Well, I'm a few days removed from the St. Alban's EYC mission trip to Tennessee, and I still can't effectively communicate what exactly the trip meant. Certain words continue popping up--such as "incredible" and "amazing"--but I'm unable to put intellible sentences together! Any detailed account of what happened moment-by-moment during the trip will be both overwhelming and a bit too much to read and write in one sitting. Therefore, I'm going to avoid writing of the daily happenings. (If you're interested in that, please feel free to contact me though!) Instead, over the next few entries, I'm going to share certain happenings and lessons that I took away from the experience.

With that, let me open by saying that I sure hope this past week wasn't simply an experience. It pains and worries me to think that the youth and sponsors will walk away from this trip thinking to themselves, "Boy, that was such a great experience!", or "I'm glad I experienced that!" An experience comes and goes and not much is to be said of it in the long run. A tetanus shot--now that's an experience! You get one and its either not so bad, or it kicks your butt! And you walk away saying, "I hope I don't have to experience that for a good long while!" Experiences, whether they are good or bad, hit us big at first but become distant memories later on.

So to think that we'll walk away from the shadows of the Appalachian Mountains and say, "What an experience! I'm sure glad I got to see that!"...well, it scares me.

Its my prayer that each member of the team met Jesus that week...and will be freshly and forever changed as a result. For some folks on the trip, it may have been the 100th time to witness Christ....but for others, it was their very first time. And no matter how many times it happens, each time someone runs into Jesus, history is forever changed.

Let's look at some examples:

1. The Apostle Paul, who is accredited with leading and starting the first churches and writing most of the New Testament, was once a persecutor of Christians. He was even at the stoning of Stephen! (Acts 7:54-8:1) But something happened shortly after he took part in the murder of Stephen. Paul met Jesus.(Acts 9)Its quite incredible...for in the very passage that Paul was met by Christ, it opens with Meanwhile, Paul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. Two verses later, the Lord knocked Paul right off his feet and onto the ground. Paul was speechless and blind! It goes on to say in verse 20 that after he regained his strength, he immediately set out to the Lord's work! Thanks be to God!

2. In John 4, the Samaritan Woman encounters Christ. As she went to the town well to draw water, she came upon Christ sitting at the well. This must have been a very intimidating experience b/c not only was she a woman...but a Samaritan woman in the midst of a Jewish man. Furthermore, she had basically shared her bed with several men...and not even as their wife! But Christ meets her where she is nonetheless, and in verse 28 it tells us she drops the water jug where she is and goes back to share the Good News she has heard. It doesnt' stop there either! Just read verse 39!! It tells us that many more Samaritans came to know Christ as a result of that once lowly, dirty woman!

Paul and the woman at the well were living shameful lives...and were headed on a collision course with disaster. Paul was responsible for the deaths of many Christians and the woman was living a life of sexual and moral sin. However, they both met Christ on a path...and both ended up choosing different ones as a result. Paul shaped early Christianity for crying outloud! And the woman changed her city for Christ! These are just two among a host of testimonies the Bible provides...just look at Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Cornelius!

Folks who met Jesus were changed...simple as that. It wasn't simply an "experience". Paul didn't just have a Damascus Road Experience....his life was altered...changed. The woman at the well didn't have an experience w/ Christ there. Instead she was given a new life and freedom that she never knew before. And as a result, she boldly shared Christ w/ the city that once scorned her.

So its my prayer that we just didn't experience a good trip to Tennessee. I hope Christ knocked us off our feet like He did Paul. Perhaps He told some us to leave our burden at the well like He did the woman. We've got work to do...lives to change. Let's begin with ours!