The Unexpected (and Awesome) Side Effect of My First Mission Trip

Ken Brown
Ken Brown
Jul 27, 2017 · 6 min read

People say that going on your first mission trip changes you.
It took me an entire week to realize how.

During the week of June 11–17, 2017, my 13-yr-old son Rowan and I had the honor of serving with other parents and their rising 8th grade kids at the Lighthouse Family Retreat in Destin, FL.

This mission trip was a partnership between Lighthouse Family Retreat and my son’s middle-school church group — Transit.

The trip offered rising 8th graders the opportunity to serve at the Lighthouse retreat with one of their parents. As a first mission trip for many of us, it was more affordable, within a drivable distance from home and allowed Rowan to serve with (and meet) other kids from Transit.

TIME OUT: A mission trip in Florida? Does that really count? Yes.

Lighthouse works with families that are living through childhood cancer. Those families are known as Retreat Families. We are called Family Partners. The design of the week-long retreats enables the families to laugh, restore relationships, and find hope in God.

14 Retreat Families attended during our week and they were all single-parent families (moms). Rowan and myself, along with another Family Partner mom and her daughter, were assigned to a family. This family had 3 kids ages 2, 3, and 7. It was the 3-yr-old who had been battling leukemia for almost the last 2 years.

The Schedule

The way we served the Retreat Families wasn’t anything difficult:

  • We served them breakfast, lunch and dinner under the “Big Tent.”
  • During breakfast, I ditched out to the family’s condo to clean up, makes beds and start any laundry.
  • During dinner, our Family Partner mom went to their condo to do the nightly turndown.
  • So it really fell on the kids to bring the families their meals.
  • Once all of the Retreat Families were fed, then the Family Partners had time to eat.

From 10:00 am — noon every day, the moms went to their own sessions while the kids were divided up among the Family Partners into their small groups, known as “Flip Flop” groups. Rowan ended up in another group with fellow Transit kids, two Retreat Family kids, and 3 dads to oversee the kids, I was in a group with 2 Transit kids, 5 Retreat Family kids (two of whom were currently in treatment) along with 2 other dads and one high-school student.

It was in our “Flip Flop” group that we would hang out at the pool, talk with the kids and work on a skit to perform on Friday evening.

Downtime for the Family Partners was between 1:00–5:00 pm every day. Dinner was usually at 5:30 or 6:30 pm.

Each day closed with the Family Partners and the Lighthouse staff attending Refuel — our time to reflect on the day and talk about any significant things that we witnessed. So usually by 8:00 or 8:30 pm we were done for the evening. The only exception was Wednesday night, when the mom’s had a Mom’s night out that included dinner at a nice on-property restaurant. We hung out with our Retreat family from 5:00 until about 8:30 pm, playing with the kids, having dinner, then hanging out at their condo and getting everyone ready for bed.

On paper, not a grueling schedule by any means. And the level and intensity of service we were called to perform was nothing out of the ordinary.

But being there in Florida, specifically for the mission of helping the Retreat Families, did something to me.

It wasn’t a daily thing, where I noticed any drastic change in my feelings or attitude. It was on the final day, when we said our “See ya laters!”, left the retreat at 9:00 am and began the drive home that my introverted processing took over. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Highlights of the Week

The absolute highlight of the trip was the final Refuel session on Friday night. That was the final opportunity for Family Partners and Lighthouse staff to talk about what we had seen, observed and witnessed during the week. There were some very inspiring observations from both parents and kids, along with some tearful comments.

What got me the most was this:
During our final prayer of the Retreat, Rowan was sitting in front of me at one of the picnic tables. He and one of his new buddies had their arms around each other and, with my eyes closed, I heard some scratching on the table in front of me. I opened my eyes to see Rowan’s left arm reaching back to hold my hand. I grabbed it immediately.

Wow! Even now, I tear up thinking about that moment. As a parent, I know how rare and precious such moments are. That alone was worth the trip…and then the a-ha moments began to truly crystallize…

Giving Grace

We have way more grace to give than we think we do. And it is so needed. And it requires so little of us and from us — we just have to put ourselves second so that — for a brief moment — we can put someone else first.

Be kind. Say thank you. Initiate a quick conversation to show interest in the other person. Smile and don’t be perturbed when the other person clearly is.

Not sure how to put yourself second? Go on a mission trip.

Then take what you learned and give grace to others.

On the 5-hr drive back from Florida, I stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee. There was no one at the counter when I walked in. About 30 seconds later a worker came out of the bathroom, clearly having been cleaning said bathroom, and displayed exacerbation on his face and body language. I could have chosen to respond in kind and taken the “How dare you, I’m the customer here!” tactic. But instead I simply smiled, engaged in light conversation, genuinely thanked him and he was nothing short of kind and awesome in serving me.

There are innumerable opportunities to give grace to others. Think about all of the times you’ve been greeted with zero eye contact or no greeting at all from others whose job is to serve you; they simply stand there waiting for you to speak.

When you are in the midst of a mission trip, your serving mode is “always on.”

In that scenario, your problems really do become insignificant. You simply are not thinking about you. You’re there to serve and that’s what you do. And the downtime you get each afternoon is used more for napping and just hanging out. But even then, your mind is not on you. Serving mode: still ON.

My Big A-Ha Moment

So, putting the pieces together of everything I observed on our mission trip took the entire week. The whole grace concept I described above was part of that.

But then, still on the drive back home, the big, game-changing, unexpected and awesome realization hit me:

When you start serving others and stop thinking about yourself, an incredible thing happens: The weight of all your concerns, anxiety and stress disappear. And it feels amazing! You feel lighter, happier and are much more fun to be around.

I had spent the week putting myself last so that I could give my attention to the families I was there to serve. I honestly felt happier and less stressed than I had in years.

At this time of this writing, it is now 6 weeks after our trip. There have actually been only two times that I have become genuinely frustrated or aggravated — and both have involved Atlanta traffic.

And as soon as I noticed that I was frustrated or aggravated, I did not like it. It did not feel good at all.

Closing Thought

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been easily aggravated at small things. After years of introspection, I know why that is and am fully aware of my issues that drive such thinking. So for me to sit here and tell you that for the last 6 weeks, I’ve only been truly aggravated twice (instead of multiple times each day) is no small statement.

And that change in me is only because of God.

As much as I tried to figure out going into the mission trip how the experience was going to change me, as much as I reviewed each day for an inkling of those changes, God worked on me in His creatively unexpected way to give me a lasting gift beyond what I could have ever expected.

I wish such a change for you.

Ken Brown

Written by

Ken Brown

I help professionals design memorable corporate learning experiences. CEO | Chief EMU Wrangler, The EMU Experience.

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