The Mission Trip Blog

Now that I have had a few days to reflect and rest I am going to try and write an interesting post about mission trip. As most of you know, we went to Benton Harbor Michigan for our mission trip. For more information you can also look at my husbands blog, just a few days before we left Paul wrote a detailed post about where we were going and what we were praying for. Anyway I am going to give you a day by day:

• Sunday: Arrived late due to almost all of the street signs in down town Benton Harbor having been knocked down and them never being replaced. We arrived at the Salvation Army (where Youth Works was based out of all week) during dinner time and when we walked into the soup kitchen where we were eating all week we had a very boisterous round of applause. I don't remember to much from this night but I do know that most of the night was spent in orientation for the students and the adult leaders. We were placed in our crews and went to bed. The week theme was "Captain Planet" and I was on the Water crew where as Paul was on the Captain Planet crew.
• Monday: Water Crew started out with what is called "Kids Club" which is a combination between a VBS and day care situation. It is only 2 hours long and includes (for our students) putting on skits, songs, crafts and games. This is almost always a very involved program as it has themes and is almost always geared toward a group of kids who are impoverished as well as emotionally and socially different then what most of our students are used to (lots of behavior problems and things like that). Then in the afternoon there is a small allotment of free time (when I took a small group of students to MEIJER) and then dinner. After dinner we traveled the mile across the Kalamazoo River to St. Joe where we had a scavenger hunt and ice cream. The point of the activity was to give the students the opportunity to see how impoverished Benton Harbor is in relationship to St. Jo. When we got back to the Salvation Army we had what is called "club". This is a time of praise and worship. There is music, singing, prayer, and a speaker. After club we had church group time, a scheduled time to be in our church groups and process the day. Lights out at 11:00pm
• Tuesday: Wake up at 6am for breakfast crew. Yeah. We helped out with the salvation army day care until lunch. After lunch we went to kids club. etc. The only thing different about this day from the day before is the students played a poverty simulation game that simulated the difficulty of moving from poverty for families who are born into poverty. Following this "game" we had a speaker form the community who is passionate about racial reconciliation and influencing the youth of Benton Harbor to grow up to be responsible, hard working adults. Lights out at 11:00pm.
• Wednesday: For the next two days Water Crew worked at The Ark of the Covenant Church. This was a very poorly taken care of church that was bought by a small house church and is in the process of being renovated. Almost all of the work has been done by Youth Works. We scraped, hung drywall, hung paneling, pulled out carpet staples things like that. The rest of the day was the same as before only our evening activity took us to an African American, charismatic church service. The kids were IN LOVE. They were allowed to lead in some singing and jumped right in. At the end of the service (talking about how God always leaves us a doorway out of temptation) he made an "alter call" for all of those who need to commit to taking the doorway out of their temptation. Every single student went up to the alter and the pastor prayed over every single one (all 60 or so) They were all weeping, holding onto each other and worshiping. It was amazing to see. There were some changed students after that service.
• Thursday: This is the last full day and always the best day. It was Paul's Birthday this day as well. We went to our work projects, came back and changed/showered and then went to the restaurant of a local pastor (a restaurant/car detailing shop) and had REAL rib tips and BBQ chicken. There was also birthday cake as there were three people that week that had a birthday (they all tried to run off with the cakes at the end...just guess who initiated that idea). After which we went bowling (SUPER FUN) and then went back to the Salvation Army for the foot washing ceremony. The foot washing ceremony is always good as it is such an emotional and bonding experience for most students. We (the leaders) wash the feet of our students and then pray over them - Paul and I have started a tradition of giving each student a gift (a cross necklace) when we finish praying over them. There were lots of tears, lots of holding onto our students as the wept and prayed. And as we were getting down to just a few students, we watched as our girls held onto one another and prayed, and also how other students from other churches gathered around them and got into the huddle and prayed. Amazing...we didn't even hint that the may want to spend their time this way. Lights out at 1:00AM.
• Friday: Finially got the girls in the van (they didn't want to leave) and got home around 3pm.
• The amazing thing about this trip was the binding between the students. There was no division between the youth groups, almost everyone got alone and there wasn't a soul who was left out, condemned or ostracized for being different, nerdy, weird, or anything like that. They were ALL included, they were ALL a part of the "in crowd" and the entire group would not be separated. God worked to tear down the normal teen barriers to loving each other this past week and some amazing relationships were developed as a result. Praise God. Praise God for it all.
• It was during the foot washing ceremony when I sat back and I started to talk to God in my heart. It hit me hard that it was seeing students changed, knowing that Paul and I were a vehicle to get them closer to God that makes all the hard things that we deal with in life worth it. I don't care if I never own our own home as long as I get to be a part of Gods work. I don't care if we have to stretch every dollar we make to pay for real life as long as I get to be a part of students lives and pointing them toward God. I fully recognized that Paul and I had nothing to do with the way that these students were changed this week, we just drove the van down here, which made me feel so strange that this is what we have given our lives to. It made me realize that people really can find their life passion, and live their passion even at age 27. I realized that ministry is where my heart is and I will not find this kind of fulfillment any place else.
  ~