The Burdens We Carry: How Mission Reveals What We Really Need

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0:00:04.8 Alyssa Parker: Welcome to Grace at the Fray.

 

0:00:06.2 Grant Victory: A podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life.

 

0:00:12.4 John Laughridge: Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His Kingdom.

 

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0:00:21.5 Jim Lovelady: Hello, beloved children of God. Welcome to another episode of Grace at the Fray. When you’re packing for a trip, are you a bare minimum type person? “I refuse to bring a checked bag on that flight,” that type of person? Or do you overpack? You pay the extra fee and get as many bags as possible because you just never know. I think my wife tends to pack too much, and I tend to pack clearly not enough because I’m always the one that’s like, “Well, where’s the Walmart? I’m sure I can get it at Walmart.” She overpacks because she’s got a contingency plan for everything, and I underpack because I don’t prepare for the future, I guess. So think about your journey of faith and the baggage that you bring with you on that journey. What have you collected along the way, either physically or spiritually, that you think you really need, you gotta bring with you? What do you need for all the things that you’re doing today? What do you need to thrive on your pilgrimage? What do you need, and what do you need to leave behind in order to go on mission with the Lord in His Kingdom? We talk a lot on this podcast about how gospel renewal inevitably leads to mission. Well, this episode is an example of how going on mission reveals your need for the gospel and how Jesus meets you in that place of need with abundant mercy and shows you how to leave behind the things that you don’t really need and pack only what he wants you to have. Now, I’m a wholehearted, sold-out, you-can’t-convince-me-otherwise advocate, supporter, promoter of summer mission internships. I believe at my core that if you took a journey overseas for six to eight weeks to explore what God is doing in that culture, it will change your life. I know this because it happened to me when I was in college, and I see it happen every summer with our Serge interns when they head off to various parts of the world to serve alongside our field workers in those countries and with the communities where they serve. Well, today’s episode is a fantastic example of how going on a journey, a pilgrimage, will change you. My guests today are three members of the Prague internship team: Alyssa, John, and Grant. And they joined me in the studio the day that they returned from their amazing adventure in the Czech Republic. So this conversation is as fresh as it gets. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing how the Lord worked in their life while they lived in Prague, and I know you’ll find this conversation encouraging as well. It’s about what you bring on your journey isn’t always what you need, but when you learn to walk with the Lord, he gives you what you need, and it’s always more surprising and unexpected than you realize. So obviously, I’m going to leave a link for our internship program in the show notes. If you’re not sure what you want to do next summer, this could be it. And today’s episode is my attempt to convince you of that. It’s also an attempt to encourage you to let the Lord pack your bags. Let him decide what it is that you need for today’s journey. What do you really need? And before we jump in with John, Alyssa, and Grant, I want to read Psalm 121 because it offers a clue of what we really need. It’s one of my favorites because it’s perfect for every type of journey, whether an eight-week pilgrimage or the journey of faith that is following Jesus in the things that He’s called you to today. So for your pilgrim journey today, hear these words. Psalm 121 says this, “I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.”

 

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0:04:53.1 Jim Lovelady: Prague people, welcome to the studio. Welcome back from Prague.

 

0:04:59.0 Alyssa Parker: Thank you. Excited to be here.

 

0:04:59.3 Grant Victory: Thank you. Yeah, we’re excited to be here.

 

0:05:00.0 Jim Lovelady: I’m going to see just how many people I can cram into this little studio. I had to scramble for microphones, and I feel a little bit like this is going to be like a clown car kind of thing. We should fit a bunch more people in here, but… So, yeah, thanks for being here. How little sleep have you guys gotten over the last 24 hours or something?

 

0:05:20.5 Grant Victory: It’s been really good sleep.

 

0:05:21.5 Jim Lovelady: Really?

 

0:05:22.5 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:05:23.7 Jim Lovelady: No jet lag. What’s the jet lag?

 

0:05:24.7 Alyssa Parker: It’s six hours, but the jet lag has not hit us as much as it did going to Prague. But Kate and I got ten and a half hours of sleep last night. It was beautiful.

 

0:05:34.2 Jim Lovelady: Wow.

 

0:05:35.1 Alyssa Parker: Yeah. So we are rested.

 

0:05:37.4 Jim Lovelady: Well done.

 

0:05:39.7 John Laughridge: I’m not. I’m running on fumes right now, but we’re good. We’re good. Yeah, we’ll make it through.

 

0:05:43.6 Jim Lovelady: Okay. I think my life is normally running on fumes. I don’t know that I’ve slept 10 hours in years.

 

0:05:49.7 Alyssa Parker: In a while. Oh, my gosh, it was amazing.

 

0:05:51.0 Jim Lovelady: All right, well, who are you? And… Well, okay, we’ll start with that. Who are you and where are you from originally? All right, ladies first.

 

0:05:59.4 Alyssa Parker: My name is Alyssa Parker. I’m originally from Opelika, Alabama.

 

0:06:01.6 Jim Lovelady: Nice.

 

0:06:03.9 Grant Victory: My name is Grant Victory. I’m from Jenks, Oklahoma.

 

0:06:07.0 Jim Lovelady: You’re from Jenks, Oklahoma?

 

0:06:08.9 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:06:10.1 Jim Lovelady: I went to the University of Oklahoma.

 

0:06:11.0 Grant Victory: No way.

 

0:06:12.0 Jim Lovelady: Boomer Sooner.

 

0:06:13.1 Grant Victory: Boomer Sooner. There’s only one.

 

0:06:13.5 Jim Lovelady: Well done. Well done. All right, you win. I mean, Bama, come on. All right, we’re not going to start that. We’re not going to start.

 

0:06:24.9 Jim Lovelady: All right, one more.

 

0:06:25.4 John Laughridge: My name is John Laughridge, and I’m originally from South Carolina.

 

0:06:28.9 Jim Lovelady: Okay. Right on. Well, how did you guys come to do the summer internship with Serge?

 

0:06:35.4 Alyssa Parker: I go to Samford University, and I was looking to do an internship this summer, and we had a Go Global fair, so a ton of missions orgs were there. And I met with Joy, and she was looking for a worship leader, which is not what I ended up doing, but it ended up being really great and got connected to the Prague team, and now I’m here.

 

0:06:53.8 Jim Lovelady: So you had the idea that you were going to go to Prague and lead worship.

 

0:06:57.6 Alyssa Parker: Lead worship. So did John. But it ended up neither of us was the worship leader, but we both got to serve on the worship team. So a little bit of confusion, but it was really good.

 

0:07:08.2 John Laughridge: It worked out.

 

0:07:08.6 Jim Lovelady: If I had a nickel for every time a field worker was like, “I went there to do this, and totally did not do that.” Yeah, that’s very much the story of life in ministry.

 

0:07:20.4 John Laughridge: It is. Yeah.

 

0:07:21.4 Grant Victory: I went to Prague two years ago with my home church in Tulsa. We supported missionaries over there, went with the other church that was there, Doslova, and really loved my time there. Really felt like the Lord put a calling on my heart to go to Prague and love the people of Czech Republic and got a chance to go back through this internship. I really wanted to go back last summer. Everything just kind of fell through. And so December, I searched up “Prague summer missions,” and the first website that I found was Serge.

 

0:07:56.2 Jim Lovelady: Really?

 

0:07:57.8 Grant Victory: Praise the Lord. I was looking through everything, kind of what this internship was about, and it was like, “Wow, this is all everything that I enjoy to do.” Like, the Lord’s gifted me in this way. And I was like, I have to do this. And so I applied and interviewed, got accepted all within like two, three weeks.

 

0:08:19.4 Jim Lovelady: Well done.

 

0:08:19.6 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:08:20.1 Jim Lovelady: That’s awesome. I love it when a good Google search is way to go SEO stuff. Yeah. The Holy Spirit works through search engines.

 

0:08:30.1 Grant Victory: I know, I know. It’s pretty incredible.

 

0:08:31.5 John Laughridge: Yeah.

 

0:08:32.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Because you’re like, at the very beginning, you’re like, “Praise God.” So there’s clearly thankfulness that it worked out this way, which…

 

0:08:40.9 Grant Victory: And it was totally the Lord’s provision.

 

0:08:43.4 Jim Lovelady: That’s awesome. How about you?

 

0:08:45.4 John Laughridge: Yeah, so I wanted to do missions kind of since last summer. I worked at a summer camp, and coming out of it, it was a very missions-oriented summer camp. It’s called Deerfoot. Shout out Deerfoot. It’s a great camp. But yeah, I kind of coming out of that knew that missions was kind of what I wanted to do next summer. And my mom gave me a piece of advice before college. She said, “Every summer you should try something new.” And I’ve tried to stick to that, doing something different that pushes me to my limits, that’s uncomfortable, that I can learn from and that the Lord can grow me through. So with that kind of in mind, my sister actually wanted to do missions as well, and she was telling me about Serge, and she was applying to Serge and telling me about the different locations and stuff. And I was like, “Wow, that just sounds really incredible.” And I actually heard from my cousins, Wade and Ally, you might know Wade and Ally Savant or have heard of them.

 

0:09:34.4 Jim Lovelady: Oh, okay. We got the family business.

 

0:09:36.4 John Laughridge: Yeah, family business. Yeah. They actually did ministry with Serge in Prague for a couple years. So, yeah, I kind of heard about Prague and Serge and what they were doing through them a little bit and applied to the Prague one, and that was my first choice. And yeah, got the call from Joy and was looking into it and prayed about it. And yeah, the Lord just sent me here. He really did push me in a lot of good ways. So, yeah, it was great, and I’ve seen the Lord’s hand through it all.

 

0:10:03.9 Jim Lovelady: So, Grant, you had been to Prague before, but y’all had not?

 

0:10:06.5 John Laughridge: Never.

 

0:10:07.1 Alyssa Parker: No.

 

0:10:08.7 Jim Lovelady: So every phase of our story of the way that the Lord guides us is like a book in itself. Like, you could write a book of everything leading up to the beginning of this past summer, your entire life leading up to this moment, and then to find yourself doing this thing that is very significant in your life, life-changing. Like, it’s a no-brainer. It’s easy. It’s a softball pitch. Do this thing, it’s going to change your life. Do this thing and you will be changed. Doing the thing is not easy. It’s just that, like, it’s a no-brainer that when you do that thing, it’s going to change your life. Anyway, so there’s so much that could be told, but I want to hear about your experience in Prague. You had already been to Prague, so you kind of had some expectations. Did you know the language?

 

0:10:52.3 Grant Victory: Not at all. It was such a curveball coming in. Learning language, it was so difficult.

 

0:10:58.6 Jim Lovelady: I’ve heard.

 

0:10:59.8 Grant Victory: Definitely one of the hardest languages in Europe.

 

0:11:01.9 Alyssa Parker: It’s so hard.

 

0:11:04.0 Grant Victory: We took like two total weeks of Czech, five days a week, three hours a day.

 

0:11:10.2 Jim Lovelady: Brain dead at the end of every day.

 

0:11:12.2 Grant Victory: Brain dead by 12:00, by noon.

 

0:11:13.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:11:14.7 Grant Victory: And it’s like, “How do I go and do ministry after this?” Really hard to do. But the Lord’s strength and everything carried you through it. But in Czech class, it was like she spoke no English, or very little. She’s on her fourth or fifth language.

 

0:11:34.1 Alyssa Parker: Yeah, she was learning her fifth language. We were like, “Okay, Pavla.”

 

0:11:35.1 Jim Lovelady: So European of her.

 

0:11:36.1 Grant Victory: Her fifth language was English, and I’m like, “This is insane. I know one language.” And so it’s very much a lot and very hard, very stressful in that environment. But she was a great teacher. Me and John, we got picked on a lot. There’s like six other…

 

0:11:58.6 Jim Lovelady: Wait, why? Because of your American accent, or?

 

0:12:01.9 John Laughridge: Yeah, I mean, our Southern accents probably that played a part.

 

0:12:05.8 Grant Victory: So the girls, they had a different Czech book than we did.

 

0:12:09.8 John Laughridge: They did, yeah.

 

0:12:10.7 Grant Victory: And so then…

 

0:12:11.4 Alyssa Parker: I don’t think this is why we got…

 

0:12:13.5 John Laughridge: No, no.

 

0:12:14.1 Grant Victory: Listen.

 

0:12:14.6 Alyssa Parker: I don’t think that ever happened.

 

0:12:15.9 Jim Lovelady: She’s fact-checking this already.

 

0:12:17.6 Grant Victory: Their books were already filled out. And so they had an advantage already. We had brand new…

 

0:12:23.9 Jim Lovelady: Oh, we got the Half-Blood Prince thing going on.

 

0:12:26.3 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:12:26.5 Alyssa Parker: Yes!

 

0:12:27.6 Grant Victory: It’s great. And so they automatically had a good advantage over us. And I’d say they did a pretty well job of picking up the language better than we did.

 

0:12:38.3 John Laughridge: We did not do the best job, yeah.

 

0:12:41.0 Jim Lovelady: Okay, so what’s the dumbest thing you said in Czech? When someone’s like…

 

0:12:45.2 John Laughridge: Oh, there’s so many.

 

0:12:48.9 Alyssa Parker: Just saying ice cream is probably the hardest thing.

 

0:12:49.1 Alyssa Parker: Zmrzlina.

 

0:12:49.4 Jim Lovelady: Zmrzlina.

 

0:12:50.4 Alyssa Parker: Zmrzlina.

 

0:12:51.2 John Laughridge: Or the number four. Čtyři.

 

0:12:53.0 Grant Victory: Čtyři.

 

0:12:53.7 Alyssa Parker: That’s not how you say it, but I can’t say it any better.

 

0:12:56.1 Grant Victory: No that’s okay. čtyři.

 

0:12:57.4 Alyssa Parker: čtyři.

 

0:13:00.0 Grant Victory: Yeah, whatever.

 

0:13:00.2 Jim Lovelady: We’re brutalizing the language.

 

0:13:01.5 Grant Victory: Čtvrtek. Čtvrtek’s the hardest word I’ve ever…

 

0:13:04.7 Alyssa Parker: We can’t pronounce it for you.

 

0:13:06.1 John Laughridge: Čtvrtek.

 

0:13:07.0 Grant Victory: I don’t even… No, I don’t even think that’s anywhere near. Anyways.

 

0:13:10.8 Alyssa Parker: Yeah, we love Czech.

 

0:13:11.6 Grant Victory: Yeah. We love Czech!

 

0:13:13.0 Jim Lovelady: I love Czech. I love the Czech people. The language is so hard.

 

0:13:15.7 Alyssa Parker: The language is so hard, but it’s beautiful.

 

0:13:18.1 Grant Victory: There’s so many long words, but it is a beautiful language.

 

0:13:21.7 Jim Lovelady: I love this. So these are the typical fish-out-of-water experiences that are, “I’m leaving my country and I’m going to go visit some strange and foreign place, and it’s going to be… I don’t even know what I’m…” And everyone… I’m sure people were like, “What are your expectations when you get there?” And you probably had some expectations, but then when you get there, immediately you’re like, “Oh, I have no idea.” You said that you love the Czech people. Tell me some of the things that your heart warmed to them as you lived with them.

 

0:13:57.2 Alyssa Parker: I’ve felt like the Lord was kind of calling me to a post-Soviet place for a long time. And so Czech is definitely that. It’s still very closed off. The people aren’t as open and trusting as we’re expecting people to be as Americans. But one thing I found is they actually are very kind when you speak to them. Like it just takes a second to penetrate the initial barrier or whatever. Like one time I had a juice bottle on the tram and I could not get it open ’cause I broke the tab or something on the thing. And this Czech lady was like, she was trying to talk to me and I was like, “I’m so sorry, nerozumím česky. I don’t know what you’re saying to me.” And she just… She took it and she took her bottle opener and she was trying to get it open. She said, “This is not normal.” And I was like, “I know.” And so she couldn’t get it open, but for five or ten minutes she was trying to help me and it was so sweet. But they are very helpful and kind, but it just takes a second to get past the initial distrust or whatever. So, but I love them. I love them.

 

0:14:53.5 John Laughridge: Yeah.

 

0:14:55.6 Jim Lovelady: Talk to me about your… Well, for those listening, I’m going to start using your names because people who are watching, it’s easy, but if people are listening… So, John, talk to me about the experience with the church.

 

0:15:05.2 John Laughridge: With the church that we were with?

 

0:15:06.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. That you guys were working with.

 

0:15:08.8 John Laughridge: Yeah. So it was a very international church. It’s an ICPC church, so it’s basically people from all over. I think there’s, I don’t even remember how many nations represented, but a lot.

 

0:15:17.1 Grant Victory: A lot of nations.

 

0:15:19.5 Alyssa Parker: Like 17, I feel like.

 

0:15:20.8 John Laughridge: There’s a lot of nations represented.

 

0:15:22.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Amazing.

 

0:15:23.4 John Laughridge: Yeah, really cool. And the common language is obviously English. But yeah, it was really, really cool to get to lead some worship, do some worship with Alyssa. It was awesome. And yeah, just seeing so many people from so many different places all just proclaiming the Lord’s name. And that was one of my favorite parts about church. Another really cool thing, just how much they love each other and the community at that church loves each other. It’s genuinely amazing. I think because Prague is a pretty agnostic place, Christian community is hard to find. So the Christian community that there is is very strong and just very woven together. And that church was incredible. I loved Faith. And currently they’re trying to find a senior pastor. They have been looking for one for a couple years, for three years. But they’re just filling in and maintaining the church in such a beautiful way and just staying afloat, basically. And they’re not letting themselves go down. And I love it. And the preaching was still amazing, like, even without a senior pastor. So, yeah, I’m just so grateful for getting to be a part of that and to see just the witnesses for Christ that the people are there. So I love it. Great church.

 

0:16:33.9 Jim Lovelady: It’s like a ragtag group of folks who at any moment, it feels like this could fall apart. It’s like jazz music. Jazz is like, at any moment, this could all fall apart. How is this cohesive? That bass player’s doing that crazy thing and the drummer’s doing that, and everyone comes together and it’s like, “Whoa, we’re just making this happen.” How did that feel, Grant? How did that feel?

 

0:16:59.7 Grant Victory: Dude, it’s so cool. I mean, it is truly like the body of Christ coming together. Like, you can’t have an eye want to be an ear, you know? And everybody there loves their role. Everybody there loves to be at Faith Community. And it is so prevalent in the way that they are committed to serving, and it just rolls out to be so loving and so enjoyable to go to that church. And everybody’s there with open arms and loves to talk. And it’s just such an incredible thing to see everybody come together. Like, that’s what the church should be. And everybody’s so willing to do whatever they can. It’s like God is truly the only one that can keep this afloat. And everybody is just loving God so much that it is more than afloat right at the moment.

 

0:17:58.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. How about you? What was your experience as you think about the church? You know, the American church, the global church, the church in Prague? What is your… After this summer and your experience over there, when I say, “Tell me about the church,” what are your thoughts about what the Lord is doing?

 

0:18:22.0 Alyssa Parker: I think kind of like what they said. Everyone at the church was so welcoming. It was within the first week, the worship leader invited me over to her house, and we had tea and honey cake, which is so good, by the way. I’m going to miss honey cake so much. But she was just so welcoming and so encouraging, and I feel like the whole church there was just so welcoming and encouraging, and just, they’re definitely going to be the people we miss the most.

 

0:18:48.0 Jim Lovelady: Talk to me more about the culture. This is the total fish out of water thing. And more than the language, there’s also the way things are done. And when I first went overseas, there was the mantra, “It’s not wrong. It’s just different.” This is different from what you expect and are accustomed to. That doesn’t make it wrong. So what are some of the things that you’re like, “Oh, this isn’t wrong. This is just different.” What are some of the things that actually were wonderful that you’re like, “Oh, man, I wish we did this,” besides honey cake?

 

0:19:21.0 Alyssa Parker: Honey cake. There are little cultural things that I didn’t realize I was so American. Like, I talk really loud, which I think is a normal American thing, especially me, because my dad’s a little bit deaf, so I project a lot. Also, they don’t talk on the trams and stuff. And it’s a very quiet culture. Like, the people are not rowdy, they are not loud. They’re calm, cool, collected. Would you agree?

 

0:19:43.3 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:19:44.6 Alyssa Parker: Yeah. And also, there were little cultural things. Like, you don’t go outside with your hair wet. Like, you have to make sure your hair is blow-dried or else you get really weird looks. You don’t smile at people or else they’re like, “What is wrong with you?”

 

0:19:58.1 Jim Lovelady: “Are you crazy? Why are you smiling at me? What is wrong with you?”

 

0:19:59.0 Alyssa Parker: They think you’re wild. And so that was definitely an adjustment. And trying to think of good things, you walk everywhere. There are lots of good things. I did not mean that negatively. There are lots of incredible things. But also, even just grocery shopping was so different. Like you do… Because everything’s so fresh, you grocery shop and then if you don’t eat it within the next two or three days, it’s gone. So grocery shopping wasn’t like this big haul or whatever that you do in America. It was like every few days.

 

0:20:27.5 Jim Lovelady: Costco in Prague.

 

0:20:29.1 Alyssa Parker: Right. Now, you stop by the potraviny, which is like the market near your home, and you pick up all your veggies and stuff. And it’s like so sweet and fun. And you get to know the little shop owners and stuff. And so it’s good.

 

0:20:40.4 Jim Lovelady: You’re like, I could get used to this kind of life.

 

0:20:42.2 Alyssa Parker: I could. It was so nice.

 

0:20:44.3 Grant Victory: I’d say for me, one of the things that I really enjoyed was public transportation. It’s off the charts there.

 

0:20:49.7 Jim Lovelady: Walking everywhere, riding everywhere.

 

0:20:52.1 Grant Victory: I mean, you got the opportunity to ride a tram, you got the metro, you got buses, you got bikes, the whole ten yards. Everything is there and it’s available for you. Always super convenient because it’s right by your house. You could go anywhere in Prague within 30 minutes. But it is difficult on the other hand. You have to plan ahead. It’s uncomfortable to be on a tram with people sweaty right next to you. But it’s so much fun because a thing that I did was just I would hop on a tram or a metro and next thing you know, I’d be on a complete opposite side of Prague from where I was ever used to being and then just wander.

 

0:21:41.9 Jim Lovelady: I love it. Yeah. Every day is a new adventure.

 

0:21:45.0 Grant Victory: Pretty much, yeah.

 

0:21:45.7 Jim Lovelady: You’re just like, I’m going to hop on public transportation and we’ll see what happens.

 

0:21:49.2 Grant Victory: Just see where the wind takes me.

 

0:21:50.9 Jim Lovelady: Did you ever get lost?

 

0:21:52.5 Grant Victory: Not lost, I would say, but definitely ended up in some not great areas.

 

0:21:59.4 Jim Lovelady: Oh, really?

 

0:22:02.3 Grant Victory: Yeah, just areas where I’d be like, “Wow, I would never expect to end up here, ever.”

 

0:22:09.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, whoops. I’ve taken the wrong bus before. I’ve taken… I’ve not gotten off the bus when I should have gotten off the bus and, yeah, those kinds of things. So not entirely lost, but sufficiently lost.

 

0:22:22.5 Grant Victory: Yes. Yeah. Maps are a great thing.

 

0:22:25.0 Jim Lovelady: Yes. How about you, John?

 

0:22:27.0 John Laughridge: Yeah, one thing that I really, really love about their culture is how much they love the outdoors and nature. That’s one of their biggest emphases on the culture and society there. One example is every weekend, people in the town, they have cabins all around the countryside. They’ll just leave Prague and go spend the weekend in the woods or in nature. And also, something so cool about their city is the amount of, I’m an environmental guy, so this is something that I loved about the city of Prague and about the people, they just have parks and trees everywhere in Prague, and it is just a very green city. So their infrastructure and how they’ve basically cultivated a city that is also an outdoorsy, nature environment is, like I love it. It’s incredible. So, yeah, you have Stromovka Park, Letná Park, you have all these huge parks that are, yeah, hundreds of acres of trees and fields that you can go just get lost in. And you can take a tram or a metro out the city and get to a state park kind of thing pretty quickly. So I spent a lot of time in these parks and in the woods, and it was really cool to see how much they value that and how much they just respect the woods and nature and creation.

 

0:23:41.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I love that. And you probably didn’t go there with the expectation that you were going to be mesmerized by the way that they do their park system.

 

0:23:53.0 John Laughridge: Right.

 

0:23:53.4 Jim Lovelady: You know, so those are the fun surprises of going to another culture and you go, “Oh, I never would have thought,” and it becomes a paradigm shift. And it’s all this, “Oh, this is new. Oh, I’ve never thought about it doing it this way. And oh, I wonder if I could do that… If that could be done back home.” All those kinds of things that are just churning in your mind. All right, so what was it like to be on the team? What was it like to be on the Serge team? What was it like to be… I mean, y’all, we’re missing the fourth musketeer.

 

0:24:26.4 Alyssa Parker: Two.

 

0:24:27.2 Jim Lovelady: Oh, two.

 

0:24:28.6 Alyssa Parker: Okay, so there were two other girls on our team, Kate and Corinne, and they both have gone home. And there was also another intern on our team, Sam, who is incredible.

 

0:24:39.4 Jim Lovelady: All right, shout out to all them.

 

0:24:40.6 Alyssa Parker: Shout out to all of them. His parents are missionaries in Prague, and so he was already there for the summer, and so he was with us some of the time.

 

0:24:48.7 Jim Lovelady: Oh, that’s awesome. Okay.

 

0:24:50.0 John Laughridge: Big team. Yeah.

 

0:24:51.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So talk to me about not just intern team dynamics, but also the larger being with the Serge team. Talk to me about some of that stuff. Ready, set, go.

 

0:25:01.2 Alyssa Parker: Oh, my gosh. It was incredible. I love them so much, and I definitely think that was the hardest goodbye, like saying goodbye to Anna and Matt and saying goodbye to Emma and Ryan and their kids, Nora and Livy. I love them. It was…

 

0:25:15.4 Grant Victory: They are pretty great.

 

0:25:16.6 Alyssa Parker: It was really incredible. They’re incredible people who really love the Lord and who really love Prague. And so each of us as individuals were mentored by one of them. So Anna was my mentor. Grant’s was Ryan. John’s was Matt. And we met with them about once a week, and that was really, really encouraging just individually. And then we met once a week as a team and have a big lunch and stuff. And they were just very open and very genuine with us from the moment we got there, which was really, really helpful, about some of their struggles and about also all of the incredible things that the Lord has taught them while they were in Prague. And so I think that gave us space to be pretty vulnerable immediately. And then just the five of us, plus Sam sometimes, the dynamics were just really great. They were really great. I think we were all very excited to be close and become really good friends, and the Lord really blessed that. It was… I’m really going to miss everyone a lot.

 

0:26:05.7 Grant Victory: I loved our team from the start. Leaders, Matt and Anna, Ryan and Emma. I thought they did such a phenomenal job of stewarding us so well with their time, talents, money. Everything that they were willing to sacrifice was just off the charts, and they loved us so deeply because of that. And I still feel that gratitude and love towards them. And Ryan just being my mentor was just off the charts. I had such a great time sitting with him. He was so sacrificial. He does faith and works, and he will take three-hour breaks just to meet with you, have a meal with you, and talk life, talk the Lord, talk your struggles. And he’s so willing to be obedient to the Lord. And I love that so much about him. And then living with John was incredible. I love John so much. And then the rest of the team, just going out and doing stuff, just the most random stuff that we could do was just so amazing. We just had side quests to do, to go shopping together, often visited the jazz club, going to parks.

 

0:27:27.0 John Laughridge: The jazz club was awesome.

 

0:27:28.3 Grant Victory: Vienna, too. We had a fun experience in Vienna with the team. I often get to hang out with Alyssa all the time.

 

0:27:37.8 Alyssa Parker: Grant and I kept getting stuck together and it was awesome.

 

0:27:40.2 Grant Victory: She’s my adventure buddy. We love to go try coffee shops and good eats around the city.

 

0:27:47.2 Jim Lovelady: Ooh, I’m going to definitely have to take you guys up on a list of the best coffee shops.

 

0:27:51.5 Alyssa Parker: The coffee. We’ve got the coffee list for you.

 

0:27:53.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I’m ready.

 

0:27:56.1 Grant Victory: Do we have a list? Oh, do we have a list?

 

0:27:59.5 Alyssa Parker: One of the things that just the church community does is every month they do a crawl of some sort. So we did an iced latte crawl, and it was epic. It was so fun. I went and it was just this one Saturday, and we were like, “We are going to go get iced lattes till we can’t get iced lattes anymore.” And we tried all of these different coffee shops, and everyone brought a little cup to try. Anyway, so we have a list for you.

 

0:28:26.0 Jim Lovelady: Okay. So you didn’t have 27 iced lattes that day. Okay.

 

0:28:31.0 Alyssa Parker: Full iced lattes, no, just 27 small. Just a little. Just a little bit. We were very wired by the end of it, but it was so fun. It was so good.

 

0:28:39.5 John Laughridge: That’s awesome.

 

0:28:41.1 Jim Lovelady: You started talking about coffee and I totally lost my train of thought.

 

0:28:43.4 Grant Victory: I mean, the coffee scene is incredible there.

 

0:28:46.1 Alyssa Parker: Unbelievable.

 

0:28:48.1 John Laughridge: I can bring us back on track, I guess. I could talk about coffee all day, but…

 

0:28:53.9 Jim Lovelady: Stay focused. Focused. Lock in.

 

0:28:55.3 John Laughridge: Yeah. So for me, day one, I knew before we even came that I was just really going to love this team. And I love people so much. And just everybody has a unique quality that makes them so special and that the Lord has blessed them with. I’ve gotten to see throughout the summer how they love people so uniquely and how the Lord has called them to this place, to Prague, in such a beautiful way that they are able to love people so well. And my mentors, I say mentors because, really, Matt and Ryan were both my mentors. I met with them probably once a week each. And just the conversations and the way that they just were making sure I was okay and supporting me was incredible. I would play disc golf with Matt every week. That’s what we would do. And it was just so great. It was so cool to just have someone that you can just do an activity with that’s so ordinary, but he would just ask me so many deep questions and just be there for me and be a friend to me when I was lonely and when I felt isolated, he would just support me in that way. And Ryan would take off with Grant. He would literally talk to me for three hours during his lunch break because that’s who he is. He just loves people and he wants to make sure that we’re okay and support us.

 

0:30:11.2 Jim Lovelady: I love it.

 

0:30:11.8 John Laughridge: And then all the interns, I love all of them so much. Grant, it was just a pleasure to live with him throughout the summer. And it’s really hard leaving them. That’s by far the hardest part of this internship is leaving these people.

 

0:30:23.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So what’s the length of the internship?

 

0:30:25.2 Alyssa Parker: Eight weeks.

 

0:30:26.6 Jim Lovelady: Eight weeks. Isn’t it crazy how much can happen in eight weeks?

 

0:30:27.9 John Laughridge: It really is.

 

0:30:29.2 Jim Lovelady: Isn’t it insane?

 

0:30:30.5 John Laughridge: It’s wild.

 

0:30:31.9 Alyssa Parker: These are some of my best friends and it’s been eight weeks and it’s like, what?

 

0:30:37.0 Jim Lovelady: Isn’t it wild?

 

0:30:38.2 John Laughridge: It’s crazy.

 

0:30:39.4 Alyssa Parker: Yeah.

 

[music]

 

0:30:47.6 Jim Lovelady: I’m going to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we here at the headquarters in Philadelphia are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray and this week we’re praying for our teams in London. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that You would bless these folks. Guide them on their journey of faith. Be their helper who never slumbers nor sleeps. Turn sorrow into joy and give them great joy in their work in Your Kingdom and the pleasure of Your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, and with the people that they serve. Heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness. Restore to them the joy of Your salvation and let Your Kingdom come and Your will be done in these places just as it is in Heaven. We pray in Your name. Amen. Now back to the conversation. 

 

0:31:57.1 Jim Lovelady: It’s not all fun and games. People disagree with one another and people have conflict. So talk to me about how does Jesus rescue you? How did you see Jesus rescuing you in the hard parts of doing ministry, of doing church, of team dynamics? Pick any of the struggles that you experienced, the culture shock stuff. How did you see Jesus rescuing you?

 

0:32:26.7 Grant Victory: I would say definitely God has a sovereign hand. He is so much more sovereign than we can ever comprehend and knowing that His grace prevails over all things, His mercy is more than our sin in us. And just knowing who you are in Christ totally wrecked my summer because whenever you’re on the mission field, you’re desiring to live for God and that’s whenever the enemy comes to attack. It’s like a nonstop thing. You’re constantly living on the battlefield. It’s a thing that you’re born into, you live in, and then you’re going to die in that battlefield until Jesus returns. But it is so sweet to know that we do have a conqueror within Christ. We have a shepherd that is good and He only moves for His glory and our good. And His love is so deep within that. It is very hard to be over there. It’s so uncomfortable and it’s nothing like Oklahoma whatsoever. But His grace is just so sufficient for it.

 

0:33:42.9 Jim Lovelady: So tell me a quick story because I want to hear three quick stories. Tell me a quick story of when that hit you and what it was, what crisis moment it was, where all that hit you.

 

0:33:53.6 Alyssa Parker: This summer, I feel like a lot of stuff happened at home that I wasn’t prepared for it to happen.

 

0:34:00.0 Jim Lovelady: And you weren’t there.

 

0:34:01.0 Alyssa Parker: I wasn’t there. And so we experienced a loss that was pretty close to our family and that was something we weren’t expecting yet. And we were at Gospel-Centered Life doing our Bible study when my mom called me. And I think that that was the first time that I was like, I want to go home and I want to be with people. And it was very, very hard, not only grieving that loss, but not being there to comfort my family in that. But I learned so much about the Lord as a comforter in that time to me, but also trusting that my family, He had them. And the people that were affected the most deeply, He had them, He was going to take care of them, even though I’m 5,000 miles away. It was so hard not to be with them. But I think that was one of the first times that I’ve really been able to fully rest in God as like, “Okay, I cannot do anything and I need you to take care of this. Please be with my mom, be with my brother, be with everyone, Lord, and comfort them and show them your goodness.” And he did. He always does. And so that was really the most tangibly I kind of felt that this summer.

 

0:35:09.0 Grant Victory: We had a Gospel-Centered Life lesson and it was about heart idols. And the activity that we did afterwards was write down some of your sin struggles and write the deeper meaning behind those. And I just remembered, I was writing and I kept writing and I was like, “Dang, my sin is so deep.”

 

0:35:33.3 Jim Lovelady: I’ve got a lot of idols.

 

0:35:34.7 Grant Victory: I got a lot of stuff. And it’s like, “Wow, I am so sinful.”

 

0:35:41.4 Jim Lovelady: “Oh, and I could write this. Oh, shoot, and I can write that.” Yeah.

 

0:35:44.9 Grant Victory: And then it’s writing more deeper into it and it’s like, “Wow, I have my heart fixed on so many other things rather than the Lord.” And I was like, “Dang.” That was just such a sobering moment. And one of the best things to come from that, I met with Ryan right after that and we got to talk just all about it and so much encouragement, so much uplift.

 

0:36:10.3 Alyssa Parker: Ryan. Love Ryan.

 

0:36:11.3 Grant Victory: Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens to fulfill the law of Christ.” And he bore my burdens at that moment. He helped me just remove layer after layer and it just showed the Lord is so good. Despite my sinful nature, He clothes me with robes of righteousness and He just takes off those garments of just nastiness and says, “You’re made white as snow.”

 

0:36:41.0 Jim Lovelady: Amen.

 

0:36:41.3 Grant Victory: And it was such…

 

0:36:42.1 Jim Lovelady: I think I believe you. I believe you.

 

0:36:43.3 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:36:44.5 Jim Lovelady: That’s so good. Yeah.

 

0:36:45.7 Grant Victory: Such a beautiful thing to just keep peeling back those layers and just say, “I am sinful, but I have Christ.”

 

0:36:55.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. The liberating sigh of relief, the, “Oh, my. Oh, man. I did not realize how heavy all of this stuff was and how silly it is that I would be hanging out with all of this.” And that I’m probably going to do it again. And I’m still loved. Well, I don’t want to do it right now. I don’t want to do these things right now. Praise God. Right now, in this moment, this is eternal life. And the experience of eternal life is this experience of liberation from these sins that so easily entangle us, but the sober knowledge of, oh my gosh, this list keeps going. It’s really good. I appreciate you saying that because my list keeps going. And it’s like, oh. And Jesus goes, you also said it, His mercy is more. There’s more mercy. There’s more mercy from that too. So, oh, that’s good. Alright, John, you’ve had the most time to think through this. Top those stories, buddy.

 

0:38:01.9 John Laughridge: That’s great. I think for me it was more of a slow burner versus a big moment. This summer really challenged me in a lot of ways in just isolation and loneliness because I just am always with community and people kind of constantly. I’m a very go-go-go person. And this summer gave me a lot of time alone, which was really good, but it was really hard and the Lord really challenged me through that. So this whole summer it was kind of this pent-up emotion that was just sitting on me. And I remember we were in DoSlova which is a church plant of Faith, and Jake Hunt, the senior pastor there, he read Psalm 42. And I remember, “As the deer pants for water, so do I pant for the living God.” And I remember hearing that and just it kind of struck me that I’m like this deer looking for water, looking for some source, some energy. And I’m trying to find it in the world and I’m trying to find it in my friendships and my value with people and how people see me and look at me. And it just hit me. And then later in the verse, it’s “Deep calls to deep. All your breakers and waves go over me.” And I was like, “Wow. I am constantly looking for this satisfaction, this water, and the living water of God will satisfy me and He will sustain me. The waves will pass by me and He won’t let me go under. He won’t let me submerge.” And that really resonated with me. And there was one day where all of that kind of cultivated and it just kind of poured out and I just really felt all of this weight, this kind of release of weight, but also just this overwhelming weight that I needed to share with people and kind of talk through. So I met with Ryan and Matt and just talked to them and just kind of poured out everything that was on my heart and all these selfish desires that I had because I felt like I needed validation from people and I felt like I needed to be seen by people and I felt like I needed to hang out with people more. And the Lord satisfies that. He hears my cries and He provides the water. And yeah, at the end of the summer, I kind of look back and see that progression. It’s like a movement. I was just this aching note waiting to resolve the whole summer, and then the Lord just resolved it and He gave me that living water and He has satisfied me.

 

0:40:20.6 Jim Lovelady: Amen. Amen. How do you articulate that for people who maybe they realize that they are a deer panting for living water? Okay, so the fountain of living water theme is all throughout the Bible. So you got the woman at the well who runs to the city, and she says, “Come and see the guy who told me everything about myself.” Right? That’s kind of what you’re telling me. That’s kind of the story that you’re telling me. But, and so now you guys are about to catch a plane back to wherever it is that you’re going to say, “Come and see the guy who told me everything about myself.” And to put more nuance on it, “Come see the guy who saw all of my sins and all of my brokenness, all of my sorrows and all of my joys. Come meet the guy who reigns in my life and showed it, and all I had to do was go to Prague to experience that.” So how do you articulate that?

 

0:41:26.6 John Laughridge: I think I can articulate it by my life and testimony because He’s done it again and again in my life. In my life, I’ve just felt this ache, this dull, aching pain, just experiencing lots of things over the past couple years. But in everything, in all the sorrow and all of the grief that I’ve experienced, I have been filled again and again and again. And I can just, yeah, I can give a testimony to how the Lord has done that in every season of my life and every place I’ve been. Going into this summer, I didn’t expect any of these emotions, any of these heavy things in my heart to be a problem, to be something that would be heavy, but it was. But He provided, and He met me when I was in Prague. You know what I mean? Like I’m not bound to… He’s not going to, “Oh, I’ll only do that in Virginia.” No, He’ll do it wherever. So I think the way that I can articulate that is just by sharing these emotions and sharing how the Lord met me in that moment and how He continues to do that in my life.

 

0:42:25.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So good.

 

0:42:26.9 Grant Victory: I would say there is so much hope in Jesus. That was one thing that God taught me over this whole summer is one thing that you can offer people is hope. And what you were saying, you show that hope in your life. You have to be that living testimony that God calls us to be. And there is hope that there is someone who is all-knowing, who is all-loving, who is all-powerful, and who cares for you so deeply and intently. And He pursues you with all that He is. And hope is your joy. Hope leads you to the afterlife. Hope is your faith.

 

0:43:11.8 Jim Lovelady: That’s good.

 

0:43:12.8 Alyssa Parker: I don’t know that I can say anything better than what they said, so I don’t have anything to say.

 

0:43:18.3 Jim Lovelady: Amen.

 

0:43:19.4 Alyssa Parker: Amen. Just amen.

 

0:43:19.8 Jim Lovelady: You have joyful tears.

 

0:43:21.6 Alyssa Parker: I do. Dang it. They told me I was going to cry.

 

0:43:24.9 Jim Lovelady: Was it a bet? Confirmed.

 

0:43:26.7 Grant Victory: There was a bet.

 

0:43:27.3 John Laughridge: I don’t know.

 

0:43:28.1 Alyssa Parker: And I was like, “No, I’m not going to cry. I don’t cry at goodbyes.” Maybe I cry at God. I do.

 

0:43:35.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I’m always curious about what it looks like for folks who come back from these kinds of adventures. The second greatest story ever told is The Lord of the Rings. I don’t care what you guys say.

 

0:43:46.1 John Laughridge: I would agree with that. That’s a great take.

 

0:43:47.7 Jim Lovelady: I love when the hobbits come back and they look at each other. They’re sitting around, in the movie they’re sitting around the table drinking their pints and they look at each other and everyone else is doing their thing, has been doing their thing. Y’all haven’t experienced this. Everybody has been living their life all summer. Everyone had their own eight weeks. You guys had a dense eight weeks because there’s something about going on the field that just widens your… The frequency that you can… Your radio frequency it just picks up so much more when you go on the field and you have these kind of fish-out-of-water experiences. Everybody else has been having their own eight-week experience, and you’re going to come back and you’re going to enter into a world that’s been going on. They didn’t pause. Nobody paused life to wait for you to come back. They’ve been doing their thing. So I love it when the hobbits are sitting around and they’re looking at each other going… No words. They’re just looking at each other like, “I know.” And I love that you guys have been on a team where you can look at each other, you don’t have to say anything, you just know. You just have the look. But I’m curious, how do you describe what this last eight weeks was like?

 

0:45:09.4 John Laughridge: You want to say it, Grant.

 

0:45:10.9 Jim Lovelady: 15 seconds, three minute, five minute?

 

0:45:13.7 Grant Victory: It’s electric. I mean, there’s no better word to describe this team. God put everyone here for a reason. And John said this earlier, everybody’s so unique. And God made those gifts and those talents all line up in Prague, Czech Republic. And everybody’s so awesome. I live in so much gratitude because of them, and they’ve all shown me what it looks like, one, to love Christ and for Christ to love us. And they’re just amazing.

 

0:45:51.1 Alyssa Parker: I think in going home, it’s going to be hard for me not to just, someone be like, “How was your summer?” and be like, “Let me give you a 20-minute rant about, sorry, let me just tell you everything that’s epic about Prague and everything that was hard this summer and everything that was amazing this summer and everything.” And I am very blessed ’cause when I go home, the two other girls on my team live in Birmingham, which is where I live. So praise the Lord. Praise the Lord that I will still have them. That’s such a blessing.

 

0:46:27.2 Jim Lovelady: Different churches?

 

0:46:28.7 Alyssa Parker: Different churches.

 

0:46:29.9 Jim Lovelady: Same town.

 

0:46:30.7 Alyssa Parker: Same town. And same school with one of them, so that’s good. But I think with everyone else right now, I’m kind of processing through how to tell my story slowly and not just in this rush of words. I have a tendency to kind of speak before I think, which is not a quality I like about myself. But that’s something that my team is really good at. They think before they speak and they’re very intentional with every word they say. And so I’m trying to kind of adapt that as I think about telling everyone about this summer and realizing that they have things to tell me too. I’m not the only one who grew this summer. I’m not the only person who had an experience this summer. The Lord taught me so much, but my roommate when I go home, the Lord taught her so much too. And I can’t wait to hear what that was. So I think as I think about going home, just trying to be gentle in spirit and quiet and allowing the Lord to tell me to say what He wants me to say rather than just like, “Oh my gosh, Prague!” ‘Cause, oh my gosh, Prague.

 

0:47:38.4 Jim Lovelady: Right. That’s… Well, I don’t know, I haven’t been there.

 

0:47:40.8 Alyssa Parker: It’s so great. You should go. We have a list. We have a list of coffee places for you to go to.

 

0:47:46.3 Jim Lovelady: Got the list.

 

0:47:47.3 John Laughridge: Got the list.

 

0:47:48.0 Jim Lovelady: Got the parks. Got the public transit maps. Ready.

 

0:47:50.9 Alyssa Parker: We got you.

 

0:47:51.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So that’s very wise. It’s very wise. And I wasn’t thinking about that until you said it. How, I want to go back, and very generous, I want to go back and be quick to listen. I have a story to tell, of course. “Oh my gosh, Prague!”

 

0:48:05.7 Alyssa Parker: “Oh my gosh, Prague!”

 

0:48:08.0 Jim Lovelady: But there’s so much space. Like, Jesus is so generous and there’s so much space that I can be quick to listen and I want to hear. And so there’s something really wise about that and actually really loving about that. So, yeah, thanks for sharing that. That’s really good. So not to discount what I’m going to continue asking, how are you going to talk about this? How do you plan right now to live your life differently?

 

0:48:30.8 Alyssa Parker: Prague is a little bit slower, and I think that left a lot of room for intentionality in relationships and in the way that I spend my time. I think speaking for myself, but also kind of speaking for everyone on our team, we’re very like, go, go, go. Do a lot of things, achieve a lot of things, be friends with everybody, meet with everybody.

 

0:48:50.5 Jim Lovelady: You notice I didn’t ask you what you did there. I didn’t ask you that because it’s all too often not really the point.

 

0:48:58.4 Alyssa Parker: It’s not the point.

 

0:48:59.1 Jim Lovelady: It’s a fun question, and I’m really curious about it, but I’m not going to ask it. All right, keep going.

 

0:49:03.6 Alyssa Parker: Yeah, I think just really being more intentional with the way that I spend my time, allowing it to be a little bit slower. And maybe I’m not achieving as much and maybe I’m not doing as many things, but it gave so much space for the Lord to work in relationships and in me and in everything. And not that he’s not always working, but I could see it better. And so I think that that is definitely something I want to take back from Prague, for sure. The way that we lived there was just turned a little bit slower.

 

0:49:39.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah. How about you, Grant?

 

0:49:41.6 Grant Victory: I think the biggest thing was hope and joy just coming together. That is truly how you live on mission. You are truly showing the Lord’s glory in the way that He’s worked in your life through hope and joy. And just seeing the way that those people at Faith Community, Matt, Anna, Ryan, and Emma like they all carried that just so beautifully. And even our team, our team was so much fun and they all have just the mighty hope of Jesus bubbling inside them. And gosh, I can’t wait to bring that to just everyone. Following Jesus is so much fun.

 

0:50:33.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, I love it. I love that you went to Prague with a backpack full of idolatry that you, in a very kind of liturgical way, emptied.

 

0:50:46.2 Grant Victory: Yeah.

 

0:50:46.9 Jim Lovelady: And you’re like, “Well, what should I put in my bag? I know. “Hope. Joy.”

 

0:50:50.5 Alyssa Parker: “Joy! Yay!”

 

0:50:52.9 Jim Lovelady: You know? And I love that. I love that. That’s a constant invitation. Because every morning I wake up and I have options of things that I can put in my bag, and it’s like the go-to things of like, “Well, guard your reputation. Put that in there. Oh, be articulate. Put that in there. Oh, don’t mess up. They’re all going to laugh at you. Put that in there. Oh, find your coping mechanisms. Put that in there. Find time to doomscroll. Put that in there.” All the idols. There’s space in my bag every morning. Or, “Jesus, help me put hope in here. Help me put joy in here. Help me put the love that I experienced for You and from You.” All that stuff. All right. How about you, John?

 

0:51:37.2 John Laughridge: I think availability is a big thing that I’m taking away from it, is just being available and willing. That’s one thing that going into the summer I really wanted to do, is just be willing and available. And that was actually a really, really important mindset, I think, to have because I was just able to serve and love people and not really at the expense of myself, it didn’t feel like. You know what I mean? It felt like I was just able to do that, and it wasn’t something that was hard. It wasn’t something that I was sacrificing. Like back home, it’s like, “Oh, I’m going to meet this person for coffee, but oh, I won’t be able to do my homework,” or whatever, “I won’t be able to study this amount of time.” But I’m realizing the value of being able to love and love through Christ through just being available and being present is unbelievable.  And it makes such a tangible difference. It really does. And I’m hoping that I can go back into the semester with that mindset of just like, “Okay, what am I here for? Why has the Lord put me at Virginia Tech where I go to school? Why has he placed me in these campus ministries I’m involved in? Why do I have these friendships?” It’s to be available and to love them. That’s why. It’s to have a willing and serving heart like Christ. And I think that is one of my biggest takeaways from the summer is, wow, I was really poured into by Ryan and Matt and Emma and Anna. They all were just so willing and available for me, and now I can go out and do that for other people.

 

0:53:01.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I love it. I love that you want to be a Ryan and a Matt.

 

0:53:03.8 John Laughridge: I do. Yeah. They’re my role models.

 

0:53:07.3 Jim Lovelady: I love it.

 

0:53:08.0 John Laughridge: They’re like big brothers to me.

 

0:53:09.1 Jim Lovelady: I love that.

 

0:53:09.5 John Laughridge: Yeah.

 

0:53:11.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I love that that you go, okay, this is how I want to live my life differently. You know it’s going to be hard. You know, I mean, you may not know.

 

0:53:19.6 Alyssa Parker: It’s going to be so hard jumping back into things and trying to keep everything for sure.

 

0:53:24.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah. And things are going to start to encroach on that. Things are going to start… There’s going to be little whispers of like, “No, you don’t have time for that.” All of that’s going to be there. But you can never unexperience what you experienced this summer. And you can cultivate a remembrance of it where it’s like, “Oh, let’s go do a… Let’s go get some lattes, iced lattes,” or whatever it may be. After I did a summer in Spain, it turned into like, let me find a coffee place that makes as close to Spanish style as possible, that kind of thing. So it’s just so that I can remember, “Oh, right. I’m going to be intentional. Oh, right. I’m going to slow down and have relationships with people and be available. Oh, right. I forgot about that.” And the repentance of, “Oh, Jesus, I forgot that… I forgot what you taught me in Prague. Help me to remember.” Because the people around you are going to be so thankful. And I need to do it too. I need to be like, okay, Jesus, I’m going to dial it back. Make some space so that I can experience the pleasure of God in this moment with the people who long to experience the pleasure of God. Yeah. Well, I mean, we could talk for…

 

0:54:52.3 John Laughridge: We could.

 

0:54:54.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, my gosh, Prague.

 

0:54:55.7 Alyssa Parker: Oh, my gosh, Prague.

 

0:54:56.9 Jim Lovelady: We could talk forever. But, yeah, I don’t know how to close this off other than my prayer for you is that there would be this continued conversation with Jesus about what that experience was like and that it would affect every day of your life and that you wouldn’t forget and that the people around you would be blessed and that maybe when all is said and done, you find yourselves living in Prague being…

 

0:55:25.1 Alyssa Parker: Let’s go.

 

0:55:29.4 Jim Lovelady: Being the kind of people that you experienced who were for you. Ryan and Emma and Matt and Anna. You become the kind of people who have received God’s blessing and you just want to dish it out. And all three of you are just oozing that. Like, I’ve been poured into, I want to pour that blessing out. So thank you so much for hanging out.

 

0:55:52.8 John Laughridge: Thank you.

 

0:55:53.0 Alyssa Parker: Thank you. Electric.

 

0:55:56.1 Grant Victory: It was electric.

 

0:55:56.4 Jim Lovelady: Electric.

 

0:55:56.9 John Laughridge: Electric.

 

0:55:58.0 Alyssa Parker: Electric.

 

0:56:00.0 Grant Victory: Amen.

 

0:56:06.9 Jim Lovelady: Now let me tell you, this conversation, which was so full of hope and joy, was convicting for me and put a new light on my struggle with cynicism. Because I normally pack cynicism in my bag of necessities for the day. It’s my protection from being duped, from being taken advantage of, from looking dumb. And it leaves me suspicious, critical, and hard-hearted to serendipitous moments of real joy seeing God move. Alyssa, John, and Grant had such a beautiful and gospel-saturated experience, but there was a part of me that was like, yeah, just you wait. Live a little more life and you’ll see. Life is hard and then you die. But these folks did a great job of helping me see how Jesus invites me to jettison that cynicism so that he can replace it with real joy. The conviction about cynicism is actually an invitation to repentance. Repentance is an act of reaching into my backpack and, in my case, giving that cynicism to Jesus. But the beautiful thing is that Jesus never takes something that you thought that you really needed, but don’t, without replacing it with what you really do need. And in my case, it’s joy. It was such a joy to hear these folks share stories from their journey to Prague. So what do you have in your backpack that you’ve been carrying around and maybe it’s time to drop it and let Jesus give you what you really need? I guarantee whatever you give to Jesus, He will give you Himself. And He’s all you need. Grant, John, and Alyssa’s journey was a snapshot of real joy. And what they remember from this summer is going to be how they learned to receive God’s love and learn to love the way Jesus loves. So if you’re curious about joining a Serge internship, go to serge.org/internship. Applications for this coming summer go live on October 1st. So man, I hope to see you this summer. And if you or your church are planning a short-term trip this summer, I want you to pick up this book right here: Life-Changing Mission. It’s a devotional for your short-term mission trip written by our own Serge missionaries. And of course, there’s lots to explore at serge.org if you’re going on a mission trip or if you’re sending folks on mission or training folks or trying to be a catalyst for gospel renewal and mission at your church. And if you enjoyed this episode and you think somebody might be encouraged by hearing this episode, share it with them. And follow us on YouTube and join our email newsletter to receive information about the work of Serge that we’re doing all over the world. So as you continue your journey of faith, may you learn to jettison the baggage that weighs you down and discover your Savior, your keeper, your helper, who wants to give you something better. Remember that He goes with you. He will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. So receive the Lord’s blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you, turn His bright eyes to you, and give you His peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, life everlasting. Amen.

 

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