Once while on a mission trip to San Salvador my group was especially excited about a Thursday afternoon ministry opportunity. We would be visiting a children’s hospital. Since many of the teenage students in my group loved children, they planned extensive activities and assembled many gifts to hand out such as: treats, stuffed animals, dressing in costumes… etc. But when we arrived at the hospital the mood quickly changed.
Even as a mission trip veteran of several third world countries, I had a similar picture as they did, of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital… St. Judes… that sort of idea, but this hospital was nothing like those. The rooms of this children’s hospital were unpainted concrete block walls with bare concrete floors. Many of the rooms didn’t have doors… some, not even beds, with the child just laying on a mattress on the floor. The lighting was harsh fluorescent tubes and the windows without screens or glass — and any food for the child needed to be brought in by the family.
Burn victims… cancer patients… surgery recovery… disease, illness and the injured. All children. Many times the bandages, IV’s and treatment care involved bloody bandaging, primitive equipment and seemed less than adequate. Each room held a chamber pot. We didn’t make it half-way down the first hallway before most of my students were weeping with broken hearts, and I knew there was no way we could continue without some redirection of our perspective.
Taking the kids back outside the hospital I told them, “I know this is hard. None of us expected to see what we just saw. There is nothing we can do for the condition of this hospital, but right now, these kids… those parents… they don’t need our tears or our pity… they need to see the light of Jesus.” “They need to see smiles… they need to hear laughter… they need some JOY.” After a brief and tearful prayer time, we walked back into that hospital. I have never been more proud of a group of students in my life! Even as I write this pondering, I am tearful as I remember how they responded. THEY BROUGHT THE JOY!
They played and danced with kids… they handed out gifts and treats. They sang songs about God’s love. They laid aside their own discomfort and loved on kids and parents in a way that HAD to be supernaturally gifted to them by the Holy Spirit. And for a time… just a brief while… but a SIGNIFICANT time — laughter filled those hallways. Smiles were on the faces of parents, nurses, doctors and kids alike. It might have been the most significant ministry I have ever witnessed on a mission trip.
But I could tell you other stories too… A mother desperately seeking prayer over a sick baby in the rainforest because prayer was the only medicine she had. An entire family in a small one room house praying as they gave their lives to Christ. Lines of people hundreds of feet long as they waited to visit a clinic we hosted. A blind person having his sight restored. A family receiving their first home. You see, when followers of Christ go out on mission Christ is always present with them. Every mission trip I have been on has provided those moments where God-plans and human-plans collide — and ministry happens — and God is glorified.
Maybe, just maybe… God would use you in a similar way. If you were to lay aside discomfort and personal priorities and humbly… just… go.
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