The Dirty Side of Christianity

The past week, I was in New Orleans. It was probably the best in-country mission trip of my life. Really, the only thing that would have made it better would have been to make it longer. 

I love experiences like camp and other retreats, where you spend the week going to services, and learning about God, and simply basking in his presence. But that's not enough. That is the clean, safe side of Christianity. It may be a little outside of your comfort zone, but it is still safe and controlled. 

Christianity though, is not meant to be safe and clean all the time.

September 23rd, we headed down to Arabi, LA. This in itself was quite out of my comfort zone. I had been told that Operation Blessing only accepted teams of 2 or more to come volunteer. That was almost enough to make me give up once I realized that I didn't know anyone who would be willing to travel to LA with me, especially to work. So I asked someone I barely knew, knowing that he was self-employed, and perhaps could go. And he agreed. So there we were, getting ready to drive 17 hours together. It was a bit outside of my comfort zone. 

We got to Louisiana at about 9:30 in the morning, after driving through the night. We were sent straight to our job site. We had no idea what we would be doing; maybe gutting, or building, or pulling nails, or painting. We were gutting, we soon found. We were tearing all of the sheetrock and flooring out of the house. And everything was covered with mold. We had moldy water dripping on our heads from the insulation in the ceiling. We were dripping sweat, and covered with drywall dust and mold. I tried wearing a mask to keep from inhaling dust, but found I couldn't breathe. Between the heat and humidity, and dehydration, I had a number of times where I started to black out. 

I began questioning why I was there. Why would I drive so far to make myself totally miserable? What I doing anything? I had to really do a bit of an attitude check, and not allow the lies to get in and tell me that I was worthless. I wasn't just there to be an extra body. I was there because it was what God called me to do. It was the dirty side of Christianity; the side that is usually a bit less attractive. But it is just as important as the clean, attractive side. 

You can't just go and fill yourself with God and do nothing else. You have to fill yourself with God and pour into other people. God changes your life in order to help you change other's lives. 

After my little attitude adjustment, I made a point of looking beyond any negative to see what God had for us. And partway through the week, I had a moment where God really drove it home why I was there. 

We were gutting a house where the owner was still living. He was so overwhelmed by everything. He was in his 60s, and single, and didn't know where to start, so he was just waiting to figure it out. The house really didn't look so bad. We drove about an hour away from where we were staying, and when we walked in, Luke and I were both looking around, trying to figure out why we were there. It didn't even look like there was damage. But when we started tearing out walls and pulling up tiles, we found so much mold. The owner was breathing it in every moment that he stayed there. 

As he looked around his house, he said to us, "God sent you here to save my life. I didn't know what to do, and breathing in that mold would have killed me. God sent you, and I thank you."

And that was why we were there. I was gross and sweaty and I smelled like mold and tile glue. It was not a pretty thing. But it was the task God had for me to do. I knew then that this was why God had been calling me so strongly to go to LA. I am so thankful that I listened. The trip was incredible in so many ways. And it was fun. It is amazing how much fun work like that can be when you have the proper motivation.