Ordinary --> Extraordinary

I'll admit, before this trip, I was worried.  I didn't think I was prepared enough - what if I can't teach the electives well, what if my abilities aren't good enough, what if I can't communicate effectively?

But on the Sunday before our missions team flew out to Thailand, Pastor Gavin gave a brief message on Mark 8:1-10. In the passage, Jesus took something ordinary and did the extra-ordinary.  He was before a great crowd with thousands of people, and had compassion on them because they followed him around for 3 days and they were hungry.  So he took a few loaves of bread and some small fish and multiplied it.  

After hearing this message, I remember having a huge burden lifted off my back. It wasn't about my faults, my abilities, my lack of faith, the language barriers, or anything like that.  It was about God taking the ordinary to display the extraordinary. It was then that I realized that all the doubts I had in my mind were actually good. They brought me to realize I could not do anything on my own. That I needed to have faith that God would take someone ordinary like myself, like each person on my team, and use us to display the extra-ordinary - His love and grace shown through Jesus.

This was most evident on Day 10 when we went to the children's home which was not headed by ZOE. There were about 24 children under only one father and mother as caretakers. 

We weren't sure if they were raised in a Christian atmosphere. We don't know the exact details but they were in a small house with bamboo walls and a thin sheet of aluminum for a roof. The rooms between the boys and girls were divided by a folding wall. Their conditions were horrible.  They were starving - when we brought them dinner, the gobbled it up quickly and we gave them seconds, thirds, some of us even giving our own food away. 

But as we played games with them, sung songs with them, and shared with them the good news that God their Creator loves them, their expressions turned into smiles.  Some accepted Jesus that night!  Just before we left we gave out more things - ordinary things:  food, toys, blankets.  Their faces were shocked with joy.  Our team guide and planner, Betsy, made sure that the kids were left with the most important message: 

"These toys, they will get old and will break. These blankets, will wear out.  The wonderful food left here, will be eaten up and eventually gone. But you now have something that will last forever. A relationship with Jesus! If you have Jesus in your heart, He will never leave you. And you will go to Heaven one day!"

God took the ordinary - toys, blankets, food, and imperfect worryful people (like me) and turned it to extraordinary - to share the love of Christ.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of all my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For Christ's sake then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong.