No Zip Lines Needed

So here I am, sitting on the couch trying to wrap my head around the task we are scheduled to perform next week. On July 17 at 2:30 a.m. my wife and I with 9 young adults will travel to Akron Canton Airport to board a plane. Our final destination is Nassau, Bahamas where we will spend a week working in an AIDS camp. 


What is an AIDS camp? Well, essentially it is a camp where those affected with HIV/AIDS will go to die. Just a couple decades ago it was a Leper Colony - yes, seriously. 


So why are we going? To do good. To help people. Want me to spout off some bible verses to make this official? I can do that, but I don't have the time to list them all - the bible is chock full of 'em, both in the Old Testament and New Testament. We are going not just to help, but to love. More on this later... 


As a Youth Director I try and plan mission work that has a focus on the "work" portion. It has gotten difficult in recent years, especially in our area where we compete with "Christian" social groups that have parties and go to camps where they learn the love of Christ while travelling on zip lines and swimming all day. All well and good, of course - I'm sure Jesus would zip line if they existed in His day. But it can be a difficult sell convincing someone, even parents, that there is more to being a Christian. And so, when choosing between a work camp and a party camp, most youth and parents choose the party camp (parents just choose whatever the youth wants - I mean, hey, they're both "christian", right?). 
Maybe that's why I am so tremendously proud of the 9 young adults - Brigitte, Elizabeth, Sam, Logan, Veronica, Alissa, Kelsey, Waverly and Ashley - who have chosen to go somewhere that they know will be hot and miserable. They all signed up knowing they would have to earn their way onto the trip - the work trip. They knew only that they didn't exactly know what they were in for, if that makes any sense at all. No fancy full color brochures here - just a simple "trust me - it's gonna be awesome. We get to work all day in the heat miles from the nearest beach. Then we get to go to church - every night". 


Sounds like some people's version of a nightmare. 


No zip lines to be seen. Just a bunch of incredibly poor people who have been marginalized by society and left to die. 


Left to die. Ouch. 


The book of James has thrust itself onto the very top of my Bible book list because of it's length and content combined. Not a lot of filler here. Its about being a Christian and how we need to actually DO what we say. 
Check this out: James 2:14-18 (The Message) 


14-17"Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup
where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? 18I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department." Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove." 


Yep, I can hear James talking to his kids now: "No zip lining until you've finished your homework, young man!" 
I'm sure Jesus would have finished his vegetables, fed the poor, maybe healed a guy or two, and then hit the lines - or whatever term we use.


 We are supposed to work. The reason, or one of them, is that the work changes us. Yes, it does good and it helps people, but it changes US as well. The hard work and the sweat, the tears and the smiles, all produce a spiritual and emotional high that cannot be duplicated. 


That, my friends, if love in it's purest form. Too powerful for even us to contain. That spiritual high explodes from us and infects the people around us. Yes, love spreads like wildfire when we let it. 


And so, we will be working hard, and we will experience love, and we will give love. Through giving we will receive all we need. 


And though the week will begin with complaints of the heat, the long day and the minimal food portions, I have been on enough of these to know that the last day there will be no complaints. There will be feelings of gratitude for the wealth that these poor and downtrodden people have given us. An appreciation for our lives, for our country and for God. We will be satisfied with the peanut butter and jelly. No - we will love the peanut butter and jelly. We will love each other. We will love God and rejoice in the love He gives us, because we will see that God is love. 


And we will bond with each other and we will bond with Christ. 






No zip line needed. 


-B