It's Monday night.
It's my last evening activity, and for those of you who don't know what that means....
...it means every emotion that exists in me was pouring out.
I stand at the top of the steps in Jackson square, over looking the garden and cathedral.
I played Edith Piaf's La vie en Rose on my phone.
And gazed at the sunset behind the incredible scene that unfolded before me.
As this is a beautiful depiction of my glorious summer, it does NOT depict the absolute insanity I felt every Monday Night preparing Jambalaya with 12 youth, for 70 people.
This glamorous moment I was breathing in, could not show you, the struggle it was to get out of bed on Tuesday morning at 545, to begin preparing biscuits and gravy for 70 people.
It does not show you the struggle I had writing and practicing my 7-9 minute talks every night.
It does not show you the conflict that my team and I had every week.
It does not show the messy room that you're too tired to clean.
My summer mission doesn't show the day I cried cause I missed home.
My summer mission doesn't show the fear that I have to be going back home, leaving these new relationships, and starting school again.
All the amazing stories that I have to share will make people's eye's glaze over, because the stories don't make sense because they weren't there to experience them with me.
I am going to miss this summer, and not miss it at all, at the very same time.
When you throw 4 people together, all who communicate differently, all who have different strengths, all who see worth in different things, you learn that arguments are good, and confrontation is a must.
When you have to feed 70 people, you learn the key is in the details.
When you have to give a talk that is supposed help grow people's relationship with Jesus. You learn you can't fake it.
When you are out doing service projects and you're uncomfortable and it's so awkward, you learn, that God shows up.
And when you're on week 9, and you're so tired, and you have literally no idea how you are going to keep going you learn that God is going to show up.
When 4 people who don't know each other come together, and say no to themselves, yes to each other and yes to serving others, you get 3 of the best friends that will ever exist in your life.
We have glamorized the idea of mission, we have glamorized the idea of servant-hood.
We have glamorized what mission looks like.
It's not about us.
It's not going to change in a second.
It's not going to change everyone's lives.
It might not change your life.
But it's not really about you.
It's not really about what you get out of it.
It's about making this world we live in better.
It's about realizing that there are people in this world that need help.
And sometimes that help looks like pulling 200 rotting, mice and cockroach ridden boxes out of storage unit that hasn't been cleaned out in years, for an elderly lady that needs help moving.
Sometimes it's sweeping.
We have convinced ourselves that the mission is supposed to change the world in huge radical ways.
But sometimes, Jesus just looks like a dump truck being donated after you have spent an entire afternoon figuring out what to do with 50 boxes that need to be throw out and calling half of New Orleans and the Government so that same sweet elderly lady can get rid of half her stuff.
Sometimes Jesus looks like little notes from students, that say that your story helped them feel like they can do something.
Sometimes Jesus looks like having an argument with your co-worker and then hugging it out 20 minutes later.
Jesus, doesn't always look like someone who changed the world in one giant amazing summer in New Orleans, he mostly looks like a bunch of little moments that don't look like much at all.
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