For the last two Wednesdays I’ve gone to First Baptist to talk to the kids’ missions class. First off, I can’t even begin to tell you how cool I think it is that they even have a kids’ missions class that studies missions and missionaries and different countries every week.
Cameron describes her view of missionaries (before becoming one) as people who were “just a little bit too excited about Jesus” and that even among great Christian people in the Church, the last thing you’d ever want to be was a missionary. I have to say that I felt pretty much the same way until only a few short years ago, probably mostly because of my lack of experience with career missionaries and a similar lack of understanding both of what goes into and comes out of missions.
How much more fruitful my two short-term mission experiences in high school would have been if I’d had a better understanding of the whole idea of missions for years by then.
And I hope that those dozen or so kids actually did take something away from my and Jerry’s experiences other than how cool they’re going to think I am because they all think I’m fluent in Spanish and can play anything by ear (I’m translating the postcards they wrote and Heather gave me the key for a 3-chord song that thus was really simple to pick up).
What’s cool is I feel like they did take something from it. And that’s way more due to Heather than to me or Jerry. I taught them a couple songs (I should have videoed all the gringitos doing “Yo Yo” for Sarita) and told them what they meant, but all these well-trained little critters actually asked what it meant, delving a lot deeper into the theological realm than I’m used to for mostly second- to fifth-graders. I told them about eating cuy, and they weren’t any more grossed out than most of the high school seniors on my teams. They seemed to grasp pretty well the idea of people living in the jungle and lacking many of the things people here don’t tend to think they could get along without.
And through that, a bunch of elementary-schoolers actually understand pretty well the purpose and importance of missions, and that we are all missionaries, whether in a foreign land or at the corner of Dyer and Main.
I’m proud of them. I’m a little jealous that they have this at their age. And I’m fueled, hopeful, and desperate for that “active ministry” I mentioned to Dana and Teddy.
🙂
