How One Week Changed my Life

I feel as if I need to explain why I decided to come to Appalachia and serve. There are so many things that impact people in life to do things and one week almost a year ago that happened for me.
I had an opportunity to go to Ecuador for a week and serve by building a home for a family. This family was great and they deserved the home we were able to build for them.


But that is not where my story begins. Before I went to Ecuador I had been on several missions trips and in fact even though I don't really agree with going on a trip every year I have been on a trip every year since my junior year in high school. This is an interesting point because as I am thinking about it I never planned on going to Rockford or Ecuador. These trips kind of fell in my lap. At the time I would never had guessed God had been preparing me for this.

When i went to Rockford i found out that I was going legitimately a week before I left for the trip. I was able to pay for the trip myself and I didn't need to send out any support levels. That trip changed me. For the first time in my life I started to feel God pull my heart toward helping people in need. Furthermore, God started showing me the way the Church has failed in doing things for the poor and needy. The Church should be a movement, not a building. Looking back I can see now how God has been in every aspect in my life molding me for this trip. When I went to Rockford God taught me to depend on him for energy. This supernatural energy only comes from him. It's as if when I ask God for energy he gives me a glass of fresh water that fills me to the brim. When I am depending on Him I am able to do so much more. I have energy when others are tired. God rocked my life on that trip.

And then there was Ecuador.

However on a side note I feel like it is so interesting how we as God's children are never satisfied when it comes to growing in God. We only get tastes as Christians here on earth. We cannot and should not be satisfied with just getting energy from God to do his work. He wants to do so much more in us and through us.
There is a verse in 1 Corinthians 13 that says, And now these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. I was having a conversation with a good friend before I left for Appalachia about this passage and I realize now that faith and hope are going to disappear but love will always be there.


In Ecuador God showed me the meaning of love.


When we got to give a house to Eduardo and his family it was hands down the most obvious example of Christ's love for us that I have ever seen. Christ died for us and gave us something that we don't deserve and cannot afford. In the same way my work crew was able to give Eduardo something that he could not afford, and something that in his mind he didn't deserve.


Ecuador changed my life.

I remember praying for weeks before going that God would change me in some radical way. HELLO I AM IN APPALACHIA!!!!!

God changed my life in a week and I am now spending eight or nine weeks of summer in Appalachia doing His work.

It is so incredibly sad that the homes I am seeing here are just as bad or worse than the homes in Ecuador. This should not be.
How can we as Christians live in luxury while there are children sitting without clothes on top of plywood in trailers that have crazy bug infestations.
How can we as Christians who live in luxury be o.k. with letting elderly people not have windows in their homes, or ceilings above their heads. This should not be.

God is teaching me to feel love for these strangers.
Love for these people who live in flyover land.
Love for these people who look weird, speak differently, and are filthy.

If someone had asked me five years ago if A) Do I think I would be living in a school working ridiculous hours serving the poor for the whole summer? and B) Do I even know what Appalachia is? I would have laughed and said no.
Christ moved me and I feel like I can zero in on the one week in Ecuador when I really felt God calling me to serve him in this way.