When I was in high school I counted down the days until I got to head off for our summer mission trip with my friends. I loved the road trip with them. I loved the freedom of a week where it meant spending every waking moment with my favorite people. My friends who I went to church with were my best friends and I hounded my youth director for weeks to make sure we'd all be in the same van. As a full time student director now, I really can't believe it...I was that girl.
I can remember quite vividly the moment my well orchestrated and thought out plan of my perfect mission trip van line up was messed with. I had paid some attention to the adults who had signed up for our mission trip but not a ton--my focus was on the week with my friends.
When, Rich, a Dad of young kids, piled into our van with his bright eyes and very distinct mustache, I remember just stopping and starring at him. "You got room for me in here?!" he said as he plopped himself down in-between my brother and another good friend of ours. I realized quickly he wasn't asking.
"Great, our plan for the perfect road trip is ruined," I thought to myself. An hour later my sulking and perfect road trip van with my friends plan was forgotten because I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. We stopped for lunch and my friends and I all looked at each other almost at the same time and said, "Man, we love, Rich. This guys is awesome."
Over the course of that week, Rich poured into us. A group of teenagers who had just been familiar faces to him in the church pews each week just a few short days ago. He made us laugh. He poured over words of affirmation and encouragement into us with our small skill set for mission trip handy work. He taught me how to install a wax ring before installing a brand new toliet. It's probably a task that could have taken him 10 minutes and yet he coached me through it for over an hour so I could have the credit and the skill. To this day, it's the only thing outside of painting I know how to do on a worksite and it's all because Rich had the heart, patience and energy to pour into me.
Every evening as we'd all run around during our free time, Rich would sit under a lamp post on the mission property, just writing. We had no idea what he was really doing, we knew he was a lawyer, so we thought maybe he had brought work along. Rich's wife, was actually on the trip was us too and she would play and laugh over card games with us in the evenings, all the while Rich would sit and write under the lamp on his legal pad.
The last night of the trip at the end of our group devotional time, one by one, Rich walked around and began handing us each personal handwritten letters. I could not stop the tears as I read through the first sentence. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the selflessness and love of someone who didn't even know me a week before. This lawyer with the mustache, was being Jesus to me in ways I had never experienced before. I looked around the room and saw my brother and friends reading their letters from Rich. I'll never forget their faces.
Rich wasn't a youth leader who had attended tons of youth conferences or read every book on what it meant to chaperone a mission trip. Rich was simply an obedient and loving investor. He was invested in his relationship with Jesus and because of that he invested in us in ways that have impacted my life and heart for the long haul.
The investors are my student ministry heros. They are the volunteers who pour into students with time, energy, laughter and dozens of other endless ways. The investors are willing to sit under lamps and write letters of affirmation and patiently teach inpatient teenage girls how to install a wax rings on new toliets.
Thanking God for the investors. Student Ministry would be lost without them.
