Endings and Beginnings

LIFT has been preparing for Guatemala since the very beginning. For many of us, this mission experience is what drew us to the LIFT program. Our classes on missions have been preparing us during both semesters to be equipped with head knowledge around helpful and hurtful practices when on mission trips. Our mission trips to Loon Mountain Ministries in New Hampshire and Capitol City Rescue Mission in Albany, NY have helped prepare our hearts and give us different ministry experiences. Our personal relationships with Jesus have been deepened as each of us has faced challenges and difficulties this year. All of this anticipation, serving, learning, and prayer have brought us here.

Our classes have looked at how to help without hurting communities. Poverty goes beyond simply materialistic lack, and we have considered the many factors that contribute to it. We are called to love others and to make disciples, and loving others well can be a complicated process. Usually, we see money as the answer to poverty, but this year we have been learning how that rarely reaches the heart of someone's difficulty and only gives temporary relief. The beauty of partnering with Student's International and joining their team on our short-term missions trip is that they have and will continue discipling and working with their community long after we have gone. Our role during this trip is to encourage, love, support, and learn. 

We have each sent out support letters and asked our friends and family to be in prayer for us and this journey. Before we left, we were prayed over by full-time staff at CAMP-of-the-WOODS. This is a time that has been prepared for by seeking the Lord. Although Guatemala is the culmination of most of what we have been learning this year at LIFT, giving us the opportunity to practice what we have learned and to love and serve others well, it is also the beginning. Perhaps here is where the Lord begins to stir our hearts in deeper ways and opens our eyes to know him more and all he has for each of us. This trip may be signaling the nearing of the ending of LIFT, but in so many ways it is just the beginning.

With a hopeful heart, Attie F.

CAMP-of-the-WOODS staff praying for LIFT before they leave for the airport.