Being Fully Present

I recently read Under The Overpass by Mike Yankowski. Mike is a college student that took time off and spent 5 months living on the streets of America back in 2005. I highly recommend it. I'm not sure Mike meant it to be about missions but that is what is spoke to for me. I don't think it sold too well so you can probably pick it up pretty cheap. Sorry about that comment if you read this Mike. I think your book rocks - well it rocked me - so thanks for writing it.

Mike writes early on in the book about why he did this. He talks about sitting in church one Sunday listening to a sermon about living the Christian life. It was titled "Be the Christian you say you are." He said he realized that he had driven twenty minutes past a world that needed him to hear this sermon and he would soon drive twenty minutes past it on his way back to a world of privilege and comfort on a college campus.

So he had me hooked when I read this because I notice the same thing in myself. Having just gotten back from Ecuador I find my thoughts reverting back to what I will do with my day and what I want for dinner and how I have this tunnel vision driving to where I'm going and noticing nothing on the way. While in Ecuador I notice that I noticed a lot about what other people were doing and what they might be thinking and going through.

And I want to be that way all the time.

I think that most people expect me to tell them what I built or what I accomplished in Ecuador. And I used to have a tendency to think the same way about missions: That I needed to be able to rattle off a list of tangible accomplishments that I did for someone.

But I am coming to understand that the ministry of "being with" is the real mission. In Ecuador I ate lunch with a girl named Carolina who wants to be a teacher and her sister, Carlita, who dreams of being a nurse. And soup with popcorn in it never tasted so good.

I sat on a chair way too small for me in a kitchen at a Compassion International project with my friend Jeremy and dished out lunch for 125+ kids along side of Spanish speaking cooks that I could communicate with very little. And I was lost in that moment.

I was served dinner in an Ecuadorian home along with my friends Heather and Bruce. We were given tomatoes, rice and a hot dog ( I think it was a hot dog ). We sat on the homeowners bed because all this family had was a hot plate in a small kitchen with no stove and refrigerator. And my friend Heather, who hates tomatoes, cleaned her plate.

I met teachers ( Rosita, Joanna, Nancy, Monica ) in a preschool and told them they were doing such important work. And their smiles lit up my day.

I played in a park with preschool kids. And heaven came to earth.......for me.

So the Gospel that I allow to become black and white with the daily grind of going to work and such was bursting with color. It came alive. It was a snow capped mountain and a rainbow and a sunset over the ocean.

From the book: "If we are the body of Christ-and Christ came not for the healthy but the sick-we need to be FULLY PRESENT IN THE PLACES WHERE PEOPLE ARE MOST BROKEN ( emphasis mine ). And it has to be more than just a financial presence. That helps, of course. But too often money is insulation-it conveniently keeps us from ever having to come face-to-face with a man or woman whose life is in tatters. When we're willing to get down to eating together, listening and telling the truth together, cleaning together, peeling potatoes together, the Gospel comes alive."