Atlanta, April 1-7, 2012 | Blog 5.

Life-changing, a certain experience that leaves one’s life ultimately different than before. Before each mission trip, we are all taught to build up an expectation for what we want God to perform in us and through us during the trip. I have always looked at myself as a hard worker, but often there is a fine line between simply being a hard worker and truly being a servant. This difference between a hard worker and a servant is that a hard worker looks out for his own profit, which is almost the complete opposite of a servant. A servant is not only a hard worker, but someone who doesn’t work for his own profit; the servant often receives no reward. God really pressed in me the importance of this difference and this is what I expected to find in the mission trip.

Throughout the week God dealt with four main things that make up a servant of Christ (Philippians 1:1). On the first day God showed me, through making food bank gardens in a park, that all servants of Christ must learn to serve in an excellent manner. When one fails to serve by not giving their one hundred percent, they are only limiting themselves from what they can receive from serving. The next day we spent eight hours on a Mennonite farm where we did some of the following tasks: mulched, set up pipes for irrigation, painted a barn, lifted heavy things to an attic, and completely swept an inch-thick of dust out of the barn. That day God reminded me the fact that each person is given certain talents and just because I may be a hard worker in one way doesn’t mean that he created everyone else they same way. God also showed me the attitude that one needs to become a servant of Christ. On Wednesday, we went and worked with Action Ministries, work which included making and handing out lunch bags to women and children. It was there that I learned that there has has to be need in order for one to be able to serve. Without anyone to serve there is no room to being able to be a servant of Christ. On the final day God revealed to me the most important part in being a servant of Christ, he showed me that serving is more than just filling the need that I had learned on the earlier day. He showed me that along with fulfilling the physical needs we are called as Christians to also fulfill the need for relationship.

I was blown away when I saw Pastors Chad and Maggie use their relationship with those in church to glorify God (almost all of their congregation are currently living on the streets). To see his congregation get up one after another and give examples on how they are mistreated and some of the devastations of being “homeless” and are still able to say that God has fulfilled every need they had was breath-taking. I am so thankful for the opportunity to spend the day with them and honestly they made a much bigger impact on my life than I ever could.

- Joshua Aman