The Waiting Walk

How far back does my love of travel and missions go? I was about to say high school, but maybe it goes back even further. I am pretty sure my love of mission and adventure started with Eric B. Hare telling me stories via cassette tape. Maybe my love of telling stories has part of its beginning there as well. Once I could read, I would devour all the books about missionaries I could get my hands on. I absolutely loved hearing the stories of miracles and adventures and also sadness and trials that happened in every country imaginable. Even though I never really traveled internationally until high school, I was a traveler at heart already.

When I got to Oklahoma Academy as a Sophomore, my classmate Sarah quickly became one of my best friends. Her family was living in Burkina Faso in West Africa as missionaries through Adventist Frontier Missions. She came to my house for at least a couple of the breaks because flying back to Africa for just a few days isn’t exactly an option. Somewhere during our first year there in academy, she came up with the crazy idea that I should come with her back “home” to Africa that summer. And I was crazy enough to work up the courage to ask my parents if I could actually go. And much to my shock and delight, they were crazy enough to say YES! Those eight weeks spent in a country and culture so incredibly different from anything I had ever experienced were life-changing in more ways than I can recount. I saw the world differently after that. I understood that people worshiped God in different ways than I did, but they loved Him just as much. I saw people relate to death in ways I never would have imagined or understood had I seen it in a context I was familiar with. I tried new foods – mangoes were elevated to a whole new level of favorite! I also admired and was inspired by the passion that Kurt, Sarah’s dad, showed for sharing the love of Jesus with this people group who had never heard the name of Jesus before he and his family arrived. A daunting task, for sure. I was introduced to the Islam religion briefly as we heard the calls to prayer and passed their center of worship. So many experiences that I didn’t even realize were significant at the time. I just soaked it all in and was down for an adventure. But that adventure, those moments, changed who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I would become. In all the right ways.

For our junior year, the choir and bell choir took the main music trip to Spain. We visited Sagunto, the Adventist college there, and we went to Barcelona, Madrid, and a few other places that I don’t even remember. We were totally doing the tourist thing, but I was still in awe. The architecture. The language. The food. The people. It was such a fun and positive experience.

Then our senior year came around, and at OA the senior class trip was always a mission trip. Kevin Costello was working with the Oklahoma Conference, and somehow we connected and partnered with them to go on a Maranatha mission trip to the Marshall Islands. Kevin had been a student missionary there years earlier and still had a few connections. Our assignment was to go to one of the outer islands and build a school that would triple as the church and also the typhoon shelter since it would be the first and only cement block building on the island. We raised the money. We prepped a VBS. We learned what we could about the Marshallese culture. And in November of 1998, we flew to Hawaii and then on to Majuro. From Majuro we boarded a 52 foot boat for an 18 hour smooth ride to Woja in the Ailinglaplap atoll. The 18 hours turned into 24 because the smooth ride disappeared along with the setting sun. I remember quite clearly lying on the deck of the boat (standing or walking would have A- been taking my life into my hands in the rough seas and B- resulted in me losing whatever I had last eaten) and looking up at the clouds and moon… then at the waves…. then at the moon… then at the waves. Friends, when you are lying on the deck of a boat and looking pretty much straight up, waves should NOT be what you are seeing! Praise the Lord no one slid off that deck and all of those crazy waves weren’t brutal enough to flip our boat. I’ll tell you, 52 feet of boat starts feeling very, very small when all you can see in every direction is water…

We arrived safely, unloaded, and said goodbye to our captain who promised to return for us in ten days. Since it was part of an atoll (a ring of islands), there was an ocean side and the lagoon side of Woja. The school was on the lagoon side, with smooth waters, a beautiful sandy beach, palm trees, and a tranquil tropical view most people only dream of experiencing in person. The school, however, left much to be desired. It consisted of a tin roof, one tin wall, and the other three sides were open air. There was a chalkboard on the wall, and logs for seats. That was the school.

The next ten days consisted of a lot of hard work mixing cement, carrying cement blocks, running a VBS program, feeding everyone… we were busy but I absolutely loved it. I loved it so much, that I decided I wanted more. Ten days was nowhere near long enough for this experience. We shared meals with the locals, and by the end of the ten days, I had more gifts and keepsakes from the few people on that little island than I would end up getting during my entire year as a student missionary on the Island of Yap! The Marshallese people are some of the kindest, most generous, caring people in all the Pacific islands. Also at the end of ten days, what had been only a bare foundation when we arrived had grown into a church/school/shelter with movable interior walls and a sturdy roof that would last through most normal typhoons. We built a catchment for rainwater so the two student missionaries would have all the fresh water they needed. It was an incredible process to be a part of. So fulfilling. So rewarding.

It was that trip coupled with my experience in Africa two years earlier that pushed me to apply to go as a student missionary the very next year. I was accepted, even though two years of college is typically preferred, and I spent the next school year teaching second graders on the Island of Yap in Micronesia. Two years later I returned to Micronesia to the Island of Palau and landed in fourth grade. That is the year I fell in love with teaching, and so after returning to the states, got my teaching degree from Andrews University.

I’ve continued to travel, to interact with people from other people groups (most of them right here in North America), and to experience new cultures. I love the adventure of new things. I love seeing things from a new perspective. From Ontario Canada to Southern Louisiana to the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest and several other areas in between, I’ve loved interacting with the different thought processes and customs and styles that each part of the US offers. And then there’s the sub-groups and transplants within these places that bring their own cultures and backgrounds and thought processes to the table. It feeds the grand adventure and the missionary spirit for me. Our differences are not reasons to run, but are reasons to lean in and seek to understand. Because in understanding someone else’s culture and customs, we learn to understand the world around us in a new and deeper way.

And we get a little taste of heaven in the process.

I want this for my children. They haven’t had the opportunities to travel overseas yet, but we are working to change that. My son, Juan II, is signed up to go to Fiji this Spring through Portland Adventist Academy. Covid had put a stop to all mission trips, and he is very excited that for his senior year it is an option again. Of course, plane tickets aren’t cheap so see below for ways to help make this dream of his a reality if that interests you.

When we went to Woja and built a school, we impacted the community positively. We left behind something better than they had before. We provided safety as well as comfort and a better position from which to educate their children. What we did mattered to the community. And from what I hear, this trip to Fiji makes a positive impact in their community as well. PAA has been going to this same location for several years now, and they are building relationships, helping build up the area infrastructure, and also providing much needed medical care each time they go. They are helping fill a need that is not being met otherwise.

Some have argued that mission trips are a waste of resources. Buying expensive tickets and taking students who aren’t exactly skilled laborers or medical professionals around the world isn’t necessarily the best use of funds. Just donating to ADRA in many cases would be a better use of the money as it would go further and impact the locals more dramatically. And it is true that some mission trips more than others can be considered “voluntourism” rather than truly impacting the local community in meaningful, long-term ways.

But sometimes it is about more than just the impact on the place we travel to. Yes, we should make our time there matter. We should leave a positive impact that will be felt in the community for years to come. But perhaps the greatest impact a mission trip has is not on the local community.

Perhaps the greatest impact is actually in the heart, mind, and life of the volunteers themselves.

I know my life has never been the same. I see the world differently now. I am willing to look at situations from a perspective outside my own. I can recognize that not all differences are bad. In fact, perhaps most differences are neutral, or even good! I am willing to admit that life is actually not very black and white at all, but is instead a very many shades of gray. Sometimes it isn’t actually a matter of right or wrong. Sometimes it really is just this way and that way and neither has more value objectively. Cultural differences are real, but they should not be feared. Sometimes it is these very differences that will push us to grow and change and explore God and religion in ways that take us to a deeper level. We experience perspective shifts that allow us to see God for who He really is. That move us to want to share the love and compassion of God with everyone around us. These are the changes that cannot be measured, and the impact that doesn’t end when the volunteers board the plane to head back home. In fact, that is when this particular impact sees its beginning!

I often wonder where I would be right now if our senior trip had been a week to Disney World or Six Flags or some other purely entertaining adventure. Would I have gone on to travel the world and be a missionary? Would I love celebrating the differences between me and so many of my friends? Would I even be as willing to make friends with those who think and act so differently from the way I grew up? How much of the me that I am today would still be ME had I not traveled the world and seen a much bigger picture while still in high school?

We will never know.

But what I do know is this. Traveling, dedicating a chunk of my time and resources to a cause bigger than myself, immersing myself in lives that I would never interact with again – this changed me. Investing in service, giving of my time and resources to play a part in making the lives of others better – this is the example that Jesus left us. Holding a desire to help bring peace and joy and love to a world that is hurting – this is what we are called as Christians to do! Whether it be here, or across the country, or on the other side of the world, we are called to serve and to live a life of mission.

But sometimes it takes a trip around the world for us to really understand this. Sometimes we need to see it with our own eyes. To serve in ways we’ve never served before. To experience cultures different from our own. To sleep on the ground or in hammocks or on the deck of a 52 foot boat in a storm in the middle of the Pacific. To immerse ourselves in something new and exciting, maybe even uncomfortable, away from the distractions and routines and surroundings that we live with every day.

Sometimes the vision can’t be taught; it has to be caught. Experienced. Lived.

If ten days in Fiji will help my son and his friends catch this vision of how big the world is, what really matters in life, who God really is, and who He is calling us to be, then it will be worth the price of that ticket.

It’s definitely a risk I’m willing to take!

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If you would like to help Juan II towards this goal, feel free to message me and he will send you an envelope with information on sending a check, or you can look online at https://paasda.org/development/donate-2/. Choose “Beyond PAA Mission Trips” and towards the bottom when it asks who the “student who contacted donor” is, just put Juan Fresse II. The amount he needs to raise is $3000 and the goal is to have most of the money in by the end of January. He really appreciates it, as do I.