Five Minute Friday : "Try"

Trissy recently introduced me to a little community of writers who participate in an exercise called "Five Minute Friday". She's started doing it on her new blog (!) and I decided to start trying to participate, though I may not make it every week. Here goes my first one!
This week's word is "try".

{Start time.}

Try. One of the first things I think of when I hear (or read) that word is a quote from a dear friend:

"There is no such thing as 'try'. There is either 'do' or 'do not'."

When I first heard it, I frowned, puzzled. I wasn't sure if I agreed with it or not. It was one of those things, "I'll have to think about that one...".

Of course there is such a thing as 'try'! If I honestly attempt to climb a mountain, read 50 books in a year, or cook a meal all by myself, I have 'tried' to do it!

But then I got to thinking, maybe there really is only 'do' or 'do not'.

Either I reached the top of the mountain, or I didn't. Either I read 50 books that year, or less. Either I got that meal on the table, or only part of it. Either I 'did' those things, or I 'did not' do them.

But lately, my mind has changed again. I think there's both. With the mountain, the books, and the meal, I really attempted to accomplish my goal. I 'tried'. That's true. So there is such a thing as 'try'.

{End time. I'm not finished with what I was saying though, so I'll keep going :) .}

'Trying' is not the goal however. Accomplishing ('doing') it is. It's the end result that has the value, and I think that is what my friend meant, the lesson he was trying (ha, no pun intended) to teach.

Yet even there, one can argue the point... If a lesson was learned in the effort, something of value did come from the 'trying'. And - "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." - maybe next time, success. And the 'try' will have become 'do'. And the 'doing' will lead to 'done'.

Dust To Beauty

Spending a decent amount of time in another context is one of the most effective ways to re-set a person's perspective and help them see the world around them through refreshed and unbiased eyes.

Four days ago, I got back from such an experience - a ten-day mission trip with eight other people from Victory Rd., and a friend from another state. A total of ten of us went to a big city in the western part of the country to volunteer at a mission organization focused on ministering to the homeless and poor in that area. It was definitely an eye-opener.

I thought I was prepared. I thought I knew enough about homelessness to be able to minister with a tender heart, but also to maintain a protective skin around my feelings. I was wrong.

And maybe that was a good thing.

The mission sends out a group of staff, program guys, and volunteers every night in a big van (or two) with sandwiches, blankets, clean socks, small hygiene items (shampoo, toothbrushes and toothpaste, soap, sunscreen, etc.), something to drink (juice or hot chocolate, depending on the weather. The mission's hot chocolate is famous in the city. Some people were asking for it even when the nights were warm.), and kind hearts. There are several different routes that the vans take, and multiple stops along each route. The van parks, and a handful of the volunteers get out and walk around nearby, looking for homeless and down-trodden folks in the vicinity to send back to the van. The rest of the workers stay at the van to meet the people who come.
The big red vans and the mission's name are known and welcomed all over the city by drunks, druggies, unemployed businessmen, orphans, scarred veterans, prostitutes, and honest people who are simply 'down on their luck'. Anyone who needs a little food, a little warmth, a kind word, a listening ear, and/or the love of Christ, can find it at the hands of the mission and it's workers - many of them formerly addicted and scarred people themselves, now beautifully healed by the love of God.

Our team was privileged to go out on these nighttime-rescue trips several times. I went along for five out of the ten nights we were there in the city. The first night was heart-breaking, and almost too hard. But after the second night, I was addicted to the 'high' - the feeling of being useful, doing good, and maybe helping change some lives for the better.

Our team also helped prepare and serve the nearly-one-thousand meals the mission serves to homeless people that walk in every day just to eat (the number increases in the winter months when it's cold and harder for homeless folks to find food). In the process of meal preparations and other kitchen chores, our team worked alongside many of the men who are going through the rehab program and living there at the mission. Nothing bonds people like having to work together for a focused cause. We made some wonderful new friends.

To hear the guys in the program tell their stories, to see the depths of history in their eyes, to watch smiles bloom on gruff faces, and to learn how completely normal they are behind the tough fronts... Those were priceless moments.
One of the most impacting seconds of the trip for me was when, one day near the end of our time there, I suddenly realized that I didn't notice anymore the ponytails, the strange facial piercings, the gauges, or the tattoos - those details about our new friends that had startled me (and made me a little more nervous than I was anyway) at the beginning of the trip, had faded before the twin effects of kindness and grace. For, on our parts, it took kindness and open hearts to see past those things at first - to be able to get to know the real men behind the weird expressions. And for them, it took the grace of God to change their hearts from places of fear and slavery to places of rest, courage, and hope. Simply judging by the ten-day experience that I had working at the mission, that is what is happening there - the Lord is using that place to rescue men and give them new lives in Christ.

I thank Him that He allowed me the blessing of looking through a small ten-day window, into the beauty that is possible when His hand touches our dust.

{Note: Another post coming with pictures and more specific details of our trip.}