The following is a blog post by Myxee Thao, Sophomore at Wausau West. After a cancellation on the trip, she has been given the chance to experience a trip of a lifetime!! Below is her reflections on the theme of this year’s mission trip: Made based off of Revelation 21:5 and her final preparations before we depart.
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I Wanna Be Made!
When I was little, sitting in the second or third pew with my grandmother, Fr.Steve gave a homily on “How to Amuse God”. In his soft but projected voice he said, “Plan tomorrow and expect it to go exactly how you planned it. That is how you will make God laugh and roll around in Heaven.” I’ve never really thought about it because I’m that type of person who likes to be organized, who spends lots of time planning events and thinking about agendas thoroughly. But for some reason it has always stuck with me that apparently, I make God laugh a lot. (Well, I guess it’s a good thing that I can make his work a bit more interesting.)
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I’ve heard about the Mission Trip to Gratiot County, Michigan since mid-November. John Schmitt, our parish youth minister has talked about it over and over again. I turned the opportunity down 3 times. It sounded interesting and fun but I had plans for the summer. I wanted to get a job in order to get some cha-ching cha-ching and extinguish my desire to spend. Oh yes! I wanted to save for college too! I thought I had my summer all planned out. Things didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to and most of June concluded into unproductive days, midnight insomnia and morning exhaustion.
On Tuesday, June 26th my iTouch rang while I was barely awake. Due to my semi-addiction to Facebook, I saw that John sent me another wall post about a spot that opened up on the Mission Trip due to a cancellation. There was something that sparked in me. Perhaps I was really, really tired of being stuck with my two siblings for the whole summer so far, or that I wanted to do something I’ve never done in my whole life. Maybe a combination of both in addition of some positive peer pressure from my friend (Pashua Moua), however without even discussing it with my parents, within 15 minutes of receiving the wall post I decided to call John and accept the offer.
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Here I am one week from departure!! There are still many questions pondering in my head about the Mission Trip. Honestly, I have no idea where to even begin! Many of my fellow youth members have been along for the planning process for this trip since November of 2011 whereas I have been planning and gathering things for two days since signing the permission slips and making it “official”. I’m finding myself reading the mission papers and checking the packing lists over and over again. Though I haven’t started packing yet, I will have to get on that soon. Slowly, I feel myself catching up to where the others’ understandings and mindsets are about our Mission. Every day I get more and more energized for the trip.
This year’s theme for the Mission Trip is “Made” from Revelation 21:5 where Jesus talks about being a Christian. He says that being a Christian is more than just going to church. It’s about living with Jesus himself and being like him. – I cannot wait to put myself in that position where I let my faith change me inside and out. I’m ready to be “made”. I’m ready to live my life like how God would like me to; in faith and with faith.
