Clay in the Hands

Last week, I had the privilege of being part of a mission team to the Dominican Republic. Our church has sent groups in the past but we have not returned since the pandemic. So this was the first trip back since the summer of 2019. Several on the trip had been in the past. But there were a couple of folks in our group making the trip for the first time.

It was a great week of ministry! Our group built benches for a school, ministered to children at a school and then other in an orphanage through VBS and games. Some built a truss system for a home and walked away on Wednesday from a home that had a new roof. Overall, I would say the week was a powerful time not only in the lives of those to whom we ministered but also for the lives of our team members.

Sitting at lunch on one of the last days, I had a man from another group ask me how I measured the “success” of a trip as a pastor. As I considered the question, the word that came to mind was “impact.” The reality is, we are not called to be “successful” but simply to be faithful. And that is true of a trip to the Dominican Republic or a trip to the grocery store.

The unasked question was, “how do you measure impact?” I relayed an example to the gentleman that helped me know there was impact. The day before, I had asked an individual on our team, who was on this trip for the first time how their week was going. The quick response was “Great!” I then asked, “Would you ever want to come back?” Again, without thought, the response was, “Yes – next year!” Then the next statement gave me pause. The individual said, “I don’t need a new bedroom suite.”

As I dug into that response, I found that prior to this trip, the individual had been saving to buy a new bedroom suite but decided to use the money to pay for the trip to serve God and the Dominican people with our group. So what they were saying was, the money they would be saving over the next year would not be going toward a new bedroom suite but rather to pay for next year’s mission trip to the Dominican!

What a choice!

That is how I measure impact!