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annietipton · 8 years ago

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Friends and Family,

Last year I celebrated 10 years at the company I work for. A decade. 120 months. 3,650 days. 29,200 hours on the clock. (1,752,000 seconds, in case you’re wondering about the math on that one.)

I’m thankful to say that I love my job. In addition to a paycheck, personal satisfaction, fulfilling working relationships, and professional challenges, after 10 years of service I gained an extra week of paid vacation. Sweet. An extra week at the beach? Sign me up.

But God poked my heart a bit—asking me to think about reserving part or all of this extra week for service to Him. He may not call me every year, but I felt His Spirit asking me to be willing and open to the possibility. So I started praying for an opportunity.

And then in early 2017, Deb got up in front of church and I knew He was speaking through her, directly to me. She and her husband, Adam, would lead a group to Mexico in July to offer help with a week of church camp put on by Vida Nueva (“New Life” in Spanish) Ministries in Piedras Negras, Mexico. It’s an organization and a place that our church has sent many teams over the years, and my heart beat faster as Deb gave a 30-second spiel about the trip.

I couldn’t wait till after the service to sign up. I walked out of the auditorium to the Welcome Center as Deb prayed before the offering and sermon and scrawled my name and email address on the top line of the sheet.

And now, 48 hours after returning from the trip, I am still in awe of the experience that God gave me. He went before me. He stood beside me. He returned with me. And I believe He allowed me to experience a tiny taste of what eternity with Him will be some day. I am changed for the better in so many ways.

First, I want to thank you. For your financial support. For your interest in the trip. For your prayers. For your specific prayers on specific days. I felt them. We as a mission team felt them. The camp staff and campers felt them:

· Your prayers kept us safe in a country where safety isn’t guaranteed.

· Your prayers kept us united in mind and in spirit.

· Your prayers helped us form deep bonds that never would’ve formed otherwise.

· Your prayers kept our planes on time, our connections made, our van trucking down the highway.

· Your prayers helped us cross the border (both ways) without incident.

· Your prayers kept us in good health.

· Your prayers kept us encouraged and upbeat.

· Your prayers helped us rest (or thrive on little rest).

· Your prayers helped us connect with people who spoke little or no English.

· Your prayers brought us back rejuvenated in body, mind, and spirit.

· Your prayers helped us be a light in a world different than our own.

We are humbled by your prayers, and I am so thankful to consider you part of my mission team.

The team from First Christian Church included 10 people—the oldest at 74, the youngest at 13, and the rest of us at varying decades between. Other than the teammates who are related to each other, the rest of us weren’t much more than acquaintances. You know who I mean. . .the people at church that you know by name and can say hi on a Sunday morning but haven’t had a real conversation with.

It took a mere 24 hours of travel and living with my team to realize that they were my people. God gave us a spirit of love and camaraderie unlike any that I’ve ever experienced.

Don’t get me wrong. We are all very different people. Varying ages, stages in life, personalities… Dover vs. New Phila (all in good fun)…but God blessed us with unity. With understanding. With an uncanny love of just being together and hanging out. I laughed more last week than I have laughed in the past year. (And that’s a lot of laughing, because I tend to find humor in everyday life.)

We worked together. We played together. We played with campers together. We ate together. We laughed. . .and laughed. . .and laughed. We studied scripture together. We prayed together. We slept in very tight quarters and took turns in a single shower. And we loved every minute of it.

We arrived at Vida Nueva on Saturday evening, and we got to experience church Sunday morning at the church next door. A good 90% of the service was in Spanish. The thing I loved most was the singing and seeing the lyrics on the screen. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, so there were several words and phrases that I could translate. Although none of the songs were familiar to me, I sang about the freedom I have through the blood of Christ. I sang the promise that God takes away my fear. I sang for God to be glorified. I celebrated His promise of eternal life. In Spanish.

Camp started on Monday morning when 60 kids ages 5-12 arrived at the camp. The theme of the week was “Jesús es mi superheroé” (Jesus is my superhero), and the verse of the week was Juan (John) 3:16.

Part of my week was spent prepping and painting classrooms for the semester that will start at the school in a few weeks. There were 4 of us—all who happened to be 30-somethings—who became the painting crew. All-in-all we completed 4 large classrooms during the week. And we had a blast doing it. Maybe it was the paint fumes or the old-school Christian music (think Supertones and Audio Adrenaline) or the worship music that we sang at the top of our lungs. But it was also the hours of conversation in the midst of hard work—kneeling and climbing ladders and rolling and sweating and trying to stay hydrated—that bonded me to Renée, Jason, and Kris.

The other part of the week I got to work with kids in a couple of the camp classes—woodworking and crafts. Renée and I experienced a day and a half in a large, echo-ey classroom filled with about 20 kids hammering nails into boards. It was like a Mexican Santa’s Workshop with more sweat and fewer candy canes and cocoa. In my normal life, I legitimately may have put one of the hammers through my own skull just to make the noise stop, but there was something calming (and ridiculous—Renée and I laughed through the chaos) about the whole thing. We found joy in every task and in every moment we could.

Wednesday Deb asked us to lead her class for the day—crafts. So the 4 of us on the painting crew (with the help of the teenage Mexican leaders to translate) worked with kids to use fabric markers to color superhero-themed headbands and tiny superhero figures out of clothespins. The kids had a blast, and we did, too.

The food we ate at camp was mostly amazing and sometimes a little weird. I tried cactus for the first time, and I’d always choose the picante (spicy) option if we were given an option by the cooks. Some on our team were EXTREME lightweights in the spicy department, but I found the spice to be really delicious. Although, to be fair, they do tone it down a bit since they’re feeding kids. One lunch that was particularly strange included a side of pasta that was a mix of Chef-Boyardee ravioli, Spaghetti-os, and other types of similar noodles in sauce. I was hungry and it was good.

We got to meet and interact with so many of the kids and adult staff, and it was a blessing to be with them and help in whatever way we could. John used his skills and talent as an electrician to install new lighting in the campus’s outdoor gym. Adam helped manage and orchestrate detailed woodworking projects that the kids loved making and will hang on their walls at home for years. Deb and Donna helped the campers create fun and interesting crafts that they will cherish. Bailey (13) helped with childcare, was Adam’s shadow and helped him with lots of odd jobs, and her dry/deadpan sense of humor kept us laughing all week. We gave Ty (15) a hard time, saying that he didn’t work all week, but he did. He made connections with the kids and other teenage leaders that none of us adults could have. Jason was the big, fun, and goofy Americano that all the kids loved. Kris’s quiet, hardworking, patient, kind demeanor, and ever-present smile encouraged everyone around him. And Renée’s warm hugs and infectious laugh were freely given to campers throughout the week.

I am so blessed to call them friends.

I have a notebook full of my memories that I recorded throughout camp, and I will be happy to tell you more when I see you. But for now and for the end of this update, I want to leave you with something that God revealed to me mid-week:

We live in a fallen world. There is darkness, poverty, sin, pain, sadness, and despair all around. As believers, we know the end game—God will redeem this world when Jesus comes again, and we look forward to that day. But for a moment—for a week in the middle of July—God, in His great love for me, allowed me to glimpse a shadow of heaven. Of joyfully working for Him. Of unity with believers with white skin and darker skin. Of living in, radiating, and reflecting His love.

What a privilege. What an honor that He gives us opportunities to see that glimpse of eternity.

If you have served on a short-term mission—in the US, at a church camp, outside our borders, overseas—you understand what I’m talking about. If you have never taken the step out of your comfort zone to serve, I urge you to listen for God’s call. Don’t wait for heaven. Get the taste on your tongue and in your spirit now.

Tú hermana en Cristo (Your sister in Christ),

Annie

Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:3–6 NLT

P.S. If you’d like to see more pictures and videos from the trip, you can find one at: https://youtu.be/i46s64GQzLY

Follow Vida Nueva on Facebook and find even more pictures and videos from the week: https://www.facebook.com/vidanuevaministries/

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