A few days ago I came back home to Iowa after spending 2 semesters of school in Minnesota.. Over the past couple of days  I've encountered people from my home church and several others, mostly just random people I hardly ever see, such as my eye doctor (thats ironic?). Everybody seems to have one common question for me, "What are you doing this Summer?" I proceed and say that I will be going to South Africa on a Mission trip. Of course this brings on a load of questions.  The most popular question is "What are you going to be doing?" I tell them all that I have learned from the AIM trip information page and share with them the experiences I have been blessed with through other mission work. The responses I've got have varied, but one in particular struck me. It was the receptionist at the eye doctors. She said "Thats good for you. It takes a special person to do such a thing, the people of Africa need your help." First their is at least 3 things troubling with that sentence but I dont want to turn this into a sermon. Second the thing that bothers me the most is the last part, "the people of Africa need your help." Yes parts of Africa are struggling with AIDS, starvation, and poverty and it's great to address these issues, but there's more to our purpose in South Africa. If we are to solely bring help, why are we going? Our team should take all of the funds raised, $4600 per person and send it to South Africa. Thats alot of money that could go towards AIDS relief and other struggles. But there's more to our purpose in South Africa. The people of South Africa need something more than our help, they need hope! Our purpose is to bring the hope of Jesus Christ and his redeeming powers to the nations. My prayer is that we remember  in all our actions we offer the hope of our savior and that our actions of help are not empty but rather full of hope and love.

I realized today that next time Im asked, "What are you going to be doing?" I can skip all the details and simply reply "Sharing the hope found in Jesus."