Mission Trip – Guest Post

Today’s post is a guest post from my daughter Micah.  She is a senior in high school this year.  She is a tomboy with a love for reading, writing, music and serving others.  Even as a little girl, she chose to hang with the kids that “needed” her.  Her heart is to help others in need however she can.  It’s an amazing trait.  She recently went on a mission trip with her youth group.  Below is her write up on how things went…

 

Oak Harbor Mission Trip 2015

On August 17th I left for Oak Harbor on a week long Mission Trip. This was my sixth trip overall.  My fifth one with my youth group.

Door-To-Door

 

During these trips, one of the first things we do is go door-to-door and take a community survey.

For these survey’s, we ask random strangers these questions:
• What are your three major concerns now and in the months ahead?
• On a scale from 1 to 10, how well prepared do you feel about the future? 1 being not at all, and 10 being eager.
• Who or where would you turn to if you need help? Name 3.
• If you could have one question answered about the future, what would it be?

Many people didn’t really know how to answer our fourth question.  A lot of people just ask, “Who is gonna be the next president?” or “What is our world coming to?”  After we asked them these questions, we also asked if there was a service project we could do for them.  Many people said no.  And when I say many, I mean MANY.  We also ask them if there is anything that we can pray for.  Most people also said no to that question.  But there were times where they would say yes and we would pray for them on the spot right on their front porch.

My Youth Pastor Mike put me on a team with my friends Drew and Zeke.  Both are younger than me so I felt like I was in charge, which was kinda fun.  We three went to this neighborhood where a total of nineteen people told me that they didn’t want to take the survey.  Now that was kinda discouraging.  A total of thirty seven people either slammed the door in my face, or just didn’t come to the door.  But,  sixteen actually did come to the door and take the survey. (We decided to keep count as a mini competition to just make it fun.)

Now, that was just the first four hours of our day.  After we had a snack this day, it was still my turn to ask people the questions. (We took turns to make things interesting.) And my leader told me that the next door that I knocked on was someone who really needed to talk. “Ha! Yeah, you’re funny Steve,” are the words I replied with.  I mean, how could he possibly know that?

Well I knocked on the door and asked the man if I could ask him a few questions.  Drew, Zeke, and I stood there on this man’s porch for forty five minutes as this guy talked about the most random things.  We didn’t even get done with the survey.  We asked the first question, and that was it.   The guy didn’t even seem to take a breath.  I was beginning to wonder when he was gonna need a drink of water.  We were fifteen minutes late for dinner.

Service Projects

 

The rest of the week was working on service projects.  My teams project was to work on the Pastor’s house.  Our job was to scrape all the old paint off and repaint EVERYTHING.  Scrapping and painting for four days was really exhausting but it got done and it looks great now.  While we did the painting,  part of our group replaced two old sidewalks.  They did an amazing job.

24 Hour Prayer

During the week we had a 24-hour prayer chain going.  It’s where you sit alone and pray for 2 hours.  You may be wondering how someone can pray for 2 hours straight.  It’s actually quite easy once you get into it.   You can pray, read the Bible, and even listen to Worship Music. It’s all about prayer and communicating with God.

During those times of prayer, some real amazing things can happen. I know it did for me.  My first shift was at 1:30am until 3:30am. Yeah, I was NOT excited for that.  I woke up and began to pray.  I asked God if there was something I specifically needed to work on in my relationship with him.  The word Faith instantly came into my mind.  I looked up the word Faith and what it truly meant.  Then some Bible verses to go along with it.  I came across Proverbs 3:5-6. It says:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make straight your paths.”

That really hit me because I always struggle with wanting to do things on my own.  The Bible says to TRUST God.  Lean on him in your times of trouble.  Basically, don’t do things on your own because… You won’t be able to.

Outreach

On the last day, we always do an outreach.   We go to a park or an open space and do an outreach to kids and parents.  This year, we went to one of the apartment complexes.   This town is mostly apartments,  because it’s on a Navy Base.   We made food, balloon animals,  played games, and had prizes.  We weren’t pushing anything on anyone.  We were there because God loves us and God loves these people too.   We wanted to show them the love of God.  Which was really cool.

Saying Goodbye

Every year that I go on these trips, no one ever wants to leave.  We hate saying goodbye to the people we meet.  We hate leaving the other teams we live with for a week.  We hate saying goodbye to the Pastor and his family, and most of all, we just hate saying goodbye.  We do all this work and show all this love and we just want to keep doing it.  That’s why we always look foreword to next summer where we can continue to help the people all across Washington.

The Great Commission

Matthew 28:16-20 New International Version (NIV)

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

 

Have you or your teens been on any mission type trips?  Where to?  What was it like?  Tell me about it in the “leave reply” link above this post.

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Have a great weekend.

♥Sabrina