The Hardest "Easy" Missions Trip

This trip is challenging in that it is so much easier than i expected in many ways. Like most Americans, when I thought of a missions trip to South Africa, I thought of the Africa that we all know. Dessert, lions may eat you in your sleep, grass huts, bad water, total poverty, no modern conveniences.   I'm about to blow a few people's minds here...thats not what I found.   Perhaps everyone else is smarter than me, I don't know. But coming here I have been blessed to find we have running, DRINKABLE water! I have yet to see a lion roaming the streets....We have Internet capabilities, the roads are paved. I am living in a building made out of brick, not grass and mud. I have my own bedroom with a door and everything!! Crazy huh? These are better loving conditions than i have had on any of my previous missions trips, besides maybe Scatter last year.  Some of these things I knew I would have but I was still surprised at how normal life here feels.  I'm hardly having to "sacrifice" anything for this trip.   Now might be where everyone is asking, "okay....so wheres the hard part?" The hard part is that on most missions trips that I have been on, I have had to give up so much more. I have been told to be flexible and to expect some inconveniences. I have been put to work every day for the vast majority of each day, early mornings and late nights. This trip is insanely different. Yes I am working, and the work is trying, but it's not taxing. It is a joyful labor. I have so much more down time than I ever expected to have. I have so much more of a social life than I thought I'd have (I actually have more of a social life here than i did in the States!) (although I may have just invited Josh and Marda, who are probably reading this, to dig up more work for me!) ;) but I'm serious! I am going to a slumber party tonight! Who else can say they've done that on a missions trip?!? I could easily say this is the best missions trip ever! But at the same time it is very difficult. It is difficult because it is hard, with all of these comforts and conveniences, to remember that I am on a Mission Trip.  It feels almost like I'm visiting close family whom i have never met and who also happen to live in South Africa. ;) I need to daily remind myself that although I may be on "summer vacation" according to the american school system, I am NOT on vacation. I am here to serve my Christian brothers and sisters and to show Gods love to these people in South Africa.  It is not time to be comfortable, it's not time to be lazy. This trip is so much fun and I am storing up plenty of great memories that I will treasure forever, I'm sure, but I must remember to wake every morning with a servants heart. And to commit this  summer (or African winter) to God.  And now that I am typing this up I am slowly realizing that this thought process is very good preparation for college actually. Because that is the thought process we should all have regardless of whether we are on a missions trip or not.  Wake up in the morning eager to serve the Lord.  And so I leave us all with this challenge: "So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." 1Corinthians 10:31