The Journey of a Summer Missionary

The summer between my sophomore and junior years of college I worked as an agricultural summer missionary on the Rio Grande River.  It was north of Presidio, Texas near where the road on the US side ends and several miles past where the paved road stops.  It was Ruidoso, Texas and Los Barancos, Mexico.  It was hot and dusty and dry and remote. 

It was digging holes in rocky ground near people's homes for peach trees to be planted later by another mission team.  It was setting up a primitive home garden irrigation system that would water the trees and gardens around the adobe huts people lived in.  It was living in an adobe hut too with no electricity and one faucet of running water.  It was not seeing a TV or movie or a newspaper for 10 weeks. It was seeing a lot of conflict on my team, enough that people had to be reassigned, twice.  It was questioning why I was there.  It was rough.

Later I heard that all the trees that I had dug holes for died.  I heard that the irrigation systems we set up did not work.  I heard the pastor that we had worked with was arrested.  I heard the church we worked with was failing. I struggled to hear anything from God.

I looked and did not see what I thought I would.  I did not see anyone come to Christ that summer.  I did not see the work of Christ furthered in what I had done.  I did not see Christians working together in unity.  I did not see any results - at least not for a while I didn't. 

Even in that experience I heard a calling from God on my life.  Even in that, I saw that I had made it through by the grace of God.  In that experience, I saw results, just not the results I had been looking for.  I saw that I had grown and the only tangible results that I could point to were the only results I needed.  The results were in me.  Sometimes when we join Him in His mission, we are the only results we see.

For the journey...