Monday, June 27, 2005

Jr. Hi Mission to York 2005: Part 1

Well, on Saturday we concluded my second Jr. Hi mission trip with the Stillnaz students. It was fast and furious. We started on Wednesday night and ended on Saturday afternoon. The boys stayed at my place and the ladies stayed with another family.

Plenty of stories, plenty of laughs, plenty of learning moments. I would have to say that mission trips are most definitely my favorite things in youth ministry. You get to be with students for longer than 1.5 hours, and you get to see them at their best and at their worst. And they get to see me at my best and worst. It's so real, so raw.

When am I going to get saved?
One of the guys who went had never accepted Christ into his life (officially...) and his mother had asked me if I could pray with him sometime. So when I saw him on Wednesday night the first thing he said to me was, "PJ, when am I going to get saved?" And it was like that the rest of the night. He just kept asking, "Am I going to get saved now?" "Am I going to get saved at McDonald's?" It was great. We finally had a time to sit down at the end of the night. And I explained to him about what it meant to follow Christ, and what life is like without Christ. I had him explain why he wanted Christ in his life. Then I talked to him about the hard side of following Christ, about how when Christ comes in he will go through his life, like he would go through his room. And there might be some things he would want to remove and take away. And by letting Christ come into his life, he was saying that it was okay for God to do that in his life and that he was willing to be changed. I don't know how much discipleship is possible for young people, but I think he understood some of it, and it was exciting to be a part of that experience with him. Then after that, the guys had tons of questions about general stuff. I loved it.

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