One of the privileges of working for the church is the opportunity to find unique ways of carrying out the church’s mission to help serve the world. While I was in college, my sister traveled to Honduras twice on church mission trips to help build a few homes and work on a local school. The experiences she had were life changing for her and her stories left me desiring to have that same sense of fulfillment from serving others. Until a year ago, I had never been to a 3rd world country and I have been looking for ways to carry out that desire through my church wanting both youth and adults to have that same experience that impacted Ann.
It was these feelings and desires to serve the helped spur my desire to travel as a missionary and ultimately led to the planning of my pilgrimage to India. I met Milind a few years ago when he was visiting Holy Communion. He told me about a trip to India with his parishioners from New York who had fallen in love with India and even helped raise money to build a well in a small village where Christians were not allowed rights to water. The well was built on one condition: that no one be denied the right to water. I asked Milind to lead a group from my church on a trip to India envisioning this trip as a true mission trip serving people of a 3rd world country and really doing my best to put others first. Our pilgrimage was nothing like this.
We spent our first several days in Pune, not only soaking in the vast culture of India but learning about the work of the Deep Griha society. The Deep Griha Society ran several orphanages which we visited, each one with groups of children greeting us with songs and dances they had spent several hours the week before rehearsing for our visit. At one orphanage out in the country called City of Child, the children insisted on carrying our backpacks around and wearing our Sun Glasses and hats as soon as we entered. And at each place they fed us huge meals that we struggled to finish while it was so obvious that the children and workers of the different centers had not had such a nice meal.
The second leg of our journey or so called “mission trip” brought us deep into the middle of India. After learning about the work of the Diocese of Nagpur and the Church of North India, we were led deep in the jungle hours away from cars, trucks, and city life to visit three small villages. We were running a little late but each village welcomed us with open arms. At each village friends laid flowers around our neck and the people of the village would sing us songs taught to them by the local missionaries. Each village offered us chai tea. When we finally reached the third village at 9pm, where they had been waiting for us for hours, we were welcomed with a huge drum circle, dance, tea, flowers, and a warm dinner served on Teak Leaves. At the third village a man had traveled 25km just to greet us.
As wonderful as being in India was, a place I now hold so dear to my heart, I was feeling horribly guilty. I am a young man with a car, health insurance, an Ipod, a home with a roof that usually keeps out water, and living in the most technologically advanced and wealthy nation of the world. Now, some of this planet’s poorest individuals were placing flowers around my neck, serving our group meal after meal and completely keeping me from doing what I had set out to do, to be a servant.
We are called to be serve the poor, the hungry, and the needy. “Won’t you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you, pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.” These are the words of one of my favorite songs, The Servant Song by Richard Gillard. I so often forget that although we are called to be servants, we must also let others serve us. I fill a spiritual need of others when I serve them. When I go to the soup kitchen, or help build a home for Habitat for Humanity, although I am helping to fill the needs of others, I am filling my own needs: the need to feel as if I am making this world a better place by being selfless and putting others first. What I neglected to recognize at first in India, was that these people, especially the new first generation Christians, my brothers and sisters, and equal in everyway regardless of finances and material wealth, all have that same calling to serve others. They desired to welcome strangers into their homes, to serve them with love and kindness just as we would welcome anyone into our home. And what I realized towards the end of the trip was that I was making a difference. I had traveled thousands of miles to affirm what these people were learning and studying and that Christianity was real. There are people from all over the world who may, on the outside, seem nothing alike, but are just the same as us with the same callings to serve and love one other. And by visiting them we were able to share that love with each other.
I encourage you all to go out and serve others. Go on mission trips, serve at a soup kitchen, or volunteer at an after school program. Just pray that you may also have the grace to let others serve you as well. Sometimes that is even more difficult than finding ways to serve.
