(Two years ago this month, I went on my first mission trip. Our Sisterhood team spent a week in Craigavon, assisting Celebration Church Northern Ireland. I recorded our adventure as the official blogger for the team and the trip was indeed life-changing. Recently I’ve been reflecting on my time there, and wanted to share some of our experience here, now that this space has been created).
June 18, 2014
After four countries and 28 hours of travel, we have arrived! The water is blue, the country is green, and we are tired, But good tired. Well, really more like exhausted. But a good exhausted. We have traveled by plane, by bus, and by van. We have spent hours sitting and waiting. Yesterday (at least I think it was yesterday) we spent an 8 hr layover in the airport in Toronto, Canada. The weather was such that we could not wander into the city, so we found ways to keep calm inside as the storm raged just outside.
We ate, we walked, we talked, and we bonded. We played cards and read books. We wrote in our journals and made phone calls home. We gathered in a circle and did a devotional. Eight hours stuck in an airport is not ideal; but we learned to be content. Much of the time we spend on our walk with God is spent waiting, so we must learn to be content in the waiting period, for the waiting time is your prep time-–time that God prepares you for your next step.
There are twelve of us on the trip. We all know each other, but each of us has a different level of connection with the various women on the team. There are some strong, deep bonds among us, as well as several surface friendships. Our waiting time allowed us the opportunity to get to know each other better. We bonded as a group, and as individuals. We are stronger as a team, and we will need that strength as we walk through the next several days of this mission trip.
(We arrived in Dublin about 11:30 and drove 2 hours north, where we dropped our luggage at the team house and immediately boarded the van again, chauffeured by Ps. John who showed us around the beautiful countryside).
Pastor John also delighted us with a trip to the Peace Maze. It is a massive maze of pathways and shrubbery and at its heart sits a peace bell. The idea is to walk the maze and find your way to the bell of peace. A group of 10 entered the maze first, followed shortly by Nilda and me, who had stopped to take some pictures.
As anyone who has walked one of these things knows, some paths we took ended in a wall of shrubbery, and others just circled us back to where we had already been. We could hear other voices, but we could not see them. After close to half an hour, Nilda and I managed to find the center, and could see where the bell had stood. As we had circled to the center, the path we were on had risen in elevation, so that when we arrived at our destination, we stood high above the others.
There was a bridge overlooking the site and as we approached it, we could see the maze in its entirety. It was huge! Much larger than either of us had thought while walking it. It was simply amazing, what we could see from this higher perspective. Not only could we see the whole maze, we could see each and every twist and turn. We could see which path led to success, and which was a dead end. And…we could see our sisters, trying to make their way through. No longer were they a pack of 10, for at some point they had broken into pieces of the original group. They were now walking two or three together, and a couple had gone off completely on their own. They were scattered and lost, walking in circles of frustration and exhaustion. But Nilda and I, perched at our elevated level, called out to those struggling to find their way.
From where I stood, I was able to see where I had taken a wrong turn, and say, “No, don’t go that way, it leads to a dead end.” I could see their faces light up as they found a new path that looked so enticing. But I knew it led to nowhere, for I could see the end. One by one, our sisters found that bell, that peace, because Nilda and I did what sisters do–we reached out to those who were walking through the same wilderness we once had, and we showed them the way.
We are Sisterhood.
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