Nothing Special!?

Hello, my name is Mary Krantz, and I was one of the youth who attended the Atlanta Mission trip. When I heard that the mission trip was going to be in Atlanta, I was just a bit disappointed, I go to Atlanta every year to visit family, and I’ve been around town, and I couldn’t remember any times where I looked around Atlanta and specifically thought “this would be a good spot for a mission trip” the city seemed fine, so I wondered what we would be doing as our mission. When we got to Atlanta, we went to a church that would be our home base. There we were all divided into teams, and each team had a name, and I anxiously awaited to hear where our team would be serving. I soon found out that we would be working at a place called “The Frazier Center”, which was a building where half of the building was a daycare, for small children of all ages, What made this daycare different, was that they allowed children with or without disabilities. The other half of the building was where adults that were mentally and/or physically disabled, could spend their time working on activities that would help them to function in other areas of life.

I soon found that in the mornings, I would spend my time rocking baby’s to sleep in my arms, shaking toys in front of babies, and making sure they were sleeping in their right cribs, drinking out of their bottle, and making sure they are using the right blanket. In the afternoons, I would go and talk with the adults. They would ask me questions, and we’d discus different topics, and occasionally I would find us talking about the same thing over and over again, but I would keep the conversation going. I also participated in a very interesting game of ‘Sorry’, with a couple of other people, and Meg Weiss. one of the men I was playing with, Ben, seemed to be in charge of the rules and kind of controlled the game, he told us when to go, and sometimes we would get to go twice in a row, or not get to go for about five turns, and then on Ben’s turn, he would decide to move people back spaces, and he would go many more spaces that he was supposed to, but we would sit back and watch him, letting him play the game how he wanted to play it, knowing that the game would just end up to one person winning anyway, (which, unsurprisingly turned out to be Ben).

And around the middle of the week, I started thinking, that I didn’t really think this was a great way to spend my time, I wasn’t doing anything particularly special, I mean, ANYONE could be doing what I was doing, wasn’t there supposed to be a special job that only I could do?

Some task that was part of GOD’S master plan for me, that only I could complete? All that I was doing was shaking toys in babies faces, rocking them to sleep, and finding some way to please the babies if they cried. With the adults, all I was doing was talking to them, often about something that wasn’t really important, and playing games where we didn’t even follow the rules!

What was special about what I was doing?

Was I really going to change the babies lives just because I helped them out for a week? But then, I realized that I was missing something, and then the big picture popped into my mind. I was doing to these children and adults, what GOD does for me, sometimes, GOD has to shake answers in front of my face before I realize it, when I am sad, he comforts me, when I am not in spiritual “crib” he places me where I was supposed to be, he feeds me spiritually when I am hungry. Thinking about my prayers, I realized that God probably listens to the same stories over and over from me. And he is infinitely patient with me when I try to play ‘games’ by my own rules. Even though I might not be playing the game how the rules state it should be played, GOD knows, that it will end up with him in the end, and he will love me unconditionally no matter what. What I was doing in Atlanta was what GOD meant for me, and everyone to do, to share GOD’s love with everyone, no matter how different people are.

I hope you will go out now and share GOD’S love with others, remembering that even the smallest of tasks are part of GOD’S plan for your life. thank-you.

Mary Krantz, Coleman Middle School, Testimony from Youth Sunday, August 5, 2007