Greater Things

And so we're home.

As a youth minister, you always worry about what might happen on a trip. Who might get hurt, who might get lost, what projects might go bad. What I found myself doing for this trip, however, was worrying about what might NOT happen. The kids might NOT meet interesting people (we would just happen to be in San Francisco during the National Boring People's Convention"). The kids might NOT find the work rewarding or useful. The kids might NOT decide this trip was worth everyone's time. Thankfully, God moves and everything that I worried about NOT happening, did in fact happen.

From Amelia actually eating at the ethnic restaurants, Sam's polemic on American greed, Noah's interaction with Eric, Maddie and Erin's interactions with Tim or my fun pool game with Richard...it was a great experience. One I will not soon forget and one I will always cherish in my heart (especially our interaction with Melo...seriously how did he not make it into the blog until now?!)

Sadly mission trips can tend to fall into a pattern of shortened revival/ emotional high to general apathy from the business of everyday life. We must first admit, its not a mission trips fault, the students fault, the ministers fault or anyone's fault that this happens... it just happens.We are people and we tend to forget things. Especially when those things seem so far away and unclaimable.

But this trip is different. This trip is literally right next door. We did nothing this week that we can't do in Antioch. We CAN go to a food bank, we CAN meet a stranger's need with $20, we CAN travel to reno and sleep in a cardboard box for a night to raise money for food shelters, we CAN bring food to the homeless, the hungry and the hurting. We can do all these things and we don't even have to look hard for them either. Opportunity abounds!!

We listened to a song on the first night called "God of this City." The chorus says, "Greater Things Are Yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city." It's a take from Jesus where He tells the disciples that they will do even greater things than they've seen him do. We CAN do all the things we did last week and we WILL. No emotional high, no sympathetic glance without action, we simply will do what God asks us to do. No apathy, no mediocrity, no settling. Greater things are yet to come. Greater things are still to be done in both San Francisco and Antioch. Greater things my friends... greater things.

Kyle and Erin Sapp