Being served as we serve.

June 28, 2014 - Our first morning at the mission house

  My first thoughts that come to mind this first morning at the mission house is to a lingering feeling of embarassment.  Our group from Elevate came here with hearts and minds set on serving others, but from the airport doors all the way to us retiring to sleep last night, the people here in Honduras that are associated with the mission were extremely hospitable. So hospitable that, at times, it had the feeling of coming to a resort rather than being sacrificial.

  Each of us, I think, have found our own awkward moments of where our servant hearts had to reconcile with the hospitality of our hosts. Something a simple as loading and unloading our luggage on the bus turned into an inner struggle of what to do with oneself. At the airport, it felt like we had to convince the gentlemen helping us that it was ok for us to help load up the bus. By the time we got to the mission house, we figured out the roles a little better and wound up letting them unload our bus for us.  Still, some of us wrestled with the roles. At one point, one of the mission team members gestured/offered to take away one of the host's dinner plate when he was done. A small gesture really, but the look of inner-debate on the host's face was priceless.  A role reversal. Something I think we will be wrestling with this whole mission.

  I know this overwhelming hospitality has to be, at least in part, because of the gratitude these people have for the mission of the church. The ones we met the first night here were ones involved in the mission too, so their hearts and purpose are already there, but it doesn't take a very perceptive person to see some reasons why.  All one had to do is look out the bus window on the drive here to see why.  It was a lesson in living conditions of other countries. What people back home would have had torn down as unsuitable for even a shed, were actually homes and businesses of the Honduran people.

  If you're following the blog while we are down here, please keep us in your prayers that we may find a place to do great things with our time here.  But in any case, please keep the greater mission and these wonderful people of Honduras in your prayers no matter when you read this.

God Bless!

Aaron N. Mason