The power of relationship

This weekend we put on VBS. Actually it really wasn't "Vacation" Bible School since it isn't vacation time being the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere. So we called it Super Saturday. And it really was... a super Saturday.

Just to get the numbers out of the way, we had 53 kids in attendance. That's about how many people we usually have in attendance on Sunday morning. There were probably about 30 more adults running around the building as well, either teaching, leading groups, cooking, helping or parents who came to see what their kids were doing. I was in the "helping" category. I did a little bit of everything. Mostly I was the gopher and did whatever the chief, Valerie (my teammate and children's minister) told me to do.

In the end we only broke one light fixture, the electricity only went out in half the building (including the air conditioners) and only one kid threw up. So it was pretty much a great success.

What I was most proud of for the day was the fact that the kids who came were connected to people at our church. For the most part they weren't random kids off the street that we will never see again. Our members brought their neighbor kids. Our children invited their friends. Our secretary invited the guy who services our copier to bring his kids. The parking attendant that works at the restaurant down the street and the street sweeper sent their children. Kids came through relationships.

Mission work through relationship is slow. It takes time to earn the respect and trust of people. Especially to get to a place where they are willing to share with you about something as intimate as their deepest needs and their spiritual questions and doubts, hopes and fears.

I thought when I moved to Brazil, that five years into the work, I would be part of a church a lot bigger and faster growing than 40-50. But what I have learned is that mission work isn't about having the best worship service that everyone wants to go to, being the best foreign language learner, or always knowing exactly what to say. It isn't even about being the best pray'er or having the spiritual gift of evangelism. Effective mission work is about cultivating a loving, powerful, relationship with God Almighty and letting that transformational relationship spill out daily onto the other relationships in my life. From my husband, to my next door neighbor, to the other moms at Kelton's school, to the guy that always parks too close to me in our garage, my relationship with people matter. And it is the best way to be a missionary in this world.