Being More of a Blessing
About the Author
Aaron is a mission trip coordinator for a small non-profit working in Tijuana, Mexico. The organization builds homes for the poor and operates an orphanage where he can often be found helping out with the children.
Shortly after I arrived on the scene in Tijuana I was tasked with hosting a group that was down on a mission trip. Not knowing what that was I just rode around with them taking them to the different ministries we worked with in the city. As we drove from site to site in their fifteen-passenger van the leader of the team, Linda, was telling me all about the different projects they had done over the years. I started to tune her out as she went on about the dormitories they had built the previous summer for a pastor starting up some kind of a group home. Suddenly these lovely stories of mission trips in Tijuana took on a completely different tone. She wrapped up with “and now he is renting those out as apartments!”
I was shocked. How could a pastor receive a blessing like that for his ministry and then turn around and rent them out? This group had traveled from Northern California all the way to Tijuana to be a blessing, to serve the poor in the name of the Lord. Now this so-called pastor had used them for his personal gain.
We were all taking turns expressing our disgust for this man until somebody in the van said “It was such a nice rehab center too.” From there the conversation went something like this:
Aaron: Did you say rehab center?
Linda: Yeah, Pastor Juan was starting it.
Aaron: Oh… now I know who you are talking about. One of the other missionaries was telling me about him. Juan was broke and there was no money to run any of the three centers he had going. He was thinking about closing them down completely but decided to consolidate everyone into the other two locations that were all run down. He said he could rent the newer one for just enough to cover the operating expenses.
Silence
Aaron: So, I guess your team was more of a blessing than you realized.