Our Baltimore team spent much of yesterday at the Stadium School in Baltimore, which doubles as the current home of Hopeville Church (note: you may recognize Hopeville Church's name, as Joshua Symonette, who's preached at Mountain several times now including once this summer, serves as their lead pastor). There, our team helped paint classrooms and hallways to prepare them for the upcoming school year.
Knowing how much Jesus valued teaching and encouraging people, we loved getting to play a small part in helping young people have a place to not only grow academically, but learn lessons on character and the potential we each have to influence others and make a positive difference throughout our lives.
We also loved having a chance to get to know one another on our team and encourage one another in the ministries we've each sensed God put on our hearts while we served, ate, as we did devotions at night, and even "as we were going" in between throughout our day. Reflecting Christ's heart to call, honor, and work in and through people of all people of all backgrounds and life experiences, our team included teachers, a caregiver, a nurse, a mental health worker, and more.
We found we had so much to learn and receive from one another and to teach and give to one another at once. It served as such a beautiful reminder that God has given us each gifts that we can use to bless others and how He calls us all to set an example for those in our midst, yet we can also grow so much from the examples of others at much.
As evening came, we walked to Baltimore's Inner Harbor and invited several men and women we met who were facing homelessness to join us for dinner at the Inner Harbor Chick-fil-A, and we offered them the opportunity to stay at a room we'd provide for them thanks in large part to the generosity of our trip supporters at our hotel (which some of our dinner guests accepted) and attend church with us the next morning. One of the men who joined us said "I've had people bring their left overs, or drop off food from their car on the way out of Baltimore, but I've never had anyone invite me to dinner with them". Thinking of how Jesus cared so deeply about people's physical needs-- yet He cared just as much about helping people see the immeasurable worth we all hold in the eyes of the God who made and loves each of us and becoming a "friend who sticks closer than a brother" to all people-- we felt this experience made us really reflect on God's heart towards everyone and how He would have each of us share in His empathy, humility, and hospitality.
Afterward, we briefly stopped at Maryland's 9/11 Memorial in front of Baltimore's World Trade Center building, which reminded us how we never know the kinds of pain anyone in our midst may have experienced and to live with constant ompassion. We then returned to our hotel for the night, where we spent time answering questions and meditating on Scriptures that helped us reflect on questions and points such as the following:
1. Reflecting ideas that author Jonathan Brooks discusses in his book, "Church Foresaken," are there ways the church has could better love certain groups of people or neighbors as God would intend? Could we draw any lessons from our trip that could help us begin doing so?
2. Recalling various New Testament ideas on how to love our neighbors, and our trip buddy activity for the night was to ask each other... how can we "be kind and compassionate to one another" (Ephesians 4:32), "live in harmony with one another" (Romans 12:16), "encourage one another daily" (Hebrews 3:13), and "spur one another on towards love and good deeds" (Hebrews 10:24)? We were asked that if Christians just followed the 'one anothers' in the scripture, how might we as individuals and the church at large shape our world if we each sought to do so in our everyday lives?
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