Coke-in-a-Bag

One challenge for a short-term mission team is laying aside personal preferences in order to function as a group. Folks generally begin their mission trip with a servant’s heart. They unquestioningly accept the schedule as it is handed to them. They politely nibble food they would never select in a restaurant. They share their sleeping quarters with snorers, creepy-crawlies, and barking dogs. They look at each morning as a grand adventure with or without the hope of a hot shower. Flexibility is the order of the day.

Sooner or later, though, someone usually cracks. Complying on the outside, while inwardly resisting efforts to submit to group demands, it happens. In Oaxaca, we call it “The Coke-in-a-Bag” experience. We first discovered this syndrome when a normally adaptable and agreeable person had suddenly been told when, where and how to go, and what and when to eat - exactly one time too many. He was not in control of his life, and he was not happy about it.

Out of the blue, he demanded a Coke. This may sound like an innocent request, but it was not an ideal time for the whole team to file into a store and select their favorite beverage. Nonetheless, my husband Jim sensed the man’s desperation and attempted to appease him discretely without awakening the thirst of every person in the group.

Relieved that the shopkeeper accepted these last-minute customers before shutting down for siesta, Jim bought the Coke, and handed it to our American visitor packaged “to go,” Mexican-style, in a plastic bag with a straw.

“Where’s the bottle?” our friend asked. “I want my Coke in a bottle!” he insisted.

“The store is closing, and the owner doesn’t want to wait to get his bottle back, so you have to take it in a bag,” Jim explained.

Uncharacteristically, this otherwise reasonable person exerted his will, and actually threw a slight tantrum until he got his way. It was an embarrassing situation. In a culture that does not show negative emotions, particularly anger, this man was clearly out of line. Thankfully the hungry shopkeeper decided it was better to lose a Coke bottle than to have this poor foreigner shame himself any further. The crisis was resolved.

Our western culture teaches us that we need to be in control. We must have choices. We must fight for our rights. We are a people who demand our own way. Even as Christians, we struggle when someone else is calling the shots. We want what we want, when we want it, and preferably not in a plastic bag.

On a mission trip, it is obvious that we are part of a bigger team, and that someone else is in charge. Most people are able to put aside personal preferences for one short week. What we forget is that we are always part of a team, and that God is our Captain. If we struggle with authority we can see, how can we expect to hear and obey the quiet nudging of the Holy Spirit?

For the sake of the kingdom, we must allow God to control our lives instead of clinging to our own personal rights. Only He knows the beginning from the end, and we can trust Him to direct our steps. We can avoid all sorts of misery and embarrassment if we gracefully accept His plan instead of insisting on our own.