I remember the first time I ever went out of the USA.  I was nineteen years old leading a mission trip with twenty five teenagers to Central America.  We first went to Belize then traveled up through the outskirts of Mexico.  I didn’t know what to expect since I had never been out of the country before.  Our youth group had spent six months training for this trip as we practiced a full production of a drama called, “Spellboud.”

Spellbound was a full costume, twenty minute play that told the story of Jesus.  I was a toy prince in the play (which was symbolically Adam from the Bible) who was created by a toy maker (God).  I had everything I could have ever wanted in life, even a princess (Eve) and we lived happily ever after in a beautiful kingdom (Earth), until the evil magician (Satan) came and destroyed everything.  Then me and all the other toys in the kingdom were broken from the evil magicians power, but the toy maker (God) made a special toy (Jesus) and sent him into the kingdom (earth) to fix us.  Some toys chose to be fixed but the other toys hated the special toy (Jesus) and eventually destroyed him with the evil magician.  But little did they know that the special toy (Jesus) came back after they thought they had gotten rid of him.  He saved the toys and reunited us with the toy maker (God).

The production was a full scale costume and make-up production with music and all.  It was very powerful and many people would gather around us to watch the play.  After the play was over we would go out in teams to pray with people and tell them about God’s awesome plan for their life.  Our team had so many experiences with leading people to Christ after each show we would do.

It was tough communicating with the natives of Mexico since none of us really knew how to speak Spanish fluently.  We had to use a translator many times in order to have a conversation.  So we would say something to the translator, the translator would then communicate with the natives, the natives would say something back to the translator, then the translator would tell us what they had just said, we then would respond back to the translator…you get the point! I had never felt so out of place before, after all everyone I knew back home spoke my language and pretty much lived the way I lived.  Mexico as you can imagine was much different.  As a short, non tan boy who wore plaid shirts, cargo shorts, and flip flops I stood out.  Our whole team stood out.  Everywhere we went people would look at us and stare.

The worst part of the trip where I felt the most out of place is when I had to use the bathroom.  Know let me just say this, Mexican food is my FAVORITE! So you can imagine I ate as much as I could while I was in the best place for Mexican food…MEXICO! But the Mexican food I ate apparently had a fight with my stomach…and my stomach lost! So naturally I had to GO, if you know what I mean! We were downtown Mexico performing and all the sudden my stomach had finally given up and surrendered, there was no waiting! I had held off the fight as long as I could but the battle was over.  So in mid conversation with someone from our team I took off running like a wild man for a bathroom.  No one knew what was wrong as I began running from building to building.  To my luck there were no bathrooms to be found.  While we were training with our group for the six months we all learned some key Spanish words, one of which was “Bano” which means bathroom.  However, in my wild state of panicking, I was so freaking out, I forgot the stupid word “Bano.”  So I kept running into people and stores screaming “bathroom” but no one understood me.  Finally I got so frustrated since it was code-red and I just started pointing to my rear end yelling, “Ba-th-roo-m!” Little did I know I had just learned Mexican sign language because they finally understood me and pointed to the “Bano.” Well played Mexico, well played…

I learned two things that day…

1) Don’t eat too much Mexican food while in Mexico.

2) It is hard to stand out from the crowd.

Standing out from the crowd means that other people won’t understand you all the time.  They certainly didn’t understand me in Mexico.  Sometimes in life doing what’s right and being different is hard.  When everyone else seems to be going one way, it takes a lot of work to go another way.  When people are losing hope it can be hard to be the one to stay positive.  When people are losing  strength is is hard to be the one that stays strong.  We can’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd and to be a leader not a follower. Most people are followers, just following what everyone else is doing.  Followers love the apathy of average.  But those that step up and lead their life are the ones who inspire others.  People may not understand you, they may not agree with you, they certainly won’t keep up with you, but stand out anyway! Be the kind of person that is willing to do something different to make a difference! Difference makers are weird, they aren’t like the crowd, they see bigger things than others see.  Difference makers are driven by things that stress others out.  They are driven by things that wear others out.  Just because you stand out from the crowd doesn’t mean you are alone, it could mean you are the one moving to greater things!

Don’t be afraid to use the bathroom in Mexico!