I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the trip I took to Zambia last year. It’s been almost a year and my world is still upside down. When I think about those kids from the village that I loved on or the ones from the orphanage who became my “entourage” for 9 days my world comes to a screeching halt. Even if I’m in the middle of the most important task and one of those kids crosses my mind I’m done… finished. My heart sinks for them, it breaks when I remember their faces.

I remember walking through this village, it looked like it was right out of a movie. Small huts with bamboo for ceilings and dirt for floors. Most of these make-shift homes were about the size of my bathroom. Hut after hut after hut, seemingly stacked on top of each other for as far as I could see. We just walked. Within minutes dozens of kids were following, soon hundreds. They were all smiles. Full of joy and laughter.

Just before I boarded the plane in Atlanta, I checked my voicemail and I had a message from Shannon. He simply reminded me what Rob Bell says in Velvet Elvis about mission work. He said that the true purpose of going into a part of the world that hasn’t been introduced to a loving God isn’t to take them that God. But rather to reveal to them that God that is already at work right there among them.

Seeing those kids, most of them orphans, running and laughing and playing I realized that our loving God was already there with them.

It blew my mind to see these kids who had nothing, smiling as if they had everything. It’s changed my perspective. 

Have you ever had an experience like that? An experience, whether an event or a moment, that changes the way you see the world? If so please share.