When I was 14, I decided that God was calling me to be a missionary to the persecuted church behind the Iron Curtain. I was quite gutted when I discovered later that the Iron Curtain had actually fallen 10 years previously. I had this idea that ‘Mission’ meant going to a small dark corner of the world and living in mud huts.
A few years later, I had the privilege of working for a time in a soup kitchen in Wellington. A lot of people worked there, for a lot of different reasons. I think, like many others, I started there because it made me feel good. Helping people, serving cups of tea, washing dishes, it’s gotta make you feel virtuous. What I found though, was that after a while I loved it not because I felt good, but because the people who we served and the others I worked with were so cool. Wayne, who persevered week after week trying to teaching me sign language. John, who always tried to get in line for a second date scone. Sister Carmel, who’d slip a piece of cake into my bag while I wasn’t looking.
My view of mission kinda went out the window after that. Now I reckon that mission is about sharing what we have – sharing ourselves, our gifts, our resources to help others, serving God. It doesn’t matter if we’re in Africa, Auckland or down the street, we’re doing God’s work for God’s people. Being given opportunities to be involved in mission as a young person has helped me to grow in my faith and in my understanding of God.