Stuff I've learned on a 37 day mission trip

It will take a while to reflect on our experience in Costa Rica, and I suppose that the adventure began when we first decided to leave our long time home in Minnesota in June 2009.

Our kids cried when we told them we were moving, and were quite saddened and a little angry when they considered how much they would miss the close friends that they had grown up with in church, school, sports, and the neighborhood. We answered tons of questions, or I should say we tried to, because the one question we really couldn't answer is...where are we going on a mission trip and what are we going to do?

We got an answer to that question in September 2009 when we met Matt and Lisa Befus. Their work in Costa Rica and La Palabra de Vida school was a great fit for us and we are so glad that the Lord put the Befuses in our life.

We all have adjusted well to small town life, but we do miss a lot of things about Minnesota. We still go home quite often and have a great chance to catch up with friends each time, but we miss our old small group, our church, and our community.

God has helped us make this journey each step of the way. He has answered our prayers for finances, work, and the cohesiveness of our family. He has made our time here valuable in so many ways with our work at the school, our travels around the country, our Bible study together, and our closeness to Him.

I was thinking today about what I will take away from this experience, and here are a few things I noted:

1. In order to gain the most from a trip like my family has taken, we have had to have a "help me understand" attitude instead of a "this isn't like we do it back home." air. The Costa Rican culture, the school, and the individuals we have worked with do things very differently than we might, but we have prayed each day that we will be a blessing to everyone we meet. This begins if those we meet are glad to see us, and do not think we are Americans attempting to show everyone why we are better from them. As a result, we have come to understand how things are done in Costa Rica, and have embraced this very unique culture.

2. We know nothing about the depth of commitment it takes to be productive and long-term as missionaries. We only were here 37 days, and it stretched our family as far as we have ever been stretched.

3. Even if you are doing "God's work," there will still be all the normal struggles, disagreements, bad attitudes, laughter, tears, and turmoil, that every family has in any 37 days. Being short-term missionaries doesn't prevent those from happening. You just feel a little bit foolish to be wasting time over petty disagreements when we could be doing more important work.

4. I am humbled at the amount of discipline, patience, faith, and leadership that Matt and Lisa Befus show everyday at this school. They do the work of a small army, and constantly sacrifice their own needs for the needs of everyone around them. They are a huge blessing to us, and we have learned so much about serving the Lord in a gracious way from observing and working directly with them.

5. We will never be the same. We're already plotting and planning our next mission adventure.

Have a great weekend. Bill