Mission trips are like a box of chocolates . . . .

Yes, yes, I am borrowing a quote from Forrest Gump!  “My mama always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”-Forrest

This mission trip certainly was filled with a lot of questions and flavors!  The team from the Maumee Watershed District of the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church (that’s a mouthful) met in March to go over a few things.  People from all different walks of life with all different kinds of personalities and all different kinds of opinions!  Let me jump ahead in the story and tell you that we all got along famously!!!

Whenever there is a mission trip you can expect paperwork!  That part of getting organized is not the most fun for me, but it is necessary!  At that meeting we discussed the place we would be staying and the kind of projects we would be working on.  We didn’t have a lot of detail, but we knew a few things.  We knew when, we knew how we were going to get there, and we knew where we were staying!  The three most important things we could check off our list.  Or so we thought!

About a week before our departure, things changed!  We were staying someplace different and we weren’t sure what the project might be any longer.  We still knew when and how, so that took some of the pressure off.  To quote our fearless leader RaeLynn Schleif “We are flexible!!”  And that we were!

Of course God had a plan for us and we just needed to listen!  We arrived to find we were staying at a different church in a different suburb, but none of that mattered because we had a place to stay, and God had a plan!

I’m going to stop here for today to ask, how flexible are you?  If we listen to God and go along with His plan, it just becomes a way of life.  We need to give up control and understand that life is like a box of chocolates.  We know who the maker is so we can trust that!!  What flavor did you get today?  Can you roll with it?  Can you listen and go with what God has in store for your life?

More flavors to come . . .

 

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