Aug 11 2008
clarity
This is the first blog I’ve ever done. The idea has always intrigued me, but I’ve never had a consistent topic that I felt I could write about over an extended period of time. I read professional blogs every day and most of them center around the technology industry, but none of them are personal or creative.
My intent for this blog was to map my personal journey from the initiation to the follow-through of my first mission trip. I wanted to be as honest as detailed as possible and I hope that you, as the readers, were able to grasp the situations as I experienced them.
The popularity of this blog and the response we received was truly mind-boggling. Once I sent the link to Adam on the day of our last pre-trip meeting, he took it an ran with it. He publicized it to the group as a noteworthy item and I obliged by sending it to them. I figured they were going through the same kind of stuff I was going through, or not at all, and they would get to know me a little better as well. What ensued from there was nothing less than wildfire. The team members each sent it out to their family members as a way for them to keep up with the group and what we were doing during the week. Almost immediately I started getting comments from family members with prayers and well-wishes directed towards the entire team! The blog was starting to develop a community!
Once we got to Costa Rica, the blog has already become a hot topic. The buzz was starting. It was then that I knew this was quickly going to become bigger than me or any of us. This blog had brought all of us together to communicate our experiences, and in the midst of our outreach in Costa Rica, we were creating another form of outreach for the readers at home.
The climax of the week for me was learning that Pastor Ryan had sent an email out to the entire UUMC email list!! That’s a potential of several thousand more readers to learn about our mission and what we were doing in Costa Rica — amazing. Not long after this, we were getting comments from total strangers that believed in what we were doing and had even made the decision to go on their OWN first mission trip after reading our story. That sent chills down my back. I truly felt that God was working through my writing. The team was invigorated at the news and you could feel the excitement rejuvenate everyone.
What I will take away from this mission trip has nothing to do with the mission itself. As we learned in our preliminary classes, in our first mission trip we would be learning so much more than we would be teaching. What I learned was that my love for writing has laid dormant for way too long. I am a programmer by trade, so the only writing I’ve had to do is boring technical documentation along with detailed emails — not exactly what you would call “creative writing”.
I’ve never had more clarity in my life that writing is my spiritual gift. It brings me joy to communicate exactly they way I experience the world, and God can use my joy and my gift to reach out to His kingdom. That kind of clarity can bring a man to tears.
In His Name,
-RB