We are off to Guatemala! Some of you may know that Chet Marshall and I left yesterday in order to spend some time with Pat and Yesenia Opperman, an American-Guatemalan couple who work together in a ministry they call A Couple of Christians, aka Misioneros Cristianos Unidos. LPC’s Mission Budget supports Pat and Yesenia, and Chet and I are looking forward to the opportunity to see the work first hand. The rest of the team follows early tomorrow morning and will be together in Guatemala City until early Sunday morning when we journey to San Lucas Toliman and the shore of Lake Atitlan.
The Guatemala Mission Trip is not just a great tradition, but also an important part of our life as a church. For those who are able to travel to Guatemala, it is an opportunity for cross-cultural ministry and an experience of the global church that can’t be had at home. For all of us at LPC it is a reminder of our connection with the global church and an opportunity to give and receive in the name of Christ.
It is a great tradition and a valued part of our life together, but that is not why some of us go and all of us are part of work in Guatemala. We go because we are able. We go because we must. We go because Jesus sends us.
As we say often because it should be said often, the plaque on the back is a reminder of an essential part of the Christian life. “You are Now Entering the Mission Field.” Mission is not something we do one week a year, or only a program of the church. Mission is what we do because “missionary” is who we are – each of us.
So while some of us work hard, sleep well, and enjoy 70-degree weather on the shore of the lake, all of us will be engaged in mission – most of us in the mission fields of work, home, school, family, and neighborhood. All of us will be witnesses to Jesus and his love, in word and in deed, we will share our joy and our hope.
As the “Home Team” has been called to pray for those with bearing the privilege and the responsibility of serving on the “Away Team,” please know that the “Away Team” will be praying for each of you each day we are away. Bearing witness to Jesus and his love at work, home, school, family, and neighborhood may be a more challenging work than the work we will do on the shores of the lake!
See you next week!