How Mission Trip Changed My Life

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Mother Teresa said “let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” Many times in life the only way we can extend love to others is through a smile and an embrace. A great example of those times is on a mission trip to a place that speaks a different language. I have experienced just how true this is firsthand. This trip truly changed my life, completely affecting my outlook on my daily life as well as the “big picture” plan for my life. I now appreciate things I once took for granted, luxuries that we have come to expect in our sheltered lives that we live here in America. In my life, I have never experienced extreme poverty for myself, but this trip gave me just a glimpse into what life is like for those who are not so pampered as our country. One Sunday early in 2011 as I strolled into my church, a table caught my eye. There are often different tables advertising events and mission trips in the entry way of my church, but this table seemed to draw me in somehow. I excitedly told my parents about it, and they came to look too. The vibrantly colored table was advertising a mission trip to …show more content…

I was amazed to see that even teenage boys like to color there, while most guys here wouldn’t be caught dead with some crayons and a coloring sheet. Then the children would move through 3 different rotations: a craft, outdoor time, and a Bible lesson taught by two women from Texas who speaks Spanish. Because of the language barrier, our communications were reduced to many gestures and a whole lot of pointing. We had a few translators along on the trip, but they were often helping others, so I would just continue to smile and motion with my hands to try to talk to the children. Those little kids would run up to me and just start to prattle off in Spanish, and when I would tell them I didn’t understand, they would just repeat themselves, as if I could understand if they said it

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