Never off the field

  I have been home for a few weeks now. I have gotten rest I have eaten meals that had no rice or beans. I do still make my comfort food of gayo pinto (rice and beans) while I am stateside. It would be really easy for me to kind of forget all things missions to give my mind and heart a rest but that is not the way god wants it. He wants all of me all of the time and I as a Christian should be more than happy to give him my all. He did give his son for me. Many people come to me and say "Oh there is no way I could do what you do, leaving the country and all" or I will here "I haven't been called to do foreign missions". That may very well be true. We are not all called to far off places. But we are called. We were charged by Jesus before he left this world to sit at the right hand of our Father to go and make disciples. You don't have to go far to do missions. We had a day at my home church recently called "Grace in Action" it was an outreach day where we go out in the community and serve others. I chose to do a laundry service. I along with a friends Mike who I had just met that morning went to a local laundry mat. I knew it was near a Latin grocery store and figured my limited Spanish may come in handy. Plus I could use the practice. It turns out I only used my Spanish twice. Once to ask permission to go in the laundry and pay for peoples laundry to be done. That is what we wanted to do. Stop folks before they paid for the load of clothes pay it for them and share about Jesus for a second. One lady came in and I gave her the quarters to pay for the load she smiled and thanked me. A few moments later she asked if we could chat. I said of course that's why we are here. She almost instantly went in to full blown tears. She had recently lost her son. She was asking all sorts of questions and really opening up to me. After about twenty minutes I shared about some churches I knew of that she could visit. Our going out was not to increase the number of people in the seats of my home church but to hopefully increase the number of people in seats in Heaven. She thanked me and I gave her a hug and told her she would be in my prayers. She walked out with a smile. A while later a little old lady came in just to dry her clothes. I threw the money in before she could even open her purse. She just looked at us and said "Wow what a blessing you are". She shared that her husband was at a local rehab home in town and we sure had blessed her. The next night at church the Pastor and I were chatting about the previous day and what a blessing it was. He said "You know what, it sure is amazing how many people got touched.We were at the rehab center and a man had to call his wife to tell her about us singing. He told her that she received a blessing from a guy at the laundry mat. How amazing is that"? The Pastor did not know I was at the laundry may but could see the smile on my face. I had to tell him that we talked to her. We both chuckled and said see that our mission field is right here in front of us. How true that is. You don't need a passport or to know a different language. You just need to be willing to love.