MISSION Community Church

Brownie troop 228, comprised of 8-10 year old Girl Scouts, was looking for a community service project. Our troop leader asked me if I could think of anything worthwhile for them to do, and my mind immediately went to Chikudzulire.  I had recently heard that for these people, basic needs that we take for granted here are not available to them. 

Something as simple as a pair of underwear is something these people don't have access to.  This has caused some serious health issues, mostly for some of the younger girls, who sit and play in the dirt every day, unprotected.  As we shared this with the troop, their hearts went out to these girls, and they were very enthusiastic about the opportunity to reach out and help other girls across the world. 

We asked a teen from MISSION who had gone to Chikudzulire to visit our troop, and she came and shared with them all about the village, what life is like there, and showed them pictures of the people they would be helping.  This made the project even more real to them. Our troop was hosting a local event for other troops in our area, and we decided to use that event as a venue for gathering the underwear. 

We dubbed the effort "The Panty Project".  Our troop leader shared about the project at a Girl Scout Leader's meeting, and after that, the panties started pouring in.  An article was run in the Gilbert Tribune, and strangers called, offering packages.  A local preschool heard about it and ran a drive at their school. Troops around the East Valley gathered packages and brought them to us.  Our girls saw how people all over the East Valley cared enough to contribute to our cause. 

We now have over 600 pairs of underwear to send over, and the project is not over yet!  As every Girl Scout learns their pledge, they all promise to "make the world a better place", and that is what these girls are doing.  I am thankful for MISSION's commitment to "do justice", for their involvement with the needs of others around the globe, and for their willingness to let our little troop of 14 girls be a part of that.

April Talley, Mission Member & Mother of Girl Scout in troop #228

Laughter is a universal language…

Was it Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday? The days seemed to run together towards the end of this great adventure; but what I do know for sure is that it was all worth it. The project is finished and praise to God we were able to accomplish more than we set out to. Despite some challenges and obstacles with building in a third world country, our team (in my humble opinion) was awesome! JP was a fantastic team leader; he set the pace for work ethic and kept the projects on task the whole time, which is no small feat with me around J. The entire team really stepped up and helped to make this trip an amazing, life changing experience.

Despite my efforts throughout the building process to describe, draw and communicate to the kids what it was we were building; they just looked at the structure that was going up with confused curiosity. Like someone dropped some very skinny trees into the ground and painted them blue, they just didn’t get it. It wasn’t until the final day when we hung the chains and seats and Mallorie jumped in to demonstrate for the first time what it looks like to swing that the light came on. On most of the days when we arrived at the site there were a throng of kids greeting us and following us around, this day was a little different. There were about 4 kids there when we started hanging the seats and doing the last few touch ups, which took a total of about 10 minutes and even with the lack of cell service, internet access, Twitter, phones or any digital communications device, word spread through the community very quickly. By the time we were finished with the seats there were at least 50 kids ready to see what the skinny trees were all about. There were a couple of immediate thoughts I had. The first, I heard no jungle drums, loud speaker announcement, siren or horn, they must have actually talked with one another about what was happening, like in person…weird. The second, “If you build it they will come” at one point I took some video of the line of kids walking down the dirt path to the playground and the vision from Field of Dreams came to mind. They came, not because they knew what it was all about or what they were going to experience but because someone in their community told them about this new thing being built and the curiosity spurred them along. What a cool lesson, as we at Mission open a new building and change our campus is there something we can learn about communication and community?

It didn’t take long for the frenzy to grow and the kids took over, it was awesome! Every seat on the swings were taken and every wrung on the bars were full and there were lines behind each of them. There wasn’t one of them that had a clue how to swing but they knew how to push each other and that seemed to be fine with them. Looking at it now, I think it’s hilarious that I was actually getting anxious about teaching them how to do it “right”. I wanted them to know how to pump their legs and go as high as they wanted on their own. Kids are kids wherever you go and of course they figured it out and I’m sure when we go back we will find them jumping out of the swings at the highest point to try and out do each other for distance…they’re kids.

It was time to just step back and take it all in. I noticed that most of the team had just faded back and moved toward the community center to just watch for awhile. I think there may have been some gathering of composure going on, and I’ve come to the conclusion JP isn’t so tough. It wasn’t as if we had built a high rise building or even a small house, but it was challenging none the less and a very emotional experience to see the joy it brought to these kids. Dave Whalers said what he enjoyed the most about that moment was just closing his eyes and listening to the laughter. I think he is right, that was the coolest part. Squeals, cheers and most of all laughter is a universal language. There was nothing lost in translation, no need for an interpreter, hand gestures, drawings or anything else, these kids were so happy and so full of joy. It was all worth it, the travel, the cost, the work, the time away, no question it was worth it.

Here is the point; the entire trip was done out of love. Most of us didn’t know any of these people prior to the trip and so it’s tough to say we loved them, but…I love my Savior Jesus Christ, because He loved me first and He said we are supposed to love one another. Sometimes it’s tough for me to figure that out, what does that look like how do you do that, this trip made that really easy. We went there to spread the love of Jesus Christ, no expectation for something in return, just show love and let God do what he wants to do from there. Will I learn something about how to do that back here? I hope and pray that I do and I don’t forget the sounds of laughter and joy that the act of love brings to the lives of others through Jesus Christ.

With much love and blessings,

Spencer

There's a new Sharif in town...

Wow, so much has happened in the last few days I can tell you it has been one of the most memorable experiences in  my life and I think it's safe to say I'm not alone.
We spent Sunday at one of the local church's and enjoyed a fantastic message from Hebrews and an hours worth of tremendous praise and worship. I'm not sure what I expected from church here but whatever it was this exceeded my expectations. I was told prior to this trip from people who have been here before that you will be changed more than you will make change...I think I understand what they mean now.
Monday was simply incredible. I haven't felt so much raw emotion and deep compassion in a long time, if ever. We started the day in the slums of Lilongwe. It sounds so harsh to say "slums" but that's in fact what they are. There are thousands of people packed, actually crammed into a small geographic area bordered on one side by train tracks and the other a few of the only factories in the area. I was told by the staff from Somebody Cares that these people had moved here hoping to find work in one of these factories and when they couldn't find work they just settled in the area. The Home Based Care workers do a wonderful job in working with and caring for the orphans, widows and most vulnerable people in that area, and that's where my experience and our day started.
We were greeted again by a group of orphaned children, singing, dancing, reciting school lessons but most of all jockeying for position to be touched by one of the people from our team. This greeting has become the norm, not the exception, and so far I haven't tired of it and I don't think you ever could.
As we left the feeding center where the orphans and teachers were and made our way deeper into the actual slum we broke into 3 groups paired with a Home Based Care worker. Mendy and JP were one team, Jake and Bruce another and finally Mallorie, Dave and Myself. One of the first things I noticed was close everything was. I don't know if was the actual physical space or just the number of people, but it was tight and even more so as we got deeper. As we would breakout of what would be equivalent to an alley onto a wider road we would pick more random children following us from street to street apparently with nothing else to do its easy to follow the Azunga pipers of Lilongwe, at least that's how it felt to me. Our guide Cathrine led us safely through the market and Dave was a big it, literally as he pretended to hit his 6 foot 10 inch head on shop roofs as he passed by; everyone thought that was hilarious and it quickly lighted any heaviness in the air.
Our team visited 4 different homes and had a chance to sit and talk with those patients Home Based Care is working with. We hauled water from a near by well and I was shocked when I looked down the well and saw the condition of the water, fortunately it's only a quick 20 minute walk to get fresh clean drinking water and they only use that water for cooking or bathing. We asked a lot of questions and really got an insight into what some of the day to day life for these people in the slums is like.
At our 2nd stop I fell in love and lost all control of my emotions. We visited a grandmother who was caring fro 7 children, 5 from the same family whose parents had died from HIV. The youngest child was 5 month old Sharif. Oh, what a sweet boy Sharif is. He was fussy and crying when we arrived and so Mallorie held him for awhile and he calmed down and enjoyed her index finger as a pacifier. I couldn't handle it anymore and just had to hold him so she reluctantly relinquished. My former baby father instincts kicked in and before I realized it I was singing "You are my sunshine" softly into his ear as both of our eyes started to get heavy. I just stared at him as he slept and I couldn't help thinking about my own kids back home and remembering these same feelings i had when holding them; Only instead of thinking about the great opportunities that lay ahead for my children I thought of the incredible struggle and challenges that lay ahead for little Sharif.
I know I see everything as we all do from a very Western perspective and it's impossible for me to fully understand what these people go through or how they feel about their life but I can only imagine it's much more difficult then my day to day even on my hardest days. Not to say we don't struggle, but we have been given so much. Somehow for some reason God chose to put us in Gilbert, AZ and essentially chose us to win the geographic lottery, all of us that have reasonable transportation, access to basic necessities, let alone luxuries like soap are so rich in comparison. Only for the grace of God go I, I'm no better then these people and in most cases could learn so much about attitude and joy but I'm so much better off, I had no idea.
I could have stayed there all day just singing and holding that little guy but we had other things to do and so it was my turn to reluctantly relinquish him to one of his sisters. As we left the dark house and stepped back into the sunlight it must have started to rain...I'm sure that's why my cheeks were so wet.
Later that same day we visited the Child Crisis Center just down the road from Somebody Cares. The Child Crisis Center is for babies up to 22 months old that have been orphaned or abandoned by their parents. Again I was anticipating the worst when I heard about it, but this time I was pleasantly surprised! It was great, the children are no less desperate as a matter of fact some may eventually be worse off but for the time being the are well cared cared for and most importantly loved by the amazing people there. We were able to hold the babies and take the older ones out to a play area where we could lay around on the big carpet area and just play with the babies, feed them and just love on them for awhile. it was so awesome to watch everyone with the kids, big Dave with a little baby in his arms, tough guy JP talking baby talk to little Rachel trying to get her to laugh, Mendy with 3 babies on her at the same time and Jake was the first to reach into a crib and love on one. it was just cool to see how much genuine love was being poured out and what a great vision of how our Father in Heaven has poured His love out on us.
It was another one of those days on this trip that I'm sure none of us will ever forget. We should have the playground finished in the next couple days and moving on to the painting project by Thursday!

Blessings,

Spencer