While we are in El Salvador, we'll center our nightly debriefings on Matthew 14: 13-21 - the story in which Jesus feeds 5,000 people after teaching them all day out in the wilderness.
This is clearly a story of hospitality. While in El Salvador, we will experience generous and gracious hospitality Central American style. Our friends understand hospitality as an outpouring of all their resources upon us, overcoming language barriers with their warmth and love, and securing our safety wherever we go. I've experienced my former trips to El Salvador as a case of materially poor people with rich hearts lavishing themselves on us Americans who are materially full of abundance.
Jesus feeding the 5,000 is also a miracle story. But how do we define the miracle?
Is it a miracle in which Jesus opens people's hearts so that they share their meager bits of food with each other? Are the people so transformed by listening to Jesus that they are empowered to move beyond their own hunger to share generously? In the face of what looks like scarcity, Jesus may be the source of abundance by working through the people.
Or - perhaps it's a physical miracle in which Jesus is the source of physically multiplying what is already present as the disciples serve the people fish and bread and still have baskets of food left over.
As always, Jesus stretches our imaginations, our faith, and our responses to him. I anticipate that our mission trip will be a time of stretching for all of us in various ways. We look forward to sharing our stories with our family of faith in worship on July 31st.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
The message of Jesus'compassion comes through loud and clear.
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