Tag: Testimony Tuesday

Macy Hudson: When My Thinking Changed

Macy Hudson, a sophomore studying Faith & Social Justice and Corporate Communications.  She serves as the Data and Evaluation Chair for Belmont on Mission’s Missional Engagement Council, on the Room in the Inn leadership team, as well as a student leader for Plunge trips.  Today, Macy is sharing about her perspectives on being on mission have changed in her time of service.

For years, I had this dream: I wanted to go on a mission trip. I had seen all of my friends go with their churches, to another country, in matching shirts, to serve, and ultimately come back with a transformed life and a camera full of pictures. In my mind, these trips seemed perfect, and after many attempts to convince my church to go on one, I became closed off to serving anywhere except a third-world country mission trip setting. My church was particularly focused on serving the community I lived in, and I didn’t understand why. There were countries with no running water. No schooling. No understanding of Jesus. Coming up on my sophomore year of high school, I found myself filled with anger. Why did my congregation seem to only care for their people? Aren’t we as Christians called to serve the least of these? Filled with confusion and doubt, I signed up for a mission trip myself with an organization where I was able to go to Puerto Rico with high schoolers from all over the country. I packed my bag and flew to a new place, hopeful for revival and transformation in the community I would be serving. 

 

Two weeks later, I arrived back in Tennessee, with a new realization about my life. I was set on going on that specific kind of mission trip because it looked fun and appealing. I was so caught up in wanting to fill my own insecurity of feeling inadequate that the concept of being a hero or greater than thee caught my eye. My jealously of my friends’ experiences on mission trips was fueled by the lack of confidence in what my personal mission was as a beloved child of God. By centering those feelings on a single type of mission, I was limiting myself to experiencing only a single quality of God. It took me setting my pride aside to vulnerably uncover my deepest self. 

 

God has a quite ironic way of working. Upon returning home, I discovered my strong love for children in the foster care system. I felt a direct and clear call to child advocacy as a vocation and realized that I was made to serve the community around me. My church’s community outreach that I was quick to judge ended up being a great tool to get me plugged into local service. I was able to understand and deeply appreciate how committed my church was to serving their neighbors and how that is just as much a mission as a trip to another country is. 

 

This experience taught me not only humility but also vulnerability. Because I was drowning in self-doubt, I constructed a picture-perfect mission trip in my mind and chose for myself that this was God’s call for my life to me. This is not to say that this type of mission is bad in any way, I just didn’t have the right intentions towards these trips and was close-minded to any other form of service but them. Through this, God revealed to me how my story in God’s mission is one of openness. I became able to stretch my arms out and pray for God to use me how He pleases instead of praying Him to use me in the ways I desired. This small mindset change welcomed transformation in my life in abundant ways.  

If you have any questions about Macy’s experience, any of the programs that she is involved in, or Belmont on Mission in general, feel free to reach out to Macy or any of the Belmont on Mission team!  Be sure to follow us on social media @BelmontOnMission to stay in the know about what’s going on!

Ford Chittom: What Cliffs and Jesus Taught Me About Connection 

Today, Ford Chittom, a freshman Biblical Studies Major, is sharing with us what being in relationship means to him, and how that connects to being “on mission.”

A few years ago, I was stressed about the future, so I decided that the best solution was a  kayaking adventure. I drove my truck fifteen minutes from my grandparents’ house to the bridge  over Yellow Creek in North Alabama. Yellow Creek is a small tributary of the Coosa River that empties into Weiss Lake in a beautiful waterfall. I set out, alone, with my kayak, a cooler with a shameful amount of La Croix, and a life jacket that was too big that I had gotten to “grow into a few years before.” I pulled the boat over some rocky creek bank to the small, narrow, main channel. I paddled a few yards, but the water was too low so I had to drag my kayak over the rough rocks for a lot of the time. I alternated between dragging, pulling, and chugging La Croixs until I got to the first waterfall. I was unprepared for the twenty foot waterfall and I eventually pushed my kayak off and found a conveniently placed rope that I used to repel down. I pulled and dragged until I got to the big waterfall.

I planned on meeting my Dad and grandfather at the big waterfall so they could drive me back to my truck. I had no idea how tall the waterfall was beforehand and later learned that it was over forty five feet tall.When I got to the waterfall. I looked down at all the families and friends picnicking under the waterfall and swimming together. Alone, covered in mud, scared, and out of La Croix, I realized I didn’t need the adventure as much as I needed the connection with people. They were only fifty feet away from me, but they were so far away. I couldn’t just jump off of the waterfall or I would have gotten hurt. I couldn’t connect with people even though I was right there. I ended up throwing my kayak off of the waterfall in a safe spot and dangerously climbing rocks until I ultimately found my way down. When I finally reunited with my family at the bottom, I was so happy to see them and connect with them. The warm hugs and jokes from my family gave me more than a perilous adventure ever could. 

Sometimes we are only separated with someone by just a few feet, but so many more things. We get separated by our fear of rejection, our insecurities, our own selfish desires, and our phone screens. I’ve spent a lot of time looking for the feeling of satisfaction from adventure that we can only find through God and community. I was physically above everyone and we can often treat people with contempt when we feel intellecutually, morally, economically, socially, or spiritually above other people. God loves us and makes us all special. He designed us to be with one another and love one another in spite of our differences. God gifts us in different ways and he calls all of us to live in community to be the church. Jesus had his people during his time on Earth. He had twelve disciples that he spent most of his time with, and he served with. Being with the disciples wasn’t always easy. They argued about who was the greatest, betrayed him, sliced off some guy’s ear, doubted him, and took him by a bad fig tree.

However, Jesus did some great things with the disciples. He sent them out, and they witnessed to hundreds of people. He got to share in his ministry with them and help them grow in their faith. He also got to be friends with them. They went fishing together, stayed together, spent time together, ate together, and I bet they pranked each other. Jesus and his disciples grew so much from their investment in one another, but they also branched out to other people everyone and served everyone. He was friends with Mary Magdalene, Martha, Lazarus, and While he had a relatively small crew of people that he served with, Jesus was friends with Zacchaeus. He ate with tax collectors. He went to someone who lived in the middle of nowhere, cast out a demon, put the demon on some pigs, and the pigs ran off of a cliff (Yes I know I’ve said a lot about cliffs). He talked to the woman at the well and changed her so much that she ran into town and proclaimed his power. Jesus was not afraid to be with everyone and did not only spend time with the disciples. It is important to have a group that you really invest in, but it’s important to have people outside of that group. There’s so many great people in the world and Jesus did not limit himself to only a few to be with. He served and spent time with people outside of his inner circle. I think it’s important to do that also. It’s important to work out issues within a community, but don’t be afraid to let your circle grows. 

Another thing that Jesus did a great job of was being alone. Jesus retreated to the mountains for a whole night to pray about who would become his disciples. Just as Jesus did, it is very important to connect with God through prayer to prepare for connection with others. Psalm 121:2 says “my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and Earth.” God absolutely intended us for connection with others, but he also wants us to pray make him the source of my help. Jesus illustrates this especially with the greatest commandments “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the great and first commandment.And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:27-29.Jesus calls us to love and connect with God and with people. So go therefore and connect with people, love people, and make disciples.

We are so happy to have had Ford share this great message with us.  If you want to take part in relationship-based missions, check out global.belmont.edu before Friday! If you have any questions about Belmont on Mission, reach out, and follow us on social media @BelmontOnMission

From a Host Partner’s View: Beth Virostek

Hi, I’m Beth Virostek, a sophomore Psychology and Faith & Social Justice major from Columbia, Maryland. On campus I serve as the Operations and Logistics Chair on the Missional Engagement Council this year! 

This summer I had the absolute joy of working full-time as a summer staff member with the Appalachia Service Project, one of our host partner organizations! I spent two weeks in training at the year-round center in Jonesville, Virginia, and then with my staff of four lived for almost eight weeks in a preschool in Louisa, Kentucky, the heart of Lawrence County. With teams of visiting volunteers offering their labor, we were able to help 10 families make their homes a little warmer, safer, and drier in six short weeks.

The Appalachia Service Project is a home repair ministry that deeply loves people and builds connections and relationships with ‘a little construction on the side.’ A ministry that holds dear its founder’s statement that “We accept people right where they are, just the way they are.” After serving as a volunteer for a week each summer during my four years in High School, I was already in love with Appalachia and all it has to offer. I could not wait to follow in my brother’s footsteps and join staff in college. However, there is a large difference in being a week long volunteer and being a summer staffer. Being a summer staffer involves a lot more responsibility, including learning all about and advising construction projects, leading teenage and adult volunteers in programming throughout their week, and juggling situations that I had never considered would occur. 

 

My eight weeks in Lawrence County, KY included some of the most joyous celebrations and sweet glimpses of heaven that I have ever encountered yet also some of my most stressed and defeated moments. Through this experience I learned the reality of some of the difficulties and realities that missions and nonprofit organizations like our host partners with Belmont on Mission face. Budgeting, communicating with volunteers, and loving well the people we encounter, and many more things are hard. 

It is not easy telling a family who is so deserving of a new, leak-proof roof over their heads that we are unable to help them this summer due to time, volunteer, and budget limitations. It is not easy trying to lead volunteers through fixing a leaking roof in a week full of thunderstorms. It is not easy driving a 12 passenger van filled with lumber down narrow and steep roads for the first time. It is not easy making deep relationships in a week, or even in six weeks, with people you have never met before. It is not easy, but it is deeply worth it. 

It is worth it to wake up every day and see teenagers have a drastic change of perspective of the world in a week. It is worth it to see the joy of a mother who can worry a little less about the electrical bills and spend more time loving and raising her kids. It is worth it to watch people who would not know each other in different circumstances come together over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and share a meal together. It is worth it to watch the joy of an older woman walk down her new ramp to the mailbox instead of struggling on the stairs. It is worth it to watch kids take a bath in their new bathtub, one without a hole in the bottom any longer. It is worth it to rest knowing that a family no longer has to worry about putting out buckets each time it begins to rain in order to catch the rainwater that leaks through their roof. I’ll spare you my continued pages of why it is worth it with this: It is profoundly worth it to serve. It is profoundly worth it to fall in love with a small town and its residents in just eight short weeks. It is profoundly worth it to work with a host partner organization, and for this experience I am forever grateful. 

 

Testimony Tuesday: Corey Rhoades

Corey Rhoades served as one of the adult leaders for this year’s Birmingham Plunge trip, and in the spring he will serve as an adult leader for the Nicaragua Casas por Cristo trip.  Today, Corey is sharing with us how his past work on Mission has shaped his mindset.  Corey’s missions testimony encourages us to question our place in God’s story.

“Growing up in Southern California, just a couple hours drive away from Mexico, I was always involved in short-term, international mission trips. At least three times a year, I traveled with my church family to serve at an orphanage in Ensenada or to build a house with my youth group in San Felipe. These were formative years, in which I developed a love for the Spanish language, which would eventually become my college major. 

Corey is a Graduate Assistant and Bridges to Belmont faculty at Belmont

As a teenager, it was easy to neglect the reasons why we went on these trips. Mostly, I saw it as a road trip with my best friends. But my youth minister made us write essays before every summer Mexico trip—yes, written essays like in school, but this time not for a grade! And after much whining and complaining to our parents, we all begrudgingly complied. Only in retrospect do I appreciate the motives behind those dreaded essays. It compelled us to ask questions: Why are we going? Who are we helping? Are we actually helping? These essays forced us to contemplate our own blessings and privileges as citizens of the U.S., to discern our individual gifts and skills that we contribute to the team, and to wrestle through our relationship with God.

Group photo of one of Corey’s past missions.

These essays were a start, but college forced me to ask even more questions. What do I want to do with my life? How can I make a positive impact on the world? Does my career fit into all this? Additional opportunities to study abroad and participate in short-term mission trips led me to Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. I began to realize that Mexico is just one small part of the greater panoply of countries that make up Latin America. As I worked toward fluency in Spanish, I began to wonder what the point was. Every new place I traveled was like discovering and opening another can of worms. How could I, just one person, possibly make a difference?

Corey working construction on mission

During Spring Break 2020, I will be leading a group of Belmont students to Nicaragua to build a house with Casas Por Cristo. It will be yet another small attempt to help a family in need—another house that will not reverse cycles of poverty, not displace corrupt government leaders, and not make much of any difference in the scope of world history. But I still believe this trip will be important and worthwhile. If you are considering a Belmont Spring Break Mission Trip but are hesitant to commit, I would encourage you to shift your mindset away from answer-seeking questions and toward growth & trajectory questions. Rather than asking, “Should I go? Will I know anyone? Will it actually make a difference?” instead ask yourself, “What made me interested in the first place? Who might I meet? What might I learn?” Going on an international mission trip may raise more questions than it answers, and that’s okay.”

If you have any questions about the Nicaragua Casas por Cristo trip, or any other spring break mission trip, check out global.belmont.edu.  If you have any questions about Belmont on Mission events, reach out and follow us on social media @BelmontOnMission