. We were accepted to OMS and appointed to MC in December, 2007, and began fundraising the following May. Therefore, this special day had been long awaited (14 years from the time we initially received our Mexican calling; 5 years after we began fundraising). Long anticipated and longed for. There are no words to adequately describe my emotions that day. In a previous post of our ministry blog, I tried to describe some of them. Suffice it to say I was a weepy mess all day. From the time we checked our bags in (although those were more tears of relief that it was done), to handing our tickets and passport to the agent at the gate, to the initial take off and landing, to walking outside after easing through customs and immigration and finding Steve, our field director, waiting for us, to the drive back to the seminary in the NW part of the city, to our first Sunday worshiping with our Mexican brothers-and-sisters in Christ at the Campanario church (interestingly enough, the very same church we attended 5 years ago when we visited MC with the kids), to the kids’ first day of school at Mexico City Christian Academy yesterday... Many, many moments where tears of gratitude, of extreme happiness would overcome me and rain down my face.

Of course there have been (and will continue to be, I’m sure) moments where I feel completely over my head. I’d never seen the city from the sky before. Let me tell you, it is quite overwhelming. Everywhere your eye falls, there are streets. Buildings. Houses. People. People who don’t know that Jesus came to set them free from a life of sin. People who don’t know that the saints they turn to for comfort can no more fill that hole inside them than I can.

There is a voice in my head that says, “You are just one person. What can you do for so many?” Of course, it’s not anything I do that matters. Jesus can reach out to these people Himself--He doesn’t need me. I’m blessed to be the vessel chosen to minister to His lost children. A few people came up to me this weekend, wanting to express how thankful they are that I left everything behind to come here and minister to their people. To reach the lost. Even as I type that, it gives me chills. There were many people along our fundraising journey who questioned us. Why, after struggling for so long in our funding, were we still determined to go to Mexico? Why not just stay and reach the Mexicans at home? The mission field has come to us, they said. And for some, this is true. But we knew with every fiber of our beings that God was calling us to go. The look on these faces, the tears of humble gratitude in their eyes as they thanked me confirms that we were right not to waver. I don’t know that we can reach the lost in Mexico any better than her own sons and daughters can. But we have something very special in common: we both feel a deep burden for these men, women, and children who live in spiritual bondage.

And so the ministry begins. Together.

No comments: