Change your life

A group from our congregation and another are on a mission trip in Guatemala. My husband, who speaks fluent Spanish, has visited there many times and was eager to see dear friends. My teenage son, also on the trip and traveling out of the country for the first time, just added a contribution to the blog intended to keep family, friends and church folks updated. It's an uneasy responsibility to take church kids anywhere - those of us at home like to hear proof that they are alive and well!

My son used the word "life-changing" to describe what he and the group had seen and experienced so far.

I wonder what he means by that.

Change is relentless, hard work - it's far easier to slip back into the patterns of life as usual. How can we - as parents, as families, as a community of faith - truly support the stirrings of change and transformation and faith that we hope a mission trip will foster?

After traveling to Tanzania with a group from our church a few years ago, a common question to be asked when I returned was "Aren't you so grateful for everything we have here?"  Our sisters and brothers in areas of Tanzania and Guatemala and certainly other parts of the world experience levels of poverty and injustice and daily struggle that are difficult for us to truly comprehend, even after visiting for a few whirlwind days. Life isn't fair - and I do enjoy many advantages including reliable access to food, education and health care. As a woman, I have opportunities that my sisters around the world do not share. I am grateful for what I have - sort of. Sometimes.

But I hope gratitude - or relief that we live here and not there - is not the only response my son has to what he has witnessed and experienced. I hope he also has a growing sense of wonder and compassion and at least a tiny bit of outrage that seeks the good for all.

What kinds of life-changing experiences have you had? How were you able to actually be changed by them?