From the Middle of Mission

Wednesday April 15, 2026

Scripture: John 20:24–29

I’m writing this not from my office or from the stillness of the prayer room, but from the middle of mission. Me and nine others are spending a week on mission in El Paso, serving alongside the students and staff at Lydia Patterson Institute and I want you to know this week isn’t just about what we’re doing. It’s about what we’re seeing. What we’re learning. And honestly, how we’re being changed. And all week my thoughts keep coming back to the moment in John’s Gospel when Jesus shows up to His disciples after the resurrection and He still has the scars. He doesn’t hide or explain them away. He turns them into a witness and invites them to look, touch and see. Maybe it opened my eyes a little bit being on mission, but here you start to notice things differently. You see resilience in students who cross borders every day just to learn. You see faith that doesn’t depend on comfort. You see joy that isn’t tied to having everything figured out. And friends for me, if I’m honest, I start to see my own scars more clearly. The places where God has carried me. The places where life didn’t go how I planned it and the places where grace had to meet me. I love mission, being on them and seeing what it does to other people. I wish you could stand where I’m standing right now. I wish you could hear the stories. I wish you could feel the weight and the beauty of it all. But friends let me say this clearly, Mission isn’t just something that happens “over here.” It’s happening right where you are and that matters to all, of us. When Jesus showed His scars, He wasn’t just proving who He was. He was showing how love works. Love doesn’t avoid wounds, love goes through them and somehow, by God’s grace, those wounds become places of healing. That’s true here on the border and it’s just as true back home. Some of you are carrying quiet struggles no one else sees, questions about faith, regret, loss, or just plain exhaustion. Well friends here this, God does not disqualify you because of your scars, God meets you in them and can use them. You don’t have to cross a border to live on mission. You don’t have to get on a plane to serve. You just have to be willing. Willing to see people differently. Willing to listen instead of assume. Willing to let God use even the parts of your story you’d rather hide and because the same Jesus we’re encountering here is walking with you there. As we continue this week, no matter where we are, we’re not just asking, “What am I doing here?” We’re asking, “What is God doing in me?” What is God doing in you—right where you are?

Consider this:

• See someone you normally overlook. At work, at the store, in your neighborhood and slow down long enough to really notice them.
• Listen before you speak. Ask one honest question this week and really hear the answer without trying to fix it.
• Share a piece of your story. Not perfectly. Not polished. Just honestly. Your story might be the bridge someone else needs.

Prayer: Lord Jesus,You showed Your scars without shame and turned them into a testimony of love.Be with us here in the work we’re doing and be with those back home in their daily lives.

Open all of our eyes to where You are moving. Give us courage to live on mission, whether across the border or across the street and remind us that nothing in our story is wasted in Your hands. In the name of the risen Christ, Amen.

You don’t have to be on this trip to be part of the mission—God is already at work right where you are.