Dec 21, 2017
By Pastor Scott Hausrath
What was the last mission you went on? Mission? What’s a mission? A mission is an important task that someone assigns to us. For example, when you’re in the grocery store with your parents, do they ever ask for your help? “Sweetie, would you please help me find those rolls that we had last week?” When you’re at school, does your teacher ever ask for your help? “Would you please help me pass these out to the other students?” Do your friends ever ask for your help? “Would you please help me to find a gift for my sister’s birthday?”
Every day we go on different missions, offering help to our parents, our teachers, our friends, etc. Sometimes even God asks for our help. But wait a minute. If God has the ability to do anything He wants, all by Himself, then why does He sometimes ask us to help Him? Because God knows that when we help other people, not only does it bless them, but it also blesses us. You know that feeling you get when you’ve helped someone? That feeling you get when you’ve made a difference for someone? Isn’t it a wonderful feeling? When we’re helping our family members, teachers, friends, God, or anybody else, we’re also helping ourselves.
So, when God sends us on a mission to help someone, it blesses that person, and it also blesses us. People need our help, and we need to help people. That’s one reason why missions are so important. So, what was the last mission you went on? What person, or people, did you help? And how did you feel when you accomplished that mission?
Let me tell you about one of my recent missions. For two weeks last September I joined my friend Pastor Andy Samuels, and we went on a mission to three countries in Africa: Malawi, Uganda, and Rwanda. Most of my missions occur near my home in Nebraska — but this time God asked me to go on a mission to the other side of the world. What an amazing privilege!
I had never been to Africa, so I had a lot of questions and concerns about what it would be like. Would it be too hot for me? Would I be able to communicate with the people? Would I be able to eat the food without getting sick? Would people welcome me? Would I feel safe?
Have you yourself ever been to Africa? Do you know what life is like there? How is it different from life where you live? If you were a child living in Africa, what kind of things would you be doing? Where would you be going? What people or things would you be seeing?
While Pastor Andy and I were in Africa, we met many children, and many adults, and we discovered that some parts of their lives are the same as ours, and other parts of their lives are different from ours. Can you guess what parts are the same, and what parts are different?
Where I live, one of the main things children do is spend time with their parents, with other adults, and with other children. During the school year, for example, children spend a lot of time with their teachers and their classmates. Some children attend school away from home, and other children attend school at home. Why do we attend school? Because we need to learn how life works. We need to learn how to talk, how to read, and how to write, so we can connect with God and with other people. We need to learn how to count, and how to add, subtract, multiply, divide, etc., so we can deal with all the chores of daily life.
In Africa Pastor Andy and I saw the same thing. There are a lot of children in all three of the countries we visited, and they too, just like you, spend time with their parents, teachers, and classmates, learning important lessons for life. As they learn these lessons, theyare not speaking English to each other like you and I do. They’re speaking the language of their own country. For example, in Malawi, the children speak Chichewa. In Rwanda they speak Kinyarwanda, and in the region of Uganda we visited they speak Luganda.
What’s the name of the city, town, village, or area in which you live? I live in North Loup. Do you live in Toronto, Cambridge, Seattle, Miami, Verona, Riverside, Dodge Center, or Thornton? All of the children we visited in Africa also live in a city, town, village, or area, and, just like our places, these places also have names. But these places have names that you’ve probably never heard: Blantyre, Makapwa, Entebbe, Mukura, Bukagabo, Jinja, Kigali, Nyarutovu, Musanze, Cyeru, and Nyamutera. Some of these names were very difficult for Pastor Andy and me, but God helped us to work through this challenge.
What about the issue of transportation? How do you get to school every day, or to the grocery store, or to the library? Do you walk, ride your bike, get a ride in your parents’ vehicle, or on a city bus? Where we live we need access to transportation. It’s the same in Africa. Pastor Andy and I saw thousands of people on the roads in Malawi, Uganda, and Rwanda. Some people were walking, some were on bicycles or motorcycles, some were in private vehicles like sedans and vans and trucks, and some were in public vehicles like taxis and buses. I think one of the main differences between where I live and Africa is that Africa definitely has much more traffic. But whether we live in Canada, the United States, Africa, or wherever, all of us have a need for transportation.
No matter where we live, no matter what language we speak, what school we attend, what kind of vehicle we use, or what color skin we have, we are all human beings. Therefore, we all need to connect with God. That’s why one thing that Pastor Andy and I did on our mission was help the African pastors to understand the Bible more. Then they could do a better job of helping their people connect with God.
Another part of our mission was to visit Seventh Day Baptist churches and schools in Africa. We were able to preach and teach God’s word, to help the people to continue growing in their relationship with God. One of the things that Pastor Andy and I noticed, however, was that as we were blessing the people in Africa, they were also blessing us. Their deep love for us, for their families, and for their communities, and their strong faith in God, encouraged Pastor Andy and me to more strongly develop our love and our faith.
How strong is your connection with God? How well do you understand the Bible? Would you like to help others understand the Bible better, so their connection with God could be stronger? Would you like God to send you on a mission, whether it’s in your own town or on the other side of the world?
Are you ready for your next mission? Start asking God to prepare you for the next mission He has for you. Ask Him to prepare you to go where He wants you to go. Ask Him to prepare you to help the people whom He wants you to help. Also, ask your pastor to help you.
