Know Sweat

  • By Trish Berg
  • June 15, 2011
  • 289
                        
Struggling with loads of laundry, clutter in the kitchen and chaos in your life? Stress can easily steal our joy. Trish Berg reminds us to simplify the small stuff and find Joy in the Journey. Back in the summer of 1995, when I was five months pregnant with our first child, I experienced my very first mission trip. We didn’t go to Africa or the Middle East. Nope, we went to inner city Chicago. Mike was supposed to go with me since we were the youth group leaders for our church, but he started a new job and was not able to go. So I talked my mother-in-law and sister-in-law into chaperoning the trip with me and off we went to the big city with a dozen teenagers and a lot of hope in our back pockets. It’s funny how some things just stay with you forever. There are memories form that mission trip that are embedded in my mind as if it happened yesterday. I remember sleeping in the host family’s basement on very thin mats, cooking our own food in the make-shift kitchen, and sipping coffee on the front porch to get our marching orders. I also remember what Steve, the project leader, said on our first day on the job. I had been lecturing the kids about hard work and how much I expected from them on the mission trip. Steve blew that right out of the water when he told them that what they were doing was “not about the work at all.” It was about making connections with people and allowing God to work through them. Well, this week I embarked on the second mission trip of my life, and this time, mike was able to come, too. We are chaperoning the Orrville Christian Church mission trip to Know Sweat, a ministry of CIY. We are here with the Youth Pastor, Pape, and his Intern, Josiah, and one of the teen’s sisters, Lindsay. And about fifteen teenagers. We are living on the campus of Cincinnati Christian University for the week, and once again, I am sleeping on the mattress on the floor of a dorm room. We just finished our first day on “the job” and it’s seven in the morning on our second day here. The kids are struggling to get out of bed as they are all exhausted, but I can already see God working in all of this. Our task on this trip has is to help clean out an old, inner city church that a ministry “Bloc” is building a youth center in for inner city kids. Yesterday we emptied out the basement and filled two dumpsters with more junk than I have ever seen. Today we go back to work on the yard work and cleaning. It’s funny how some things just stay with you forever. There are memories from this trip that I know will be embedded in my mind for the rest of my life. The theme of Know Sweat is to become kingdom workers, so that when we leave this place our “work” continues in our daily lives. And maybe that’s what truly stays with you after a mission trip. Your “marching orders.” It really is not about the work. It’s not about cleaning out the basement, painting the walls or pulling the weeds. It’s about the people. The ones you meet and the ones you will never meet this side of heaven. So, as I sit here with sore feet and an aching back, I am ready to see what God has in store for us today. I am carrying a lot of hope in my back pocket. Catch up with Trish at www.TrishBerg.com


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