Shared By Brent Billings – Age 18 on Sunday 8/24/2008 at Berea UMC
Good morning. How is everyone doing this morning? Good?? We’re sitting in our nice cozy pews, in our fancy dress up cloths, in our cool air conditioned church. We even have windows and doors. What about that. It’s nice to be rich… “Rich?! I’m not rich!” Is probably what most of you are thinking right now. Well let’s define rich shall we?
We wake up every morning from our soft warm beds, take a long hot shower, and pick out what we will wear for that particular day from our wide variety of cloths in our closet, fixing ourselves a tasty breakfast, then get in our cars and leave for work or school. That’s not what rich is… That’s middle class…… Well if that is our definition of middle class, then what do we view as rich??
Is Rich waking up in a mansion, having servants pick out your cloths for you. The chef has your breakfast waiting for you on the table and it’s still warm. You get in the limo and your driver takes you where u want to go that day. Is this what we see as middle class and rich??
Now before you decide, take a second and imagine this lifestyle. Put yourself in these shoes…
Waking up on the dirt floor of your one room house with your family of 8, it’s hot because there are no windows or doors to keep out the hot sticky summer air. You are hungry because you didn’t have dinner last night so your kids wouldn’t go hungry. You are curious to see what’s for breakfast….or if there will be breakfast. No need to worry about what to wear because of the two changes of clothes that you have (one which you are wearing now) and the other being your church outfit which you only wear to services. There is also no worry for a shower because it hasn’t rained in the past week so no water. And even if there was, it would be cold, dirty rain water that gets caught in a big rain barrel out back. You can leave the kids asleep on the dirt floor. Don’t worry about getting them off to school because you don’t have the money to send them. They will wake up whenever they want and run around in the streets with the other kids during the day.
Now what would our society classify that lifestyle as?? Poor?? You see its funny because our society defines them poor and us as middle class, where as their society classifies their lifestyle as middle class and ours as filthy rich.
Ok let me make a transition and ask you another question.
Are we happy?? Shouldn’t we be happy?? I want you to raise your hand if you have been upset or unhappy since you woke up this morning. What about the last 24 hours. Ok now I want you to think about that time or a time recently when you were unhappy about something. Any why. Why were you unhappy? It couldn’t have been that big of a deal right. I mean look at everything we have to be happy about. Why are we unhappy??
While in Honduras our team met and saw A LOT of people. And you can ask anyone who was on that trip with us how many unhappy people we witnessed. There wasn’t a single one I can remember.
Let’s think about this for a second shall we??
As a whole, people in our society today are unhappy and complain about too many of things. If the people in Honduras saw us right now they would ask “They are rich. They have everything. What are they complaining about? They shouldn’t be worrying about anything.” But yet we still take everything we have for granted.
So with all this new insight, lets define rich again…..
Our first definition was – A nice house, nice cloths, a lot of money.
I think our new and real definition should be “rich – love, happiness, and Jesus Christ in your heart.”
And that’s what Honduras has. Loving, happy, Christ filled people.
This VIM team went to Honduras to help a poor broken nation. But instead what we got in return was help in our own lives from the richest people I have ever met. We did a lot of hard work down there but I honestly believe they helped us and touched us more than we even began to help them. Its funny to see how God works in his mysterious ways. He used what we thought were the poor, needy, and helpless (which are truly the most helpful, rich and bountiful) to help the real poor and needy……..US.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Reflection by Chuck Conley Team Member
I volunteered to go on the Honduras trip, and then I decided I could not go. Then over the next two weeks I simply could not get it out of my mind. I told my Sunday school class that I had no idea why but I just had to go. So, I did.
I had traveled to Central America in the past and I believe I knew what to expect. I found things different than before. On one hand they seem to be connected, at least to the internet and other modern trappings to which we are accustomed to in the U.S. On the other hand the poverty I remembered was still there.
I remember how confused I was as a younger man at my inability to make sense of how the poor people of Panama seemed otherwise to be happy. This was magnified on this trip because the construction of the church was in its third year. How could these people be pleased with progress so slow? Why I could get a crew from the U.S. to come down and with just a few more modern methods we could have this up in no time.
Then I remembered my promise to myself before leaving Berea. First, I wanted to bring to the trip no prejudgement. God loves all people no matter how they live and where they live. I needed to have that acceptance and love as well. I decided there were three things that I could do to help me reach this goal, a lofty goal for me. Number 1, I started the week before going with introspection. Why was I going? How could I be what I needed to be at the right time and place? Then simply to take a good hard look at who I am. Number 2, I wanted to be a part of a team and really it appealed to me that I did not know some of the people going very well. What better way to learn about people than to be with them for 10 days of service to others? Number 3, I wanted to be able to minister to the people I traveled with and especially the people we were going to help.
I never worked any harder in my life. I was dog tired at the end of each day. I did take the time to sit down each evening and evaluate the day, and then we did it as a group. This helped, yet I was unsettled about some feelings of frustration. We could do this much faster if we had the right tools. Why can’t they get supplies to us when we need them? At the end of the week we finished the task set before us, and in record time. Still I was frustrated because I knew with the right tools and materials on time we could have done a great deal more.
Then I thought over the church services we attended with the people we were helping. They were grateful to their Lord for the progress, for their lives, and their blessings. They laughed easily. The dog was welcome in church. After church we left for the last time where we had labored for a week. What I remember are the happy faces, the handshakes, the children who had been our constant companions and hugs from all expressing their thanks. It was hard to leave.
On the return trip something kept nagging at the edges of my consciousness. I just could not quite figure out what was there. After a week at home and not being able to get my mind off of all I had seen and heard. It finally struck me. I went to minister to them and they had been the ones doing the ministering to. I also realized that the speed that the church is being built is of no concern to these loving people. Indeed, it had provided for nearly three years a stream of other Christians from far away coming to them to help reach a goal, and in so doing, the spirit of Christ permeated that place for all the participants. They reveled in the joy of anticipation of what is to come. One day a church. One day Christ.
In conclusion, everyone wins when one serves others, and as I found out the servers become the served. Our beloved Berea United Methodist Church is a winner for the encouragement provided to our team members. In the event you have an opportunity to serve, here at home or somewhere far away, keep in mind that by doing so you will create a community of winners in Christ.
Sincerely submitted by,
Chuck Conley
I had traveled to Central America in the past and I believe I knew what to expect. I found things different than before. On one hand they seem to be connected, at least to the internet and other modern trappings to which we are accustomed to in the U.S. On the other hand the poverty I remembered was still there.
I remember how confused I was as a younger man at my inability to make sense of how the poor people of Panama seemed otherwise to be happy. This was magnified on this trip because the construction of the church was in its third year. How could these people be pleased with progress so slow? Why I could get a crew from the U.S. to come down and with just a few more modern methods we could have this up in no time.
Then I remembered my promise to myself before leaving Berea. First, I wanted to bring to the trip no prejudgement. God loves all people no matter how they live and where they live. I needed to have that acceptance and love as well. I decided there were three things that I could do to help me reach this goal, a lofty goal for me. Number 1, I started the week before going with introspection. Why was I going? How could I be what I needed to be at the right time and place? Then simply to take a good hard look at who I am. Number 2, I wanted to be a part of a team and really it appealed to me that I did not know some of the people going very well. What better way to learn about people than to be with them for 10 days of service to others? Number 3, I wanted to be able to minister to the people I traveled with and especially the people we were going to help.
I never worked any harder in my life. I was dog tired at the end of each day. I did take the time to sit down each evening and evaluate the day, and then we did it as a group. This helped, yet I was unsettled about some feelings of frustration. We could do this much faster if we had the right tools. Why can’t they get supplies to us when we need them? At the end of the week we finished the task set before us, and in record time. Still I was frustrated because I knew with the right tools and materials on time we could have done a great deal more.
Then I thought over the church services we attended with the people we were helping. They were grateful to their Lord for the progress, for their lives, and their blessings. They laughed easily. The dog was welcome in church. After church we left for the last time where we had labored for a week. What I remember are the happy faces, the handshakes, the children who had been our constant companions and hugs from all expressing their thanks. It was hard to leave.
On the return trip something kept nagging at the edges of my consciousness. I just could not quite figure out what was there. After a week at home and not being able to get my mind off of all I had seen and heard. It finally struck me. I went to minister to them and they had been the ones doing the ministering to. I also realized that the speed that the church is being built is of no concern to these loving people. Indeed, it had provided for nearly three years a stream of other Christians from far away coming to them to help reach a goal, and in so doing, the spirit of Christ permeated that place for all the participants. They reveled in the joy of anticipation of what is to come. One day a church. One day Christ.
In conclusion, everyone wins when one serves others, and as I found out the servers become the served. Our beloved Berea United Methodist Church is a winner for the encouragement provided to our team members. In the event you have an opportunity to serve, here at home or somewhere far away, keep in mind that by doing so you will create a community of winners in Christ.
Sincerely submitted by,
Chuck Conley
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Team Sharing Dates
If you are interested in hearing more about our experience in Honduras please make plans to come to one of the following events at our church.
Sunday Worship - August 24 The team will be sharing at the 8:30 and 11:00 services.
Wednesday - September 3 - Our church is having Pot-luck meal and the team will be making a presentation at that time.
We also will be scheduling at least one over event.
Sunday Worship - August 24 The team will be sharing at the 8:30 and 11:00 services.
Wednesday - September 3 - Our church is having Pot-luck meal and the team will be making a presentation at that time.
We also will be scheduling at least one over event.
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