On Being a World Changer

This week I had the incredible opportunity to accompany some of my favorite people in the world on a trip  to Chesapeake, Virginia for World Changers. If you don't know what World Changers is, it is a mission trip in which you do construction among other things as a gateway to share the gospel amongst a neighborhood.

It was a trip I was completely excited about the moment I heard it was happening but one that made me nervous. While I've been able to share the gospel and teach sports with students in Monroe, Georgia for the past five years during Sports Camp ,doing construction was a completely different ball game. I'm used to helping my father build things like chicken coops but working on houses is a little different especially when we've only got four days.

 Another thing is working with strangers. When I do Sportscamp I know who I will be working from with Bayside.  World Changers is completely different. You don't know who your crew will comprise of until you get there. The way it wound up everyone had at least someone they knew on their crew at least with Bayside. The crew concept was my biggest worry. I prayed pretty much from the day Eric Dill talked about how the crews worked that Haynes, Hannah, or Brittany would be on my crew with me. I was sure that without them I wouldn't be able to figure out the week because unlike them this was my first World Changers but I hope not my last. God had other plans.

None of those three were on my crew. In fact except the group leaders on my crew I was the oldest member. I was really confused at first why the crews had worked out the way they had. Thankfully God didn't leave me alone with a bunch of strangers. He put three of the Bayside students with me. One of those being Gage's brother Brady whom I've had the pleasure of knowing and watching grow for his entire middle school career. He starts his junior year of High School in a couple of weeks which still blows my mind.  Those three students worked their tails off this week and I love them very much because without them our project wouldn't have finished.

It didn't take until the first work day to realize why God had placed me on a crew without my best friends. Without them I had to step up. I had to lead, which is something that over the past year I've been getting more used to doing. Though so far it has taken on the form of teaching in the College Small Group or the Young Professional Bible Study. Being a leader of any sort is a generally foreign concept at least outside of middle school. I do not exude the qualities that most famous leaders possess. I am not particularly outgoing. In fact I'm more comfortable with my nose in a book than I am in a crowd of people where I'm expected to talk. I find it practically impossible to insist that my personal agenda is met if it means others do no get their way. Telling people what to do isn't something I'm comfortable with (unless those people are under the age of seven). Even teaching is strange because it means people are focusing on me and that means attention which is something I'd rather avoid.

I found myself with Brady in control of the the living room of our house. What was done was up to me, how it was done was my choice. We were told what needed to be done and then I got the job of making sure that it did. Our crew chief was focused on the outside of the house that involved the building of a porch railings and replacing doors (neither of which I had experience in.) Brady and I painted, caulked, and sanded so much that the skin on the fingertip of my right index finger has a nice hole in it. Although I should probably say that Brady did most of the  painting, I mostly sanded and caulked. Brady is quite a bit taller than I am and with an extension handle on a roller he was able to paint the living room without a ladder.

I quickly came to the conclusion that the inventor of wallpaper was a horrible person. The house we worked on happened to have a border of wallpaper on the top of the walls. The walls were also layered with paint under a layer of wallpaper that had been painted over already. For the new paint to stick we had to remove the border which wound up peeling the plaster from the walls because the house was more than sixty years old. In case you were wondering caulk works wonders for filling in missing chunks of plaster once you smooth down the edges. You can paint over it with no problems and the walls look completely normal. I'm fairly certain I'm a master caulker now because of this.

All of this to bring me to my second point of what I learned;Gratitude.

Our homeowner wasn't what I would consider grateful for our work. She was in fact quite angry and nothing we did most of the week was right. Thankfully God put some of the most resilient people on my crew that I've ever seen. They exemplified Colossians 3:23 "Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than man." In the beginning this made me mad. I didn't understand why she couldn't see that these people, myself included had traveled hours to do dirty, sweaty work for a complete stranger and be thankful. That verse in Colossians came to mind and after that I ignored her complaining and just worked. I was there to physically meet a need of the woman but I had come there to serve my God who'd given me the opportunity to learn a very important lesson. I'm just like that woman.

There are times when my life isn't going like I want it to and I complain. I'm ungrateful for the many blessings that I have and would rather complain about what I think is wrong rather than focus on what I've been given and remember that God is sovereign and knows what He is doing.  It was a sobering moment and I'm thankful for the reminder even if it did come ten hours away in a strangers house while I was caulking.


We met every night as a church for group devotions. Each night it seemed like someone had a really cool story of how God had brought people to them to share the gospel with or invite to the community night Thursday. Cue the green monster of jealousy. We saw three people when our crew went out. Well technically two of them were groups but none of them had time to talk at all beyond being invited to community night. Not one time did I get the chance to share the gospel. That bothered me at first. Here I was listening to story after story and none of that was happening with me. Eric Dill reminded us every night that God was in control. Eventually I understood that. My trip up wasn't about talking to stranger after stranger. My trip was about serving and being pushed outside of my comfort zone. I was made to step up and lead and trust that God was going to work through me because I sure wasn't used to telling people what to do on a worksite. (They made it easy because none of them told me no. To be honest I really just focused on directing the Bayside students and let the others work on the kitchen part of the house. Whatever I asked them to do they did, without complaint and they did it well.)

Despite the obstacles we faced including getting materials late and trying to please a finnicky house owner we did something that is impossible without God. Not only did we complete the project early we worked the entire week without a single problem from the crew. No arguments or breakdowns or complaints about how hot it was outside while we worked or inside without air. (I'm not actually sure we lacked air conditioning but it sure felt like it.) Those people had truly come to serve God and weren't going to let anything hinder that goal. They did it well and I'm glad to say I was a part of it.

It was a week I will never forget and I'm forever grateful that I was allowed the opportunity to experience it.

That being said I have one final remark;Shut Up Bucky