Last August I went on a two-week short-term mission’s trip to Trujillo, Peru with my church. My church partnered with Inca link which is a missions agency formed by two Alliance missionaries; Rich and Lisa Brown. The group and I went to build a facility that will be used as an orphanage for the children who live in the garbage dumps in Trujillo, housing for other short-term teams in the future and many other purposes. We would also be visiting one of the garbage dumps.

There were so many amazing things that God did in the lives of everyone on that trip including myself during our time there. It was such an amazing experience that I could talk about so much, but I will just touch a bit on my experience and the effect it has had on my life.

We all saw God work in amazing ways on that trip, which I could never explain to you in a way that would make you feel the emotion that we felt in many different ways during that experience. Leading up to this trip I had no idea what it was that God wanted me to do with my life; although I knew that God has a purpose for everyone. I remember sitting in the airport in Atlanta Georgia, USA thinking about what I wanted to get out of this experience. One thing was to know what God wanted me to do with my life.

The first three days in Peru we had been busy working hard on the construction site. In the evening we had our debriefing as we did every night when we were reminded that the next day we would be going to the garbage dump. I had totally forgotten about that huge part of our trip and was not prepared for the reminder at all. The next day was very hard for me. At the debriefing in the evening we were talking about what we had been going through during our visit to the dump. I shared about a point where I was standing in the dump looking around at all the people looking though the garbage for food, or anything that they could collect to recycle and get some money for. In the midst of that I could hear God speak to me saying, “Look at all these people with nothing, and yet I still have a plan for them. Surely, I have a plan for you also”.

God didn’t reveal to me during that experience what He wanted me to do with my life like I had hoped He would in the Airport in Atlanta. However, in the past year since that missions experience He has been leading me and revealing to me more of what he wants me to do with my life.

Jereme Berg

In July of 2004 I had the opportunity to travel to the country of Malawi. I bet you are thinking, “Malawi … sounds familiar, where have I hear of that before?” Before being accepted on the mission team, I had never even heard of Malawi. Recently Malawi has received a lot of press because the pop star singer Madonna who adopted two children from there. Geographically, Malawi is a small landlocked country in south-eastern Africa of about 14.2 million that is bordered by Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.

Ever since I was a child I was intrigued by the adventures of missionaries, particularly those who went to African countries. I pursued this fascination as a teenager and applied for a team heading to Malawi from my old church, though I was expecting not to be accepted (long story). Wouldn’t you know it, I got accepted. Over the next few months we (the team and I) spent time together preparing ourselves for the tasks to come: assisting in the construction of a new church building and local community outreach. We were divided up into sub-teams based on our skills. Everyone was to help with the building and I was part of the drama sub-team. Because I enjoy outdoor physical labour, I was looking forward to the construction aspect of the trip the most. We left thinking we were well prepared for the ‘mission’ ahead.

Boy, were we wrong. At the very start of our trip we got stuck in London because of weather, making us miss our connecting flight in Ethiopia. The only other flight that would get us from Ethiopia to Malawi the soonest was via South Africa (way out of the way, look it up!). So we started our trip behind schedule. As time-oriented westerners, we were freaking out a little (at least, I was), fearing that we wouldn’t be able to accomplish what we came to.

We arrived in the small village of Nselema prepared to jump into construction. That is when I first encountered the laid-back African. Our team was over-concerned with eating at the ‘right’ time so that we could be at the site at the ‘right’. But we discovered that Malawians don’t really have a ‘right’ time. They are not ruled by their watches. If something is not accomplished by the end of the day they just come back to it the next day. We could have shown up four hours later and they still would have welcomed us and been glad for the help regardless of how much time was put in.

I had the preconception that we were there to help the congregation because they were not capable to complete the building without our help. Wrong again! The workers were more than capable. Many were professional bricklayers while I on the other hand was relying on the two lessons I received before coming. Not that being a professional would have helped me. I was informed that building was “a man’s job.” The women were to bring the water, watch the children and prepare the meals. I was so used to the Western mindset of gender-equality that I became angered by this (but managed to contain it, thankfully). I had never lived in a patriarchal (male-dominated) society. I couldn’t understand how the women could live under such tyranny where they were basically servants to their husband, keeping house and having children. Over the next few days I was able to sit to sit down with the local missionaries as well as the pastor’s wife and ask them about this. They explained that these were the roles of men and women in Malawi. They had been this way for centuries. The women did feel like they were being deprived of any rights. In fact, the way they saw it, they had domain over the house and their husband was responsible for everything else. They weren’t slaves but rather choosing to serve their husbands.

Back at the site, the women on our team were allowed stacking and wetting the bricks as well as crushing the broken ones used for the floor foundation. At first I didn’t understand why there was a double standard but realized later it was out of respect for our culture. They recognized that within our culture, the women worked alongside the men (generally speaking) so they allowed us to work with them as a courtesy.

I had so many misconceptions going into this trip. I had anticipated the poverty and language barrier but I never considered that there would be cultural differences. I realized looking back some of the many things God taught me while on this team: be careful to not allow the clock to run your life; take time to learn about and respect differences within other cultures.

Julie-Anne Wideman

About a year ago a few friends and I really wanted to reach out to the city of Burlington. Many people in Burlington are wealthy and very comfortable with their lives so they would have a hard time accepting the life God calls us to. We prayed and we felt God was calling us to the lower income areas of Burlington. Every Monday we went out doing door to door ministry.

When we began we really had no idea what we were going to do. We knocked on the first door and let them know who we were and we told them that we just wanted to share our faith with them. We got the door shut on us quite a few times. I think some people pretended not to know the language. We decided we needed a way to get a foot in the door, so we brought hot chocolate with us.

After knocking on one door we met a single mother who had three children. When she heard we were offering her free hot chocolate she was thrilled and let us in her house. We told her a bit about who were and shared the gospel. Then she opened up to us. She told us her struggles, and from there on we had a relationship. She didn’t fully understand how Jesus would die for someone like her. We asked someone in our church to go over to her house and mentor her while I took her children and brought them with me to the children’s ministry at my church. Every Monday we popped by her house bringing her some stuff. One time when we brought her butter, she was amazed. She went to her children and was jumping up and down, so happy that she had real butter.

It was amazing how something like butter made her smile so much. It was always the little things that got to her such as when we brought her to church, or when we made visits to her house. It’s interesting how such small things to me were able to bless her so much.

Stephen Veerasammy