That Time I Went to the Bahamas
Hello there friends!
I know its been a while since my last post but as any college student can tell you, the end of the semester is one of the busiest and most stressful times of the entire year - and worst of all it interferes with my Christmas traditions. Thankfully, I got through finals pretty well and even had some time to do some of my favorite things (like picking out a Christmas tree and driving around to look at Christmas lights). The holidays were wonderful and as always I realized how truly blessed I am to have such a tight knit family who so obviously loves one another and really enjoys the holidays. But I digress.
For those of you who don't know, I left on a mission trip with 22 other members of my church to a small island in the Bahamas called Eleuthera two days after Christmas. Lenny Kravitz lives there. That's not really relevant to my story but he did drive past us once in a jeep. It was pretty awesome. Anyway, this trip was by far my favorite mission trip I have ever been on. I mean that. It was amazing, the people, the eighty degree weather, the never ending jokes, the sunshine, the shark infested waters, the terrifying plane ride home, all of it together made me so incredibly grateful to be there and to be helping out God's people. I did not appreciate coming home to 8 degree weather though. Come on Maryland, get it together.
There are so many things that I want to tell you all about. For one, one of my friends saw a shark in the ocean and instead of running out of the water like everyone else, she chased it thinking it was a dolphin. An eight year old boy told a 37 year old man that his Frozen princess watch was a "sissy watch." At the New Years Eve service we attended the Pastor asked their elders "who are you sleepin with?" out loud - as part of her sermon. One of my teammates came up with the brain child for a tent village in Colorado for snowboarders in which a giant fence would be constructed to keep out the hobos and zombie sheep. I learned that sometimes sheep sound like zombies. I learned that pineapples grow from these weird razor sharp bush- things. I experienced the worst turbulence on the flight home that literally had the flight attendant laying face-down on the floor and I finally woke up to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic.
I will cherish these memories for a lifetime, but there is another reason this trip will hold a special place in my heart and its all because of a simple question someone asked over the dinner table. The sad part of this story is that I don't remember exactly what that question was. I think it went something along the lines of "Who even were the first people on earth?" but maybe not... I hate to admit that I was pretty tired and was really craving a shower at that point so I may or may not have been listening to the conversation.
The thing I do remember, however, is the part where one original question turned into another and another. Then these questions turned into a discussion and soon almost all of the high schoolers were gathered around our table and I had a bible in my hand and we were just talking about life and Jesus and God and The Fall and what God wants from our lives and how we should respond. It was incredible. I mean, how often do you find a bunch of high schoolers taking a part of their free time to sit down and talk about the bible? They could have been playing cards (which they were but stopped and came over to talk instead), they could have been getting ready for bed, they could have been taking advantage of the warm weather outside but they were drawn to the table, His Table.
Isn't it funny how He works? I mean the moment someone asked the first question, the floor beneath our feet became holy ground. The walls of the dinning hall became just as sacred as the walls of a church. The table we had just finished eating a home-cooked meal on became His Table. We broke the Bread of Life open and nourished our weary bodies with Truth. And we didn't just pick at the crust of the Bread either. Those high schoolers were hungry. They needed to know what these stories really meant and what that had to do with them. They needed answers.
There is something truly special about talking about God to people you've known for years. I mean, I grew up with a lot of the people sitting around that table. I watched as they grew up from middle school into "mature" high schoolers (what? how did those quotation marks get there... must be some weird typo or something...) I sat in Sunday school with them and was on work crews with them but, if I'm being honest, we never really talked about God before. Sure we answered questions when Dave or Becky or Emily asked them but once we were dismissed we never really broached the subject again. It was really cool to see them get real and for me to feel like I could get real too. I mean these people KNEW knew me. They knew me back when I straightened only my bangs. ONLY MY BANGS. They even knew my alter ego "morning Kristin" and they still felt like they could get real with me. That's what God does though. He tears down those barriers we put up and he gets down to the stuff that's important. He allows for us to get real so that we can figure out the stuff that really matters.
This trip meant so much to me and a lot of that had to do with the people that were on it and what God decided He wanted to make happen. Whether it was giving my crew the perfect bible verse for our morning scripture or just allowing us the time to talk to our homeowner, God made His presence known every single day on that island. I am forever changed by my time there. I learned more about my friends and myself and God in 9 days than I have in a very long time. God had some big plans for me last year. I can't wait to see what 2015 brings :-)
I know its been a while since my last post but as any college student can tell you, the end of the semester is one of the busiest and most stressful times of the entire year - and worst of all it interferes with my Christmas traditions. Thankfully, I got through finals pretty well and even had some time to do some of my favorite things (like picking out a Christmas tree and driving around to look at Christmas lights). The holidays were wonderful and as always I realized how truly blessed I am to have such a tight knit family who so obviously loves one another and really enjoys the holidays. But I digress.
For those of you who don't know, I left on a mission trip with 22 other members of my church to a small island in the Bahamas called Eleuthera two days after Christmas. Lenny Kravitz lives there. That's not really relevant to my story but he did drive past us once in a jeep. It was pretty awesome. Anyway, this trip was by far my favorite mission trip I have ever been on. I mean that. It was amazing, the people, the eighty degree weather, the never ending jokes, the sunshine, the shark infested waters, the terrifying plane ride home, all of it together made me so incredibly grateful to be there and to be helping out God's people. I did not appreciate coming home to 8 degree weather though. Come on Maryland, get it together.
There are so many things that I want to tell you all about. For one, one of my friends saw a shark in the ocean and instead of running out of the water like everyone else, she chased it thinking it was a dolphin. An eight year old boy told a 37 year old man that his Frozen princess watch was a "sissy watch." At the New Years Eve service we attended the Pastor asked their elders "who are you sleepin with?" out loud - as part of her sermon. One of my teammates came up with the brain child for a tent village in Colorado for snowboarders in which a giant fence would be constructed to keep out the hobos and zombie sheep. I learned that sometimes sheep sound like zombies. I learned that pineapples grow from these weird razor sharp bush- things. I experienced the worst turbulence on the flight home that literally had the flight attendant laying face-down on the floor and I finally woke up to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic.
I will cherish these memories for a lifetime, but there is another reason this trip will hold a special place in my heart and its all because of a simple question someone asked over the dinner table. The sad part of this story is that I don't remember exactly what that question was. I think it went something along the lines of "Who even were the first people on earth?" but maybe not... I hate to admit that I was pretty tired and was really craving a shower at that point so I may or may not have been listening to the conversation.
The thing I do remember, however, is the part where one original question turned into another and another. Then these questions turned into a discussion and soon almost all of the high schoolers were gathered around our table and I had a bible in my hand and we were just talking about life and Jesus and God and The Fall and what God wants from our lives and how we should respond. It was incredible. I mean, how often do you find a bunch of high schoolers taking a part of their free time to sit down and talk about the bible? They could have been playing cards (which they were but stopped and came over to talk instead), they could have been getting ready for bed, they could have been taking advantage of the warm weather outside but they were drawn to the table, His Table.
Isn't it funny how He works? I mean the moment someone asked the first question, the floor beneath our feet became holy ground. The walls of the dinning hall became just as sacred as the walls of a church. The table we had just finished eating a home-cooked meal on became His Table. We broke the Bread of Life open and nourished our weary bodies with Truth. And we didn't just pick at the crust of the Bread either. Those high schoolers were hungry. They needed to know what these stories really meant and what that had to do with them. They needed answers.
There is something truly special about talking about God to people you've known for years. I mean, I grew up with a lot of the people sitting around that table. I watched as they grew up from middle school into "mature" high schoolers (what? how did those quotation marks get there... must be some weird typo or something...) I sat in Sunday school with them and was on work crews with them but, if I'm being honest, we never really talked about God before. Sure we answered questions when Dave or Becky or Emily asked them but once we were dismissed we never really broached the subject again. It was really cool to see them get real and for me to feel like I could get real too. I mean these people KNEW knew me. They knew me back when I straightened only my bangs. ONLY MY BANGS. They even knew my alter ego "morning Kristin" and they still felt like they could get real with me. That's what God does though. He tears down those barriers we put up and he gets down to the stuff that's important. He allows for us to get real so that we can figure out the stuff that really matters.
This trip meant so much to me and a lot of that had to do with the people that were on it and what God decided He wanted to make happen. Whether it was giving my crew the perfect bible verse for our morning scripture or just allowing us the time to talk to our homeowner, God made His presence known every single day on that island. I am forever changed by my time there. I learned more about my friends and myself and God in 9 days than I have in a very long time. God had some big plans for me last year. I can't wait to see what 2015 brings :-)
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