Our high school students go on an annual mission trip called APPA. The program began with trips to support missions in the Appalachians. We no longer go there, but the name has stuck. APPA 2015 took place in Dalhart, Texas. This is a reflection inspired by this trip and those before it.
This was the 35th APPA. The event has picked up plenty of traditions; my favorite is the APPA note. It’s a personal note you write to someone on the trip who has touched your life. Since APPA comes at the end of the school year, many APPA notes become statements about the whole year. There’s a minimum expectation that you’ll write APPA notes to people in your work group. Once I start, I have a hard time stopping. After my work group, I write notes to 11th graders (the grade level I work with), 10th graders (who I teach in Sunday School), to the other adult volunteers (because we’re our own support group), and to graduating seniors (to wish them well). Why? Because I have learned more about myself through APPA notes than nearly anything else. Writing that note means taking the time to say what we really mean to each other. There have been no more significant milestones in my spiritual journey than my APPA notes.
The notes told me I have a good way with people. The adults said I had a good way with the students; the students said I was fun and good to work with. I’m an introvert – none of this should be true. When my children graduated, the notes told me to keep working with youth. During the APPAs when I helped students plan the evening worship, the notes told me it wouldn’t have happened without me. (I still think that’s giving me too much credit.) It is amazing how much gratitude fits in a simple note. The simpler the note, the greater the gratitude. The note that still blows me away, two years later, contains only four words: What gifts you have.
When I reached a point in my career where I had to either leave or become one of the working dead, those notes showed me the way. I am an introvert with people skills. Youth like having me around. I help people organize themselves. I have gifts.
Enough about me. Here’s the takeaway:
- You never know how you’ve touched someone’s life. But you have.
- You touch lives in more ways than you know. You have gifts.
- Your gifts may be invisible to you, but not to those around you. Pay attention.
- If certain people are doing good in your life – tell them. They probably don’t know.
The Feral Deacon 