As parents, some of us know the incredible gift of self-less giving, and once in a while, children get to experience this amazing soul-transforming blessing as well. Hopefully, when they do, it unlocks the priceless treasure of true happiness that only comes from giving love and acts of service.

A genuine spirit of love and service resides within each one of us and can be cultured in our children. We know the world is changed by this kind of love and our children can be some of the happy few that learn how serving and giving produces a miracle of peace inside their own hearts.

This month our four daughters experienced just such a gift, a mission trip. Under the guidance of some dedicated and wonderful youth leaders, this year the children of the church youth group have planned, raised money, washed cars, served dinners, and put on concerts to raise funds for a youth mission trip to a Navajo reservation. As the time approached for lift-off, the four sisters had really no way of realizing how their ever so experienced lives of 13 to 16 years would be changed by this experience.

This might be a good time to explain to you that 3 of these girls have been involved in various acts of service activities throughout their young lives, with my hopes, as a parent, of cultivating a good crop of little women who have a heart of service. For the most part, they really were not aware that trust and development of a giving heart of service was going on, so when the mission trip came up, it seemed like the natural progression of things. They knew it would be wonderful, but had little idea that they would be the recipients of such a great gift, and absolutely no idea of the amazing effect on their new sister Jordan.

Operation Mission 2006 commenced and in my heart I knew these little women would be changed and I couldn’t wait to hear about every detail. Every day, I got calls with more news, amazing bits of information and voices. Those voices with certain tones, tones of sadness, thankfulness, amazement, joy and tenderness. Somehow, I could hear years of maturity over the phone lines in just days. How can this be? The truth is this can be, because this is what we were created to do. When we operate in love and service to other human beings we grow, we are happy, and most importantly we are fulfilling one of our greatest purposes. As these girls served and learned to love and see other children of God living in a different world, their hearts became aware, thankful, and for a time, self-less and focused on the greater good. We as listening parents could tell, we could hear, and we could feel what was developing.

When all the girls arrived home, I was not disappointed. They were all tired, but filled with stories and changed hearts. We all made drinks, downloaded pictures, and listened to stories of children who didn’t feel loved, struggles for daily necessities, lived in houses with no roof and covered in graffiti. They were touched by seeing siblings of 4 and 5 caring for another of 1 or 2 years of age, struggling parents and hurting relationships. But most of all we heard of love, appreciation, and the opportunity of wanting to do more. Then we saw tears. Not tears of anger or disappointment coming from a need not being met, but tears for other souls, tears for children needing a better hope and a promising future. And so I knew my prayers were answered and the seeds were being cultivated and the crop was growing.

These young people got to experience the joy that only a heart of service can give with a knowing about individual “purpose” that can become a way of life when we serve. It is my hope that we can all live a life that makes a difference and our children can experience the joy filled heart of having a giving soul.

–Ton­jua Shep­herd is the GE Direc­tor of Mar­ket­ing, a mom and a wife and a darn great per­son who loves mis­sions and has devoted her life to
empow­er­ing young peo­ple to impact the world with the mes­sage of Christ.