location, location, location

Real Estate people say those are the only rules of good real estate: location, location, location. No matter what the building or the business, if it is in the wrong location, it will not succeed. Since I know nothing about real estate, I will have to accept that as accurate. What worries me in so many people I know in the community in which I live is that the location has become a limitation to them.

They grow up, they have friends, they find a survival job and they let that become the world for them. It is amazing how many people in the community in which I live have never been out of the county, much less the state. They have never seen the ocean. They have never seen the mountains. They have never seen great rivers or ten lane highways. Television is no substitute for going.

Two stories were told recently to me. One was a young woman who had grown up in Wilmington and went to college in Boone, NC. She lasted less than a semester. She went home because it was too cold and there were no places to shop. Her location had become a limitation. She could not see the advantages and the opportunities of a new place. The second story is almost identical A young woman got a full scholarship to college. All expenses paid. College was not something her family could have given her. She did not last more than a week. She had to come home. The home location had become a limitation.

Another group of people have taken off for a mission trip. The place they are going is not one that normally comes to mind as a place that is desperately in need of mission work. The kind of work they will do in a week is not particularly impressive. But they are going. There has never been for me much evidence that mission trips did much good for anybody but the people who go on them.

The major benefit of mission trips is that it has a way of expanding our locations. In small ways it begins to get you to thinking that the focus of your Christian service is not limited to the boundaries of your city limits. It introduces you to other Christian people in other parts of the country or world which links you to the world wide community of the Christian faith. Mission trips help us discover just how hard it is to really help other people regardless of location. The ministry of helping is not as easy as we would like to think. Mission trips go because we want to be obedient to our Lord. Jesus says "Go into all the world..."


There is always much that may be done in the location where we are. We will all have to pick a location for our ministries because we cannot minister everywhere. But to allow the location to become a prison from which you cannot escape is to miss out on the wonderful mysteries and blessings that God has created all around the world. It is a magnificent world and part of being faithful to the Creator is to enjoy as much of it as one is given the opportunity to enjoy.