Recognizing a wise stranger in a flash

For seven years I served as a chaperone on the Resurrection youth orchestra/handbell mission trip. That took seven to ten days on buses with about 100 middle and high school kids, visiting around the country. Chaperone duties included cooking on a giant grill, making sandwiches on our laps on the bus, doing laundry to keep everyone clean and matching, working with the kids on their serve projects, helping load and unload a twenty-foot box truck of keyboards, drum sets, handbells, music stands and amplifiers, and leading a small group of the kids through daily devotions.

You could always count on some things. At least one kid would forget their music, instrument or a key piece of apparel, someone would discover that they do actually get car (bus) sick, a bus would break down, a venue would be too small to hold our group, and at least a couple of cell phones would come to an untimely end. But amid all that, there were split-second flashes where a herd of teenagers went from seeing themselves as musicians hanging out, playing concerts and helping with projects, to starting to realize they were so much more than that.

Every evening we would ask the kids to share experiences. They would talk about people they had met, pass on firsthand stories from veterans about what war was like, how someone went from their best life to living in a shelter due to drugs or alcohol addiction, how easily a few small bad choices gradually led to prison and now trying to get back on track. (They would also share how someone did something hysterically funny, how hard they had worked (usually true), which chaperone had done or said something ridiculous and what work they hoped they would never have to do again!)

We would ask the kids, “Where did you see Jesus today?” For the first day or two, Jesus was virtually invisible. But around day three or four, we would begin to get answers. The boldest would start to comment on seeing Jesus in the staff at the shelters or in the faith of those who were struggling to get their lives back in order.

One evening came a moment that changed my life. As the kids shared where they had seen Jesus that day, I realized that not a single one of them saw Jesus in their own work or in the way they performed concerts to bring joy to others. As I looked at that circle, I saw Jesus. In their exhausted posture, in their scraped-up hands from loading concrete blocks into trucks, in their smiles at what they had done that day, in their encouragement of each other, and in their love for people they had never met.

I found myself sobbing–not cute little tears slipping quietly down my cheeks, but huge gasping sobs. Because at that moment, I saw Jesus in a way I had never seen Him before. I saw Him as a high school boy who included the middle school kids in his group; I saw Him in the shy middle schooler on her first trip with a smile for everyone; I saw Him in the boy who always stopped to ask if we needed any extra help. That night I saw Jesus in a whole circle of kids who gave their time to be the hands and feet of Christ to those in need. I told the group that night they changed me, changed my life forever. When I am discouraged and things feel hopeless, I look at the pictures of those kids on my phone and I see Jesus. He was sitting right beside me, and I almost missed it.