Tag: APPA 2015

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.

I’m not sure how or when the tradition of making a cross started, but I think it’s relatively recent.  On my first APPA, we all signed a board that went into the project, but it was hidden away inside the construction, like a beam signing for a church building.  Today each work team makes a cross, signed by each member of the team, usually containing our theme scripture for the week.

It seems natural for a church group to leave behind a cross as a marker of its work, but in a short time these crosses have become the symbol for the trip and the work.  When I build a wheelchair ramp, I like to do a “victory run” where the team lines up on each side of the ramp to cheer while the homeowner comes down the ramp.  It’s a ritual to mark handing over the ramp to the homeowner.  The crosses have created a different ritual.  The team presents the cross to the homeowner as a way to present the completed project.  You can see two cross presentations in this video.  Note also the prominence of the crosses with the work teams.

Homeowners are as proud of the crosses as they are of the entire project.  They like to have them displayed in prominent places.  Floyd, a 2014 homeowner in very poor health, told his family he wants to be buried with his.

According to Thomas Aquinas, Jesus on the cross opens his arms wide, to receive all humanity, while at the same time pointing upward to our heavenly Father.  The APPA cross shows how homeowners and work teams receive each other, transforming each other’s lives to the glory of God.  One day I hope to drive through a small town and see a project with a small cross next to it, the mark of gifts given and received.

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 35^th 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 11^th graders (the grade level I work with), 10^th 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.

(Image is “Notes” by Brady on Flickr.  CC BY 2.0. )