Compassion & Conviction: Finding Meaning After a Mission Trip

Introduction

It’s a funny thing coming back home from my mission trip. While I was in Guatemala, time seemed to slow down in many ways cause each day just seemed to be paced differently. While I was there each day, we would get up around 6:30 or so and eat breakfast, and then our group would split up, and we would all work on our assigned tasks. Then at 10:30, we would all get a break and enjoy 15 to 30 minutes of relaxing and then go back to work till lunch. Usually, we didn’t work any later than 4:30, and then we would all rest until supper at 6:00, after which we would all go spend time with the children.

I came home, and my first week back was a blur; each day passed by so fast that I could barely remember what I had done the previous day. I worked each day from 5:30 to 6 or 7, spending those days either in my professional career or working in my new home trying to get it sorted and organized. But during this time, time simply seemed to move at a pace that I couldn’t keep up with.

As I reflect on this, I have to ask myself what I can do to slow time down and how I can learn to enjoy better the time that I have been given. I love my job, and I most often choose to work the hours that I do, but as I reflect on this, I realize just how quickly time does escape us and if we don’t make deliberate choices to seek to find a way to slow it down. For me, this is going to be a thing I am trying to learn and figure out how to do, and I think a part of it will be learning to be again intentional with my time and with those whom I spend it with. I think part of this for me, at least, is learning how to better disconnect from the media world of my phone, practicing reading physical books and not just audiobooks, and taking the time to be intentional with my friends and spending time with them outside our normal scheduled church functions.

What I Learned

In Order to Live

It was somewhat poetic that as I left for my mission trip to Guatemala, I began to read this book by Yeonmi Park, with whom I share a birth year. In her book, she tells a heroing story of the sacrifices she made and the horrors she endured to survive and finally escape the communist hell that is North Korea. As I went to Guatemala, I heard the many horror stories of the children there and saw some of the desperate situations that many of these people lived in. It made the story of Yeonmi so much more real.

I have often heard and seen many of these stories on the big screen, but to get to see a fraction of these with my own eyes and to see the reality of them made the story of this book so much more gripping for me. She tells a story that I can not do justice in my own words. What I can say is that she is a young woman of incredible resilience and perseverance. I would encourage anyone who has never heard her speak to look her up on YouTube or Spotify and listen to her share her story.

Today she is a human rights activist and an avid opponent of those who seek to push communism into America and the Western world because she has not only seen the horrors of it, but she has lived them. She has tasted the bitter fruit that it yields. She has seen the lie in its promises of caring and providing for others, promising equity and equal provision for all.

Sound of Freedom

Almost as if it were there was a theme to my thinking, I learned of an incredible new Movie called “Sound of Freedom,” which tells the true story of Tim Ballard, who, through a series of events, finds himself with an opportunity to do more than just arrest the child traffickers and pedophiles! He is, for once, given a chance to be able to rescue a child and bring them home again. The movie tells an incredibly moving story of a brother and sister who are kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking by greedy and vile men and women who sought nothing but money and personal pleasure.

I also listened to Jordan Peterson, who interviews both Tim Ballard and Jim Caviezel, who plays Tim in the movie. They tell the story of the movie and share details that the movie is unable to take the time to detail. They also share how this movie was made five years ago, but Disney and Netflix would not back the film. They refused to tell a story that condemns pedophiles. It leaves you to ask a very simple one-world question, “Why?” Why would Disney, a company that creates movies for children, not also want then to support a movie that also defends children?

I have had many friends scoff at me and think me silly for refusing to go see movies that are Disney productions. Now I confess this isn’t something I have done perfectly, but I do very actively do my best not to go watch any movies or buy products that I know support a brand that actively opposes my values. There are movies night I have not attended with friends and films I wanted to watch that have remained unwatched due to this conviction. I want to be clear I claim no moral superiority in this, but it is a firm conviction of mine that my actions should follow my words. I am someone who is often very outspoken about my beliefs and convictions, and so to go then support the things I have firmly opposed is something that I can not bear in good conscience

I want to discipline myself and inform myself so that I can see the evil of this world and oppose it openly. In America, we often seem to think that it is enough to oppose evil in silence. Something that was discussed during my trip to Guatemala is how in Guatemala, corruption is generally much more obvious, and so often, you can see the evil of people upfront because they don’t feel the need to hide it. But here in America, we paint our evil to look good, to make it more digestible.

I am reminded again of the book I read by Matt Walsh called “Church of Cowards.” The title of the book says it all. We have a very comfortable Church in America today that is lulled to sleep by its comforts, or it is kept ineffective by fear of being seen as intolerant. I think many within the church have forgotten that Christ promised us that the world would hate us. I think many Christians have become uncomfortable with the idea of everyone not liking them.

I write this in no way to come after anyone nor to condemn anyone for going to watch a Disney movie, but I do think it is worth considering next time a new Marvel movie comes out, will we all flock to the theater and continue to give these godless companies our support by giving them our dollar, our attention and our time? Or will we stand up and say that our entertainment is not our god? Will we be willing to deny ourselves, or will we indulge? Pretending not to see the wolves in sheep's clothing, choosing to ignore the morally corrupt messages of these movies because we want to satiate our appetite for a couple minutes of mind-numbing entertainment.

This is the conviction of my heart and one I hope to hold to the best of my ability. Thank you all for reading.