Over the course of the past two summers, I have had the
opportunity to go on mission to South Africa with Rockharbor. South Africa for me has become more than a
memory of a past destination, but has become a representation of change and
transformation in my life. While there
are many ways in which South Africa transformed my life, one specific area of
transformation spurred by South Africa is my understanding of mission. This transformation took place over the
course of about a year.
Rewind back to summer of 2010. A group of fellow Rockharbor folks and I
rounded the lines of the globe landing in a place most of us were completely
new to, South Africa. During our time in
South Africa, we were exposed to the reality of a broken world. Our eyes were opened to the reality of AIDS,
the reality of extreme poverty, the reality of fatherless children, the reality
of rape and murder...the list goes on.
It was much for our eyes to bear.
It was like someone had pulled back the bandage on a gaping, bleeding
wound. Despite the pain and suffering
that we were newly exposed to, we saw hope.
We saw the work of Christ weaving in and out of the lives of those we
met. Children accepting Christ into
their lives, people being prayed over in their homes, persons infected with
HIV/AID’s singing and praising the Lord.
God opened our eyes and transformed or vision of His mission
globally. For the two weeks we were
there, we got to see and participate in Christ’s global mission and it was
simply extraordinary.
As I returned home with fresh eyes to the reality of
brokenness across the globe and attempted to jump back in to ‘normal’ life, I
struggled. My heart had been burdened
for South Africa and I longingly wished I was still there participating in
God’s work. I could hardly do the
simplest of tasks at work as everything seemed less than the mission we were a
part of in South Africa. I wrestled and prayed about this position that I found
myself in. It wasn’t until the plane
ride home of my second visit to South Africa in 2011 that everything would
fully come together and make sense.
In August of 2011, I had the opportunity to return to South
Africa for my second visit. My visit in
2011 was, again, extraordinary. After
our two weeks were through, we made our way onto our planes to return
home. As we flew back home I sat
contemplating, again, how I could possibly return home to worthless work and
feeling mission-less. Sometime during my
contemplating and thinking, I lifted my head to peer over the seat in front of
me, and was struck with a sight that transformed me. As I sat gazing over the seat back in front
of me, I saw a sea of people quietly sitting in their seats. Something looked different. In that moment, God had given me eyes to see
a plane full of people as souls, as people no less in need of Christ than those
I had come across in South Africa. At
that moment, God transformed my thinking and connected the dots between what I
had learned about mission in South Africa and the mission that continues at
home. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen the
connection before. The people on that
plane looked like my coworkers. They
looked like my neighbors. They looked like the folks working the registers at
Target. Maybe their lives looked
different, maybe the pain in their life looked different than what I had seen
in South Africa, or was even hidden in their hearts, but the need for Christ
was no less.
Through my global mission experience with Rockharbor South
Africa, God transformed and widened my eyes to be conscious of His mission that
plays out globally as well as His mission that continues locally. God transformed my eyes to see His mission
as something that transcends physical location.
Whether we are thousands of miles from the places we call home, whether
we are inches over the threshold of our neighboring cubicle, God’s mission
remains the same, our mission remains the same.
-- Ryan Richards
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