“HERE WE ARE LORD”

ISAIAH 6:1-8

6:1  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.

2  Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

3  And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

4  The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

5  And I said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

6  Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.

7  The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out."

8  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"

This morning I want to tell a story of a group of people,  young and old, who are passing on God's love.   Just like Isaiah each of these people  has answered the Lord's question Whom shall I send?  with  "Send Me."

I ran 2 mission trips back when my son Adam was a teenager.  We had 11 and 7 people on those trips.  Then we took some time off.  There was one person however who continued to hound me.  That was Reggie Pawle.  He kept bugging me to have one more mission trip before he graduated from high school.  I couldn't continue to put him off.  Then Deb Buell approached Rick about doing a mission trip again and Rick called me.  Here I am three trips later and a fourth in the works.  My dream has always been to have a mission trip every year.  

When we started planning for the trip in 2002 we figured maybe 16 people tops.  We booked a Habitat for Humanity in the south and advertised the trip.  In one week we had 30 people and needed to find a bigger Habitat affiliate.  The one we booked couldn't handle that many people.  Our journey towards my dream had begun.

On the first trip the kids kept asking me What will we be doing?  I said I don't know, but I am sure we won't dig foundations.  We arrived at the work site on Monday morning and Steve, the work coordinator says a group of you will be going out to dig foundations with shovels!!  I learned never to open my mouth again about what we may do.  You don't want to tell 23 teenagers the wrong thing.  Since that year we have done several jobs.

Foundations, tamping ground, landscaping, flooring, driveways, walls, and vinly siding. 

This year was very different.  Because of our size and the week we picked to go away, we could not find a Habitat that could accommodate us.  We went to South Appalachian Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia.

 I knew this would be very different, having gone to non- Habitat places in the past.  We were not going to do new construction.  We would be working on occupied homes. 

The minute we arrived at the folklife center I knew we were in for a drastically different experience.  I prayed this would work.  It was a rough start to what turned out to be the most rewarding experience.  We arrived in the afternoon and Sheli, the coordinator, gave us a tour, which included a surprise for the boys who caught the gentleman in the shower.  The beds were not all that great.  The girls named the beds "banana beds"  because that is the shape you took when you laid down.  The one and only toilet in the girls' dorm worked if you waited 5 minutes between flushes.  Try that at home with 14 females.  One of the men thought he had something dead in the bunk above him.  He resorted to rubbing deodorant under his nose before going to sleep at night.  The boys also had a mangy wet dog hop up on one of the beds while they were out.   Our living arrangements never dampened anyone's spirits.  Everyone was ready to work.

 On Monday morning we met Jerry, our work site supervisor. We soon learned Jerry  doesn't move as fast as us New Englanders.  We eventually arrived at the house at 10:00am. We were going to scrape and paint the house and fix the roof.   The family that we were going to help consisted of 5 people.  No one had a job.  The mother was on disability making $550 a month.  The father had served time in jail for stealing guns.  Their 17 year old daughter was married.  The 19 year old brother was engaged. 

We were told the brother was lazy.  We pulled up to the house and our doubts came racing out.  This family had a satellite dish, a computer, cell phone, and video camera.  They also told us they had taken a trip to Florida.  The house was a mess.  They had 5 dogs, one lived on the front porch.  Martha, our student minister, played pooper - scooper every morning.  The eaves of the house were loaded with hornets.

 On we went with a smile and a willing spirit. 

The first night the doubts and feelings of frustrations came out.  The challenge had begun.  There were questions on whether this family deserved our help.  Should we have traveled all this way to help them when there are others that need our help more?  Why didn't they help us more? Why did they have all these things and yet they didn't work and their house was in shambles?

We were not there to judge. For whatever reason, we were there as part of God's plan.  The Holy Spirit had sent us.  When you answer the call from God "send me" you never know what his purpose might be, how you will impact someone.   We learned that poverty has many faces.  This family had "things" but they were depressed and didn't know how to help themselves.  They were stuck in their lifestyle.  Our hope is that they saw 25 strangers sharing God's love with them and that we set an example for the young people in the family.    By the end of the week the family was talking with us and expressing their gratitude for what we had done.  There was a great sense of pride and accomplishment.  Many of us went up and shook hands with the father before we left.  This was a very proud moment.

There is another aspect to this trip.  Our church family.  You out there, all own a piece of this mission through your donations and support of our fundraising.  Sometimes I just get back into the swing of things in the Fall and people are bringing me cans, and coming up with new ideas for fundraising.  You are thinking of this trip before I even have a chance to breath.  It is amazing.  I'd like to share something that was written in our journal.  I encouraged people to write from their hearts.  This entry is from a young man who is now in college. "For some reason I believed that being in college and the oldest kid on this trip would change it somehow and this would be my last year.  I was wrong.  I cannot wait to come back next year.  Although I do not attend church as often as I did when I was home during the school year, my church family is just as loving as ever.

 I cannot imagine my childhood without the church playing such a significant role and I love that every summer when I come home I can always feel welcomed by this wonderful group."

We go as a group for the week and work and we do it for our church family.  We share all of your love and compassion for others as we go about the country.  We are an extension of Union Congregational Church.

God asked the question,   "Whom shall I send?"  and  the response was:  "Here I am Lord"   

Here we are Lord, We have heard you calling in the night.  We will go Lord if you lead us. We will hold your people in our hearts.

Pam Foye – Laity Sunday

October 31, 2004