I'm home!! At least for the next 16 hours...
How to sum up the mission trip...it was the hardest trip we have had yet, but it was the best. There were SO many ups and downs, but overall it was amazing. And personally, I feel really great! This is the first time I have come back from a mission trip feeling excited and happy with myself. I was far from perfect on this trip, but I learned a lot, feel like I have grown a lot and I am excited to see where God is going to take the teens now that we are back. Thank you Jesus!!!
I am trying to think of the best way to share everything and I feel like I am going to be all over the place. I'm going to try though! I'm not going to go day by day, I'll go activity by activity.
First, you have to know that the trip consisted of 18 teens...14 guys and 4 girls. The leadership consisted of 4 guys and 2 girls and a couple that came as our cooks for the week (and were an INCREDIBLE blessing!). Each of the leaders had a team of teens that they worked with for the week. Since there were only 6 girls total (including leaders) we were our own team. I was a bit worried about that at first, but it turned out to be AMAZING!! We had almost no issues with the girls all week and they blew me away with their joy, love, enthusiasm and servants hearts. This was the hottest week of the year and there was NOT A SINGLE complaint from the girls, even when we had kitchen duty on the biggest cooking day of the week. They were SO GREAT!!! All week everyone commented on how amazing they were...what a blessing!
We spent our mornings doing work projects around the church, and everyone worked SO hard! We got a ton of projects done around the church and for the most part we had little complaining. (We have some younger teens that caused some problems, but the older ones were great at encouraging them toward the right attitude).
At 11 every day several teams (we rotated each day) went to host "PrimeTime", and hour of fun pouring into kids that were specifically invited. The first day we had about 10 kids, but by Thursday we had 25! During that hour we taught the kids how to juggle (which I actually learned to do by the end of the week!), make balloon animals, stack cups (I hold the record for the fasted 6 stack!), and learn the miachi, which is kind of like hacky sack (I never got that down at all). The kids that came were a lot younger than we expected, but they had fun hanging out with us even if they didn't quite get what we were trying to teach them.
At 12 the PrimeTime kids ate lunch with us and then came to VBS at 1. Other kids came to VBS as well and while we had a small crowd on Tuesday, we were up to over 30 kids by Thursday. I have to say that VBS was one of the biggest highlights of the week for me. The teens BLEW ME AWAY with how they ran things. The volunteered to be in charge of different parts of VBS (leading songs, doing the bible story, the memory verse, crafts, games, name tags, and so on) and each part was INCREDIBLE! And, they got better every day!! The skits were creative and very well thought out and performed, the song leaders were amazingly enthusiastic, the memory verse team was fun, creative and very clear in their explanations of the verses, the crafts went great and the game guys were so creative with their games!! All of the leaders were SO IMPRESSED! Thursday was the biggest day where we presented the gospel and gave and invitation to the kids and it was by far the best day of VBS. We really encouraged the teens to dig deep and give it their all, and they gave even more than that. It was...indescribable.
Since our days went from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. non stop every day we spent most evenings showering and hanging out and then doing some worship and devotions at night. One night we decided to head to the park to do some outreach and a lot of the teens had some good conversations with some guys from the neighborhood. Basketball seems to be a great ministry tool! The guys ended up playing basketball several times this week after VBS and before dinner, but that was the girls' scheduled shower time so I didn't see any of it, but I heard a lot about it. It was really nice to have that time with just the girls at the church, and it was even nicer to get to shower after sweating all day, haha.
Friday we hosted a big block party, which we had done last year as well. Last year's block party was a huge success, but this year was even better!!! We took our time in the morning (we were all pretty tired from the week), but at 1:30 we kicked into high gear and didn't stop until the party was over around 7:00. While many of us were taking it easy in the morning, several of the guys volunteered to go on the roof and silver coat it before the block party. It was over 100 degrees outside and apparently silver coating is pretty intense work, but all of the guys came off the roof with smiles on their faces and excited for the rest of the day. I'm telling you, some of these guys just blew me away!!!
Okay, so the block party was a lot of fun and a huge success. Tons of people from the neighborhood came out and had a blast. We had carnival games with prizes, a dunk tank, 2 moon bounces, music and a clear Gospel presentation. I was again blown away by the servants' hearts that these teens have. Even the ones that were giving us some problems throughout the week always pulled it together for VBS and the block party. God is so amazing!
Saturday was our day off and we surprised the teens with a trip to Kings Dominion (an amusement park). We decided to let them free in the park without having to have a leader with them, which ended up leaving several us leaders together throughout the day without many teens...and I personally had a blast!!! We got there at 11, went in and rode some ride and then met up outside the park at 12:30 for lunch. I started the day with Andy, Joy and some of my favorite teens (several of the girls, Q and E). One of them, E, had promised to ride a roller coaster with me so we decided to start with the flight of fear. It sounds much scarier than it is and was a good coaster to start with. E loved it and then we headed to the Volcano, the best ride at Kings Dominion. E was extremely nervous to get on the ride but afterward yelled, "I love roller coasters!". The line for the Volcano made us a bit late for lunch, but not too bad. After lunch I ended up with Joy, J, Frank and 2 of the girl teens. Most of the rest of our group wanted to spend a good amount of time in the water park while we wanted to ride roller coasters. Brooke also came up for the day along with several of my friends from my home church and I got to spend most of the day with them as well. It was SO GREAT!!! I really enjoyed the day and especially the people I got to spend it with. We all met up at 6:30 to go home and it sounds like everyone had a blast. We were pretty exhausted though.
We headed back to the church, ate dinner, had some free time and then started our evening worship. We were all SO exhausted by the time worship started and none of us were sure how it would go. J was pretty much done by that point (he worked so hard all week...he and Frank are often in charge of things that no one else can do and while they handle it well, I know it can't be easy), but the Spirit of God completely took over. We ended up praying and worshipping for quite a while and even took communion together which was really powerful. We didn't get to bed until well after midnight and had to get up at 7:30 a.m. to pack up and get ready for church. I am so impressed with the teens that pushed through and let God lead them last night!
So, today was our final day. We led the church's worship service and had a ton of kids from VBS show up to say goodbye, which was amazing. We headed out around 1:30, but because of traffic got home around 7.
Okay, so my overall thoughts from the week...there were some teens that I was hugely disappointed with. Some of them really showed their true colors and they turned out not to be who I thought they were, and it broke my heart. I really struggled with this at times throughout the week (not only because they were causing some problems with the other teens but also because I love them and it was hard to see their hearts so hardened). However, J and I had a conversation one night where God showed me that as hard as it is to see these teens struggle, I am glad that our eyes have been opened. I think God showed us these struggles so that we can help these teens grow through them. It wouldn't do them any good for us to be deceived. We have been enlightened to their struggles and we are going to help them push through those.
On the other side, there were some teens that just blew me away. L, the youngest girl on the trip, was almost unrecognizable. Last year on the mission trip we could barely get her to talk in public and this year she was running around at VBS as a superhero and sharing at church about Jesus being the only way to heaven. She was awesome!! E, one of the older guys, was a joy to be around all week and served exactly how I picture Christ did. He was always smiling, always encouraging and worshipping every night with all of his heart. He was a highlight for all of us.
Then there is L and M (both girls), cousins who are usually not so much fun to be around. L tends to complain (a lot) and M seems to be negative, a lot. Not on this trip!!! L didn't complain once and M was always smiling, happy and serving without complaint. I LOVED being around them all week!!!!! L even hurt her ankle on Wednesday night and was limping for several days but still participated in everything, and smiled and laughed through all of it. M had to go to the hospital in Friday night because of an asthma attack, but kept smiling and laughing through it all...and she didn't complain at all either!
And then there is the leadership team. Its pretty much the same team we have on all the trips, but this year was by far the best for us. I felt unified with them and supported by them every step of the way. Since most of them were guys, they had to deal with a lot of the issues we faced throughout the week and I am still in awe of the patience, love, and understanding they all displayed while still being firm and doing what needed to be done. J and Frank especially went way beyond what they thought they were capable of and really let God use them incredibly all week. It was also a huge blessing to have Joy with us this year. I was a little worried about having 2 female leaders for only 4 girls, but Joy's incredible humility and servant's heart made the trip so amazing for me. She really freed me up to be able to do what I needed to without feeling overwhelmed. This was probably the hardest year to be a leader in terms of the issues we faced with the teens, but the best year we have had as a leadership team.
I am pretty sure this was Frank's last year leading the trip and I honestly don't know if we will have one next year. He has been AMAZING at planning, organizing and leading the trips each year and I just can't imagine anyone being able to accomplish the things that he has done. We'll see what happens, but I am not ready to think about trying to do this without him...unless maybe Carisa comes along, haha.
Now I am off to the laundromat to wash my clothes and get packed for staff retreat. We leave tomorrow at noon and I will get back on Wednesday just in time for Prayer Pals. I am pretty excited about staff retreat, mostly because Bonita and Linda are coming, but I am also looking forward to Thursday. I plan on relaxing all day and cleaning my house (I sort of trashed it while packing for the mission trip...and it was really clean to begin with, haha). So, you won't hear from me again for a while. I miss Gizmo! :)
(for some reason I am having a hard time adding pictures to this post right now, so I will try again later!)
How to sum up the mission trip...it was the hardest trip we have had yet, but it was the best. There were SO many ups and downs, but overall it was amazing. And personally, I feel really great! This is the first time I have come back from a mission trip feeling excited and happy with myself. I was far from perfect on this trip, but I learned a lot, feel like I have grown a lot and I am excited to see where God is going to take the teens now that we are back. Thank you Jesus!!!
I am trying to think of the best way to share everything and I feel like I am going to be all over the place. I'm going to try though! I'm not going to go day by day, I'll go activity by activity.
First, you have to know that the trip consisted of 18 teens...14 guys and 4 girls. The leadership consisted of 4 guys and 2 girls and a couple that came as our cooks for the week (and were an INCREDIBLE blessing!). Each of the leaders had a team of teens that they worked with for the week. Since there were only 6 girls total (including leaders) we were our own team. I was a bit worried about that at first, but it turned out to be AMAZING!! We had almost no issues with the girls all week and they blew me away with their joy, love, enthusiasm and servants hearts. This was the hottest week of the year and there was NOT A SINGLE complaint from the girls, even when we had kitchen duty on the biggest cooking day of the week. They were SO GREAT!!! All week everyone commented on how amazing they were...what a blessing!
We spent our mornings doing work projects around the church, and everyone worked SO hard! We got a ton of projects done around the church and for the most part we had little complaining. (We have some younger teens that caused some problems, but the older ones were great at encouraging them toward the right attitude).
At 11 every day several teams (we rotated each day) went to host "PrimeTime", and hour of fun pouring into kids that were specifically invited. The first day we had about 10 kids, but by Thursday we had 25! During that hour we taught the kids how to juggle (which I actually learned to do by the end of the week!), make balloon animals, stack cups (I hold the record for the fasted 6 stack!), and learn the miachi, which is kind of like hacky sack (I never got that down at all). The kids that came were a lot younger than we expected, but they had fun hanging out with us even if they didn't quite get what we were trying to teach them.
At 12 the PrimeTime kids ate lunch with us and then came to VBS at 1. Other kids came to VBS as well and while we had a small crowd on Tuesday, we were up to over 30 kids by Thursday. I have to say that VBS was one of the biggest highlights of the week for me. The teens BLEW ME AWAY with how they ran things. The volunteered to be in charge of different parts of VBS (leading songs, doing the bible story, the memory verse, crafts, games, name tags, and so on) and each part was INCREDIBLE! And, they got better every day!! The skits were creative and very well thought out and performed, the song leaders were amazingly enthusiastic, the memory verse team was fun, creative and very clear in their explanations of the verses, the crafts went great and the game guys were so creative with their games!! All of the leaders were SO IMPRESSED! Thursday was the biggest day where we presented the gospel and gave and invitation to the kids and it was by far the best day of VBS. We really encouraged the teens to dig deep and give it their all, and they gave even more than that. It was...indescribable.
Since our days went from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. non stop every day we spent most evenings showering and hanging out and then doing some worship and devotions at night. One night we decided to head to the park to do some outreach and a lot of the teens had some good conversations with some guys from the neighborhood. Basketball seems to be a great ministry tool! The guys ended up playing basketball several times this week after VBS and before dinner, but that was the girls' scheduled shower time so I didn't see any of it, but I heard a lot about it. It was really nice to have that time with just the girls at the church, and it was even nicer to get to shower after sweating all day, haha.
Friday we hosted a big block party, which we had done last year as well. Last year's block party was a huge success, but this year was even better!!! We took our time in the morning (we were all pretty tired from the week), but at 1:30 we kicked into high gear and didn't stop until the party was over around 7:00. While many of us were taking it easy in the morning, several of the guys volunteered to go on the roof and silver coat it before the block party. It was over 100 degrees outside and apparently silver coating is pretty intense work, but all of the guys came off the roof with smiles on their faces and excited for the rest of the day. I'm telling you, some of these guys just blew me away!!!
Okay, so the block party was a lot of fun and a huge success. Tons of people from the neighborhood came out and had a blast. We had carnival games with prizes, a dunk tank, 2 moon bounces, music and a clear Gospel presentation. I was again blown away by the servants' hearts that these teens have. Even the ones that were giving us some problems throughout the week always pulled it together for VBS and the block party. God is so amazing!
Saturday was our day off and we surprised the teens with a trip to Kings Dominion (an amusement park). We decided to let them free in the park without having to have a leader with them, which ended up leaving several us leaders together throughout the day without many teens...and I personally had a blast!!! We got there at 11, went in and rode some ride and then met up outside the park at 12:30 for lunch. I started the day with Andy, Joy and some of my favorite teens (several of the girls, Q and E). One of them, E, had promised to ride a roller coaster with me so we decided to start with the flight of fear. It sounds much scarier than it is and was a good coaster to start with. E loved it and then we headed to the Volcano, the best ride at Kings Dominion. E was extremely nervous to get on the ride but afterward yelled, "I love roller coasters!". The line for the Volcano made us a bit late for lunch, but not too bad. After lunch I ended up with Joy, J, Frank and 2 of the girl teens. Most of the rest of our group wanted to spend a good amount of time in the water park while we wanted to ride roller coasters. Brooke also came up for the day along with several of my friends from my home church and I got to spend most of the day with them as well. It was SO GREAT!!! I really enjoyed the day and especially the people I got to spend it with. We all met up at 6:30 to go home and it sounds like everyone had a blast. We were pretty exhausted though.
We headed back to the church, ate dinner, had some free time and then started our evening worship. We were all SO exhausted by the time worship started and none of us were sure how it would go. J was pretty much done by that point (he worked so hard all week...he and Frank are often in charge of things that no one else can do and while they handle it well, I know it can't be easy), but the Spirit of God completely took over. We ended up praying and worshipping for quite a while and even took communion together which was really powerful. We didn't get to bed until well after midnight and had to get up at 7:30 a.m. to pack up and get ready for church. I am so impressed with the teens that pushed through and let God lead them last night!
So, today was our final day. We led the church's worship service and had a ton of kids from VBS show up to say goodbye, which was amazing. We headed out around 1:30, but because of traffic got home around 7.
Okay, so my overall thoughts from the week...there were some teens that I was hugely disappointed with. Some of them really showed their true colors and they turned out not to be who I thought they were, and it broke my heart. I really struggled with this at times throughout the week (not only because they were causing some problems with the other teens but also because I love them and it was hard to see their hearts so hardened). However, J and I had a conversation one night where God showed me that as hard as it is to see these teens struggle, I am glad that our eyes have been opened. I think God showed us these struggles so that we can help these teens grow through them. It wouldn't do them any good for us to be deceived. We have been enlightened to their struggles and we are going to help them push through those.
On the other side, there were some teens that just blew me away. L, the youngest girl on the trip, was almost unrecognizable. Last year on the mission trip we could barely get her to talk in public and this year she was running around at VBS as a superhero and sharing at church about Jesus being the only way to heaven. She was awesome!! E, one of the older guys, was a joy to be around all week and served exactly how I picture Christ did. He was always smiling, always encouraging and worshipping every night with all of his heart. He was a highlight for all of us.
Then there is L and M (both girls), cousins who are usually not so much fun to be around. L tends to complain (a lot) and M seems to be negative, a lot. Not on this trip!!! L didn't complain once and M was always smiling, happy and serving without complaint. I LOVED being around them all week!!!!! L even hurt her ankle on Wednesday night and was limping for several days but still participated in everything, and smiled and laughed through all of it. M had to go to the hospital in Friday night because of an asthma attack, but kept smiling and laughing through it all...and she didn't complain at all either!
And then there is the leadership team. Its pretty much the same team we have on all the trips, but this year was by far the best for us. I felt unified with them and supported by them every step of the way. Since most of them were guys, they had to deal with a lot of the issues we faced throughout the week and I am still in awe of the patience, love, and understanding they all displayed while still being firm and doing what needed to be done. J and Frank especially went way beyond what they thought they were capable of and really let God use them incredibly all week. It was also a huge blessing to have Joy with us this year. I was a little worried about having 2 female leaders for only 4 girls, but Joy's incredible humility and servant's heart made the trip so amazing for me. She really freed me up to be able to do what I needed to without feeling overwhelmed. This was probably the hardest year to be a leader in terms of the issues we faced with the teens, but the best year we have had as a leadership team.
I am pretty sure this was Frank's last year leading the trip and I honestly don't know if we will have one next year. He has been AMAZING at planning, organizing and leading the trips each year and I just can't imagine anyone being able to accomplish the things that he has done. We'll see what happens, but I am not ready to think about trying to do this without him...unless maybe Carisa comes along, haha.
Now I am off to the laundromat to wash my clothes and get packed for staff retreat. We leave tomorrow at noon and I will get back on Wednesday just in time for Prayer Pals. I am pretty excited about staff retreat, mostly because Bonita and Linda are coming, but I am also looking forward to Thursday. I plan on relaxing all day and cleaning my house (I sort of trashed it while packing for the mission trip...and it was really clean to begin with, haha). So, you won't hear from me again for a while. I miss Gizmo! :)
(for some reason I am having a hard time adding pictures to this post right now, so I will try again later!)
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