Mission

I'm on a Habitat for Humanity trip in the mountains of West Virginia. We are building affordable, efficient housing for families who simply cannot afford adequate living for their family. The area has an unemployment rate of 35%, and, as is the case with their inner city counterparts, the lack of educational opportunities and skill training leaves many of these residents trapped in their situation.

This is where we come in.

The houses we build not only provide a much improved dwelling for a deserving family...a la "Extreme Makeover" but the homes are energy efficent which means that families save hundreds of dollars a month in utilities bills, allowing them to move themselves and their family forward and establishes a caring community that wants to help them succeed.

In addition, I get to bare my arms, swing a hammer, run power-tools, and generally lift stuff in the hot sun as well as get to know some great kids and leaders in the church I serve. I'm all about it.

It's not a bad deal.

However, I'm not home. The families I serve are not mine. I will not move my boys into the home I am building. The people by whom I am surrounded, while I am growing to love them and they me, are not the ones who share the most intimate parts of my soul...

...because I'm on a mission.

Mission is what makes the world happen. Mission is when you take time out of the rhythm of a normal life, sacrifice comfort, relationships, finances, and maybe even personal progress for a season so that you can help make the world better for someone else. It's not an experience where you set out to gain, but an experience where you set out to give freely of the resources and training and heart that beats inside of you. There is always risk and you find yourself missing the ones you love, but you have a job to do and will stay until it's done. At the end of the day, mission is what makes heroes.

There are beautiful graces, of course, as you work. As I mentioned before, I will have deep relationships with people with whom I only knew by sight before Sunday. I have a deep sense of satisfaction at the end of a day from good sweaty honest work and my body is tan and more defined. I wake daily with a quiet sit on a porch watching hummingbirds and listening to the sounds of mountain daybreak. But there is no place like home.

So, I start another day. My pin-up picture in my bunk and notes from home squirreled away in my gear. All beautiful reminders of what I will see when my tour is done...but I'm not stopping until I've finished by job here. It's an honor to have my job.

I'm on a mission from God.