More than hammers and screws

This is my first time on a missions trip and even my first time being south of Tennessee. About a year ago or so pastor Deve mentioned to me about this missions trip that he leads every year down to El Salvador to build houses. Instantly my ears perked up with the mention of building things. I thought, boy we are building houses and they are even made out of sheet metal. This is my forte, I should be going. 

As Deve and I met, again and again the missions trip kept coming into conversation and I felt a stronger and stronger need to go. I had no idea what to expect exactly. I figured a team of 8 tradesmen will go down for a week and hammer out as many houses as we can stand. But when we first started having preparation meetings I became very confused. When I looked around the room at the faces of my teammates and got to know them, none of them were tradesmen, some of them didn't even seem comfortable with an impact driver. What kind of team are we assembling if we are going to build houses and half the people can't use an impact? I thought well maybe the houses aren't that hard to put together and we will be okay. 

Within the first build day everything came to light. I quickly realized that even though not everyone was a builder we all had very strong gifts and skills to bring to make this team whole. By the end of the first day, we had needed the skills of a mechanic to change a flat on the truck, the skills of a nurse to patch up some cuts, and the compassion of mothers to communicate hope and love to the women of the community. I can plug a thousand screws into any building but I would have never been able to connect to theses families like my teammates can. 

I realized that God has given us a beautiful and dynamic tool box full of tools to do his work. It is evident that every person on this team has a role to play, that no one else on the team can do as well. This diversity makes our team so strong; and gives us the ability to spread so much love and hope that it is overwhelming. 

This is so much more than just building houses.

-Phil