hope

Wrapping up this month on missions, I hope there was something for everybody. The one thing I took away from my mission trip was the importance of hope. Hope is what keeps you going when things might be momentarily hard. Hope gives you the strength to try one more time. One moment that stands out to me was our last day in New York. We went to a park that afternoon and set up tables to give away water, sandwiches, chips and donated clothes. It was an area the Dream Center hadn’t done a lot of outreaches in but they wanted to. Shortly before we left, we had sidewalk chalk and got to work leaving our mark. I remember pausing at one point and watching the others. Some were drawing flowers and writing “we <3 NY” and other fun things. At the entrance to the park, one of the leaders had written “keep dreaming” and intersected the words “love” and “hope” to make a cross. One of the girls was drawing with two little girls who had walked up while some of our other students were playing with kids on the playground. It was one of those moments that you want to never forget. The picture for this post is the heart I made that day. This trip definitely left an impact on me. I don’t want to be too busy to love others. I want to love without expecting anything in return. Mission trips wake you up and make it hard to go back to how things were before. And I think that’s how it should be.