Loving the Lord and Serving Others

Love of the Lord and serving others is probably the most fitting reason sixteen people cram into a fifteen-passenger van at the end of May to drive two hours to small town in Belize. We were sent to this place from all over America for two weeks to serve on a mission we weren't so clear of yet. The unknowns before us were what made this mission trip a life changing experience full of beauty, release, pain, and hope. 

Our group was composed of ten college aged missionaries from across the county, two sisters, two brothers, and one priest from the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT).

We stayed in two separate locations in Belize, Benque Viejo where SOLT’s main mission is and on the small island of San Pedro.

While in Benque for eight days, we had three different projects that we worked on. In the evenings, we led small groups for a three-day youth retreat for the high schoolers in the area. We also lesson planned and led a vacation bible school type camp for two surrounding elementary schools for three mornings.

We spent most of our afternoons tearing down and reconstructing the back wall of a local family’s house that was rotting away. It ended up being a great time for fellowship with each other and the crew learning to lay brick and mortar.

Before leaving for the trip a couple of us collected school supplies and clothes to bring along to donate to some families in need, one of them being the family of the house we worked on.

In San Pedro, we served more in a ministry of presence through home visits to bring parishioners or families in need some groceries and to visit with them. We also visited a preschool and taught the children a skit about Jesus the good shepherd. 

On the island, we had a little more time to relax and sightsee. When we had time for leisure I was able to cross some things off my bucket list like snorkeling and seeing the ocean for the first time, climbing Mayan ruins, playing futbol with the locals and tubing down the Mopan river. 

It was a truly eye-opening experience to fully immerse ourselves in our little mission group and in others' home in Benque while leaving behind all connection and what is familiar.

There was such a freedom in barely knowing the schedule or people beforehand and not being able to worry about or control much of anything. We trusted the team of religious to take care of it all. We only needed to be equipped with Jesus in us. The SOLT religious and families were so beautiful to watch working together in complementarity of their gifts. They depicted the God given uniqueness and necessity of the different "body parts" of the church in an obvious way by how they cared for us and their people.

I was struck by the deep generosity we were shown when we were the ones trying to serve, in particular by those in their own physical poverty. For the most part, they embodied the grace of viewing their poverty not as a burden but as a freedom to not carry things that don’t truly matter and to rely on the Lord to provide for their needs. This enforced in me that it is a tragedy with so much at our fingertips here that we so often get bogged down by filling our schedules and assuring we are never left empty handed.

Almost everyone I met was also so genuinely interested to get to know the real me and was incredibly welcoming. I believe there has to be a connection between this and their simpler way of life. It was through experiences like these that I was forced to see God and how He desires to love me through His people when I let my securities and the walls of my insecurities go.

My biggest takeaway was that I saw how extremely little I am and how that doesn’t stop God from using me to make even the smallest difference in a few people’s lives because that matters. When you stop focusing on beating yourself up for where you’re not living up to your expectations and thinking it is almost necessary to be upset, you can let the Lord work in the way He does best. His power is made perfect in our weakness. We can do absolutely nothing on our own. Freeing is the best way I would describe the whole of mission and that my heart is made for mission every day.