Life Is Short - Make the Most of Each Day

TAKE A LITTLE TIME AWAY TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT

In the last 40 years many folk have participated in short term mission experiences that have been enjoyable. While we were serving in Spain building 3 churches, we actually did not have many real short term vacation helpers come. We had some workers who came for 2-3 yr. short term assignments. Several of them went on to do longer term mission service elsewhere later on. Such projects are generally more good for the ones who prepare, go, serve and then return home than they are of true benefit to the missionaries on the ground long term. (This writer did a research paper on this subject when studying at the Denver Seminary back in 1969).

Below is a brief listing of short term projects that were meaningful to this writer.

1) Navajo Indian Reservation in N.E. Arizona. We took a group of about 10 teenagers from our local church in 1972 and ran a Vacation Bible School for area Navajo children. We had the high schoolers sing songs, teach stories, make crafts, and play games with the kiddos. As adults, we drove around for hours rounding up the Indian children on the dry, dusty Reservation, teaching our teens, cooking & shopping, and disciplining them. Some of our teens later, as adults, went off to serve in remote mission areas such as Peru and Russia.

2) Folsom Prison in Calif. was where we went with our church baseball team. We played against the prisoners and then shared in a chapel service with these criminals back in 1966.

3) Rescue missions in Chicago, Denver, San Jose,CA and Wichita, KS were places where we went and sang, preached, and counseled with folk living on the street. As often as one preaches in such venues, it's never clear if one's words are adequate to speak to the needs of those people.

4) A big brother project in inner city Denver, called "Partners" was started by a fellow seminary classmate in 1969. We pared up with 2 black fellows in trouble with Juvenile Hall. We brought them every week to our youth ministry program in a white suburb, let them play in our church basketball league,etc. My wife and I drove these 2 guys with us to vacation one summer in California. One of the fellows later finished high school, & college, got a Master's Degree, a pilot's license, and started his own Denver realty company.

5) A former country club swimming pool was what our church bought in San Jose, CA. We spent the summer of 1969 interacting with and teaching teens around the pool. We got them involved in many Bible studies, although the Calif. scene was into drugs, anti-war protests, and rock music. There was tremendous interest in the Word noted by the thirsty youth.

6) While studying Psychology & Counseling in grad school days, this writer took time to visit Denver Pyschiatric Wards of local hospitals, including resident Mental Health Facilities. Spending time in one-on-one sessions as well as long Group Therapy meetings was grueling, painful, and yet, somewhat rewarding. Many folk hospitalized therein were of above-average intelligence.

7) We spent time interviewing many people in downtown Wichita for our film project, "The Back Seat" in 1975-76, and visiting with a lot of the homeless and alcoholics. One finds lots of needs in the center of a downtown area.

8) They were living in America but had their own world. This was an Armenian community living in Fresno, CA, and the assignment in 1978 was to go and make contact with these folk,who spoke a different language, find out their needs, and see if we could point to Christ as the Answer.

9) There was a big rainstorm that produced a flood of the river in east Wichita, KS back in 1976. We went to work on a project making a levee with the Mennonite Disaster Service. It was long into the night, but the sandbags held and the town was not severely damaged.

10) Some evangelical musicians were coming to town, and we wanted to have a good sized forum for their message to be heard back in the early 1980s. So, we went to the office of the Mayor of Madrid, Spain, and obtained permission to hold concerts in an outdoor amphitheater in this city of 5 million people. Now, almost 30 years later, one off the young people in our church realized a vision to put an evangelical radio station together that broadcast to that same city every day.

11) It was a new assignment for our mission team, back in 1985, when a few families moved to an abandoned town of hulking high rises. New contractors came in to Tres Cantos, Spain to open up apartment living after many years of neglect. Our workers went around to meet & greet all the new families that came there, share the love of Christ, and invite them to Bible studies, sports, and contact activities. Now, 24 years later, the town has over 65,000 people, and the town has donated land for a new church building for the congregation we started there.

12) Our church was not the first, nor the only group, to go help rebuild Gulfport, MS after Hurricane Katrina came & devastated whole sections of that region. But, our rebuilding trip a few years ago, with fellows from our church, was just one small part of giving people hope, showing them the love of Christ, and getting a roof over their heads.

Maybe only in Eternity will we know the results of some of these short term efforts. God bless those countless thousands of folk who give up their vacation time, their money and their efforts to make a difference somewhere else on God's big & wide mission field!

--Torrey Brinkley