Me and the orphans Originally uploaded by jicarney.

I never thought I was cut out for foreign mission trips. But missions isn’t about showing off your aptitude; it’s about God working through you, and sometimes kicking you out of your comfort zone.

LEAMIS International Ministries is an international missions group founded by Rev. Debra Snellen and Gail Drake. (LEAMIS stands for LEAdership in MISsions.) I met Gail through Mountain T.O.P., for which she used to be a staff member. Gail invited me to go on a LEAMIS trip to El Triunfo, Nicaragua, in 2003.

I accepted — and I was amazed at what God can do. There were highs and lows; I got just as homesick as you’d expect, and I had to battle everything from bedbugs to strange food. But I survived, thanks to God’s grace and some wonderful teammates, and it gave me a new perspective on poverty, and my responsibilities as a Christian.

Since then, I’ve been on a LEAMIS trip to the Kibera slums just outside Nairobi, Kenya. That was an even more powerful experience, and the density of the slums was a different kind of poverty. Then, a year later, I went to Ndonyo, in rural western Kenya, where I met the orphans you see in the photo. In 2006, I went to Keumbu, also in rural western Kenya. In June and July 2007 I went to Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Here are links to some of the newspaper stories I’ve written about my travels:

2004 Kenya trip:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

2005 Kenya trip:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

2006 Kenya trip:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

2007 Bolivia trip:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

We have much to learn from the people of the undeveloped world — people of good cheer in spite of incredible challenges and needs.

Have you considered a foreign mission trip? God may be calling you to step out of your comfort zone and make a difference.