Hey there!
It's been awhile.
I haven't been writing much.
My hands needed a break due to flared-up tendinitis and I never got the hang of voice activated typing. Even after wearing bilateral braces for 6 weeks, my dominant hand has recurring issues related to the tendinitis. On top of that, spring and early summer is our busy season with end of school stuff, family vacation, baseball galore, house projects, summer activities, and Mexico missions trip. Things are finally settling down, as another season is dawning - back to school! But let's not talk about that just yet.
For those of you who don't know, for the past 5 years I have been coordinating a trip and leading a team from Mosaic church to Mexico for a missions exposure trip and meaningful team experience. It has been a blast. I have learned so, so much - so much. I have loved being a part of it, well - most of it! Someone on our team this year explained the experience well - it's like a surreal mountain range or glorious sunset that you want to capture with a camera, but the photo itself never comes out the same as what your eyes behold. It's hard to explain in words just how wonderful a trip like this is, unless you've been there.
Still, year after year, we share our experience as best we can - because even a shadow of the real thing is better than nothing at all, so that others can taste and see that it is good. Here is a glimpse from this year's trip:
The Mexico Team is back from Carmen Serdan, Mexico where we served at La Misión Para Niños. “The Mission” is a special one-of-a-kind place, filled with a kind of peace that can only be created by God's presence. There is a beneficial structure and schedule at The Mission to help it run more effectively, yet there is also a blessed stillness and slowness in the air that gives space for divine interruptions and developing (or deepening) relationships - with God, with those we serve with, and with those we came to serve.
During our time there we met and worked with 15 teens and adults (known affectionately as “the kids”) with a variety of moderate to severe disabilities, alongside staff and other visitors serving like us. The staff and volunteers showed patience and joy while serving one another that truly displayed the heart of God.
Throughout the week we were able to help alleviate some of the burden of the daily running of The Mission by assisting the staff with cleaning, cooking, dishes, landscaping, repairing water lines and fences, electrical work, the building of a chapel and other projects, and last but not least - caring for the kids and spending precious time with them.
The kids are full of wonder - each of them has something unique to offer - a glimpse of God, a way of showing us something new about God, and even about ourselves. There were times of joy and laughter, and times of discomfort and challenge. Many agree that looking into their eyes is the closest you can be to staring into God’s eyes here on earth. One of our team members mentioned that this trip isn’t your typical missions trip - in this place, the kids are the real missionaries and those who come to them find themselves growing closer to God as they serve at The Mission. This is a humbling thing to be ministered by the very ones we came to serve, while feeling truly honored at the same time to have been given such a beautiful blessing.
Everyone at The Mission is family - blessed children of God. They tirelessly love and care for one another and for one week they kindly welcomed us into their home to be a part of their family. Along the way, our mosaic team came together as a family as well - with a sense of belonging and brotherly affection.
On the surface, our team is a very diverse group of 13 broken pieces - each with their own “suitcase”, their own story, scars, struggles, smiles and strengths, but in Christ we are brothers and sisters who shared times of sweet fellowship and laughter, vulnerable sharing and praying, sincere caring and encouraging - looking out for and bearing with one another in love through all the strangeness, sweating, smells, snoring, stress, silliness, struggles and sufferings. It was uplifting - being surrounded by people who love Jesus, and it was refreshing - beginning every morning and ending every evening with a time of worship through prayer, song, scripture reading and sharing. The love and like-mindedness of Christ Jesus was surely in our midst.
Although we shared this experience together - in the same hot van, at the same place, with the same people, doing similar things - God touched each one of us personally and we are each bringing back something uniquely meaningful. There is so much more we could say, but for some things it’s best to say that, “what happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico!”
We want to warmly thank our mosaic family for your support and prayers. We are certain that the Sovereign Lord protected us in our travels (faulty van and faulty plane), provided for us (new van and new plane), and furthermore provided for us opportunities to: know and trust Him more, share the Gospel, carry each other’s burdens, lift burdens, be patient and gentle, quickly restore unity and peace when conflict arose, grow through testings and trials of various kinds, and take away something new and forever treasured. We feel grateful that God would choose us, send us, work in us, and use us just as we are - chipped and clay vessels - to display His glory and goodness, while making us more like Him. A mosaic, a beautiful mosaic.
(to learn more about this wonderful place, visit: www.one27foundation.org)
More to come - from me - likely after the hubby and kiddos head back to school! Until then...
Grace and peace to you ~
SS
It's been awhile.
I haven't been writing much.
My hands needed a break due to flared-up tendinitis and I never got the hang of voice activated typing. Even after wearing bilateral braces for 6 weeks, my dominant hand has recurring issues related to the tendinitis. On top of that, spring and early summer is our busy season with end of school stuff, family vacation, baseball galore, house projects, summer activities, and Mexico missions trip. Things are finally settling down, as another season is dawning - back to school! But let's not talk about that just yet.
For those of you who don't know, for the past 5 years I have been coordinating a trip and leading a team from Mosaic church to Mexico for a missions exposure trip and meaningful team experience. It has been a blast. I have learned so, so much - so much. I have loved being a part of it, well - most of it! Someone on our team this year explained the experience well - it's like a surreal mountain range or glorious sunset that you want to capture with a camera, but the photo itself never comes out the same as what your eyes behold. It's hard to explain in words just how wonderful a trip like this is, unless you've been there.
Still, year after year, we share our experience as best we can - because even a shadow of the real thing is better than nothing at all, so that others can taste and see that it is good. Here is a glimpse from this year's trip:
The Mexico Team is back from Carmen Serdan, Mexico where we served at La Misión Para Niños. “The Mission” is a special one-of-a-kind place, filled with a kind of peace that can only be created by God's presence. There is a beneficial structure and schedule at The Mission to help it run more effectively, yet there is also a blessed stillness and slowness in the air that gives space for divine interruptions and developing (or deepening) relationships - with God, with those we serve with, and with those we came to serve.
During our time there we met and worked with 15 teens and adults (known affectionately as “the kids”) with a variety of moderate to severe disabilities, alongside staff and other visitors serving like us. The staff and volunteers showed patience and joy while serving one another that truly displayed the heart of God.
Throughout the week we were able to help alleviate some of the burden of the daily running of The Mission by assisting the staff with cleaning, cooking, dishes, landscaping, repairing water lines and fences, electrical work, the building of a chapel and other projects, and last but not least - caring for the kids and spending precious time with them.
The kids are full of wonder - each of them has something unique to offer - a glimpse of God, a way of showing us something new about God, and even about ourselves. There were times of joy and laughter, and times of discomfort and challenge. Many agree that looking into their eyes is the closest you can be to staring into God’s eyes here on earth. One of our team members mentioned that this trip isn’t your typical missions trip - in this place, the kids are the real missionaries and those who come to them find themselves growing closer to God as they serve at The Mission. This is a humbling thing to be ministered by the very ones we came to serve, while feeling truly honored at the same time to have been given such a beautiful blessing.
Everyone at The Mission is family - blessed children of God. They tirelessly love and care for one another and for one week they kindly welcomed us into their home to be a part of their family. Along the way, our mosaic team came together as a family as well - with a sense of belonging and brotherly affection.
On the surface, our team is a very diverse group of 13 broken pieces - each with their own “suitcase”, their own story, scars, struggles, smiles and strengths, but in Christ we are brothers and sisters who shared times of sweet fellowship and laughter, vulnerable sharing and praying, sincere caring and encouraging - looking out for and bearing with one another in love through all the strangeness, sweating, smells, snoring, stress, silliness, struggles and sufferings. It was uplifting - being surrounded by people who love Jesus, and it was refreshing - beginning every morning and ending every evening with a time of worship through prayer, song, scripture reading and sharing. The love and like-mindedness of Christ Jesus was surely in our midst.
Although we shared this experience together - in the same hot van, at the same place, with the same people, doing similar things - God touched each one of us personally and we are each bringing back something uniquely meaningful. There is so much more we could say, but for some things it’s best to say that, “what happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico!”
We want to warmly thank our mosaic family for your support and prayers. We are certain that the Sovereign Lord protected us in our travels (faulty van and faulty plane), provided for us (new van and new plane), and furthermore provided for us opportunities to: know and trust Him more, share the Gospel, carry each other’s burdens, lift burdens, be patient and gentle, quickly restore unity and peace when conflict arose, grow through testings and trials of various kinds, and take away something new and forever treasured. We feel grateful that God would choose us, send us, work in us, and use us just as we are - chipped and clay vessels - to display His glory and goodness, while making us more like Him. A mosaic, a beautiful mosaic.
(to learn more about this wonderful place, visit: www.one27foundation.org)
More to come - from me - likely after the hubby and kiddos head back to school! Until then...
Grace and peace to you ~
SS
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