Why Texas?!?

Last week I decided to attend the young adult ministry at Highland Park UMC for the 3^rd time. We started out with a study of the last half of Romans 15 and then went out to dinner to fellowship and hang out. Since I am still new to the group, it seems like I am asked by at least one person each time, “what do you do?” and that’s a hard enough question to answer at times but the question that proceeded that caught me off guard and I didn’t seem to have a legitimate answer to “why would the United Methodist Church send a missionary to Texas?”

After leaving the group and on my drive back to the house, that question kept running through my mind and continued to be on my mind the next day. It’s the first time that someone has actually asked me, “why Texas?” but it has been a question that I have often asked myself. I realized that I wasn’t able to answer the question that night because it is often a question I ask myself and a question that can’t fully be answered at the moment but I do have an answer.

So, why Texas? The why is because there’s a need in Texas. There’s a need for the Hope of Christ to be seen and spread in Texas. Most often I feel like we are blind to what’s going on around us. We live in a specific area and we get comfortable that we begin to adapt and think that everything is okay and normal yet when you move from one place to another and you find yourself somewhere that you’ve never been before then you start to see the brokenness and the things missing. Too often as Christians, I feel like we do the same thing, we get so caught up in the church life and even being missionaries/ in ministry/ pastors/ etc that we get to a place of being comfortable and we forget to look around and see what’s truly going on and see the continued need to reach out to people and bring hope to the various sectors of the neighborhood/ state/ etc.

I used to be someone that thought that you had to leave the country to be a missionary but since being in TX I can tell you that there is a need everywhere and that’s why I am in TX because there is a lot of brokenness/ hurt/ etc in Texas that God wants to redeem. As an earlier blog post stated, things may look fine on the outside but once you take a look on the inside then you will realize what’s going on. This past month or 2, I have helped with doing about 40+ home visits in the 9 neighborhoods that my placement site works. These houses are ones that we will be working on at the end of June but we don’t want to see it as merely working on houses but as a way to be able to reach residents and bring them hope when they may not have been loosing hope. You can look at a house and see that it needs painted and you can change the way the outside of the house looks but what truly matters is what’s on the inside. The inside will tell you the truth and will show you the need. It truly is beyond the paint and beyond the walls but it’s about getting to know one another, showing the love of Christ, and bringing hope to the hopeless. It’s about relationships and about changing the inside and taking the time to truly listen to people and hear their stories. When you take the time to listen to someone, allow them to talk, and truly listen then you will no longer have to ask, “why Texas?” because your question would have been answered by the person you were talking to and listening to.

So again, why Texas? It’s because God brought me here and because there is hurt/ brokenness/ a loss of hope/ etc in many people’s lives in Texas and it’s about time that we take time to go beyond the paint and truly see and hear what’s going on. It’s time that we stop acting like we have it all together and that our neighborhood/ state/ country is fine when in reality, it’s falling apart and in great need of hope and for God’s love to shine through us and reach those that are hurting. Truly take a look around and you will realize why Texas or why ______ (fill in the blank with where ever you are since no matter where we are, there is a need for people to be “missionaries” and bring hope/ love/ God’s light/ etc)… That’s why Texas and I wouldn’t want to change where God has me at right now.

If you are still asking why Texas or why _____ then ask God to give you His eyes to see and then you wouldn't be asking that question any longer but then the question would be, what can be done and why is this happening?