Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.
Today was the first day of my first mission trip ever. What a great and glorious day! Of course, tonight will be a FOUR Advil night because my muscles from mid-back to my shoulders are hurting something fierce. But it was all worth it! And all of this out of a day, that I really didn’t expect much too happen.
I woke up this morning and checked the weather before leaving for breakfast. It was not too promising; sixty percent chance of showers starting about eleven this morning and the rain on the radar heading this way. I talked it over with Benjie, our church’s youth director, and we both agreed we would try to get as much done before the rain came. We got to the site and surveyed what we needed to do; scrape all the paint we could off an old storage shed and re-paint it. The house belonged to a gentleman who was disabled confined to his bed. His older sister lives with them taking care of him. We were told by the mission group we are serving with that it would probably take us about a day and a half to get everything done. Somebody forgot to tell our kids that.
They hit the ground running. All eight of our church’s youth were scraping that shed like there was no tomorrow. During all of this and throughout the afternoon the older sister, Miss Rebekah, came out side to thank us time after time. The kids were working hard and she wanted them to know how thankful she and her brother were. Well, in no time the shed was ready for painting so we went ahead and got the kids painting. One problem; the mission group only gave us one gallon of paint (and it was a gallon of Kilz primer).
Needless to say, one gallon of paint among eight painters did not last long. While they were finishing up with the paint, we received a surprise. A lady across the street saw what we were doing and came over to tell us how thankful we were to see us helping one of her neighbors and then offered to make us homemade fried pies in return. We came to bless someone and now we were the ones being blessed in return by someone we weren’t even serving. I love it when God does that!
So we ate our lunch and then waited for some more paint to show up. It finally did (two more gallons of primer) and by the end of our day we had the shed looking good. All of us, especially the kids were tired and ready to head back and try to take a shower so we could get some of the paint chips out of hair and the paint off of us wherever it landed.
As we headed back, I wondered what the kids thought about their day. Did they regret coming? Were they thinking about the great job they had just finished or were they wishing they were back home laying out by the pool with their friends? It was then I remembered one of my favorite verses from being a youth counselor. First Timothy 4:12 which says, “Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
The youth group of Mount Gilead lived and portrayed that verse today throughout painting and scraping with not a complaint to be heard from them. On this day, these wonderful hard working kids were examples in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity to Miss Rebekah, her brother, to the neighbor with fried pies, and best of all, their proud pastor. I am truly blessed to be the pastor such a great group of young women and men. Thank you Lord for crossing my paths with theirs.
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