I’ve been on two Surf Fish Serve trips over the last three years and I’m that guy that is everything in between surfing, fishing and serving. I love to fish and I’m a good second mate. I loved to surf when I was a kid, and twenty years later I’m trying to get back into it.
In the past, most trips I went on was with my wife. We do a lot of all-inclusive resorts and you get to a point where you do enough of those, you start searching for more. That’s where these SFS trips came up. I didn’t even want to do it at first. My wife knew a guy from high school and they somehow got to talking behind my back, and the next thing I know, she’s telling me she thinks I should go on this trip because she thinks I need it. It was a trip to Nicaragua and it turned out to be the best thing that has happened to me. I was in a corporate job, doing everything I was supposed to do, trying to be a good dad and a good husband. I wasn’t miserable in those roles but miserable in the way I was doing it. With me arguing every step of the way, she got me to go on it. I didn’t want to spend that money on myself because I was so used to putting everyone beside myself first, but as I already said, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.
The trip was a catalyst for me. It opened a door to, what I call it in my head, finding the beginning of my journey in life that I’m supposed to be on and I hadn’t thought about that for a long time. We did a lot of serving and helping kids and families which for me was good, but I come from the Caribbean so seeing poverty isn’t new for me, but the trip in terms of helping people combined with the group of guys I went with proved to be a game changer. I was able to have time to speak my mind, be real and get challenged from the group I was with. When you serve others, you don’t have to worry about yourself, you just get to give of yourself and enjoy life. It gave me the time I needed to defrag, and actually pray which I hadn’t done in a long time, and just listen, which started my journey to get me to where I am three years down the road.
In realizing we all have a story, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what that journey and story will look like, but now I’m challenging myself to set up my own mission trips and taking along others so I can share what I experienced. I went from not caring about anyone but me and my own family, to putting myself out there in a zone that I’m not necessarily comfortable with and it’s actually a hell of a lot of fun. There’s a lot of sleepless nights and questions I ask myself, but I’ve got purpose in my life again, and I didn’t have that in a long time. Last time I had that was when I was going through Ranger school in the military.
The next trip I want to do is a SFS family trip. We want to get the kids involved and have them see and learn what it is like to have fun and serve others at the same time. I would just finish by saying that by taking the step to go on a mission trip and helping others, I don’t want to be cliché, but it definitely was a tipping stone and catalyst that is continuing to change my life. If I hadn’t gone on one of these trips, I think I’d still be searching and I’d still be lost. I’d still be feeling in my gut that things weren’t right. How can you find that thing if you don’t know what it is? How can you fill that void you are feeling if you don’t know what your purpose is? The SFS trip started me on a direction which allowed me to break free of the rut and funk I was in and then over time I found myself realizing what really was important in life and how I was going to start pursuing my new passions. Everything has changed and it’s just awesome. I highly recommend trying it sometime.