After our annual team picture and prayer with Pastor Ron, our team hit the road at little after 6am Sunday morning. After a day of travel, gas stops, and lunch and dinner, our team arrived at Cleft Rock Retreat Center outside of the town of Mount Vernon in southeastern Kentucky. After we met our 4 Adventure Serve leaders, we played some get-to-know-you games and met for orientation as we discussed plans for our work site projects for the week. Then it was off to bed. Looking forward to a great work of service, growth, and relationship building.
July 22-28 Youth Mission Trip to Kentucky
On July 22-28, our youth mission team will be traveling to the mountains of southeastern Kentucky to complete home repair and other projects for families in need. During their trip, our students will also be engaging in leadership and team building. Please pray for our 26 students and 7 adult leaders as they serve and lead for the week. You can follow all of their adventures right here on their blog, so check back.
Youth Mission Team 2018
Our summer mission trip is coming July 22-28, 2018. This year, we will be doing home repair and community service in Eastern Kentucky. Mission trips are a great opportunity to serve, have lots of fun, make friends, and grow in your faith. For more information and mission team application, pick up our mission team packet in the narthex or download here. Application and non-refundable $100 deposit are due by Dec. 3 to reserve your spot.
Youth Mission Team 2017
Our final team picture from our base camp in Knoxville, Tennessee. We had a great week serving in the Knoxville area with Adventure Serve Ministries. We hope you will join us next year.
Day 5: White Water Rafting and Seniors' Farewell
The Webster dictionary defines the word compassion as sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. This week our students have shown so much compassion not only towards the residents of Knoxville but also to each other. You've been reading about some of the amazing things they have experienced this week in our other blog posts so I won't go into a whole lot of detail about them but just to sum it up:
- Sunday- early morning rise and shine followed by 12 hours in the vans.
- Monday- time spent at SAI working with adults with special needs and time spent at Second harvest food bank packaging noodles.
- Tuesday- slight chaos followed by creating a new plan to go back to SAI and hang out with our new friends.
- Wednesday- Beardsley Farms followed by Random Acts of Grace.
- Thursday - time spent working in the KARM stores and shelter.
This brings me to yesterday. We started the day by sleeping-in for an extra 30 minutes. Quickly got ready and filled the vans to head off to Outland Adventures for our white water rafting trip down the Ocoee River. Once we arrived, we broke into groups of 6/7 to divide into boats. From there it was time for the adventure. I had the joy of being with some of the girls in a boat. Our boat quickly went from being nervous and scared to screaming for fun and getting soaking wet. Our raft guide was named Kyle, though all the girls and I agreed he sounded like Crush from Finding Nemo. Especially when he yelled to someone who fell out of a boat to "swim into the current dude!" About halfway through the trip down the river we had the chance to get out of the boat and float alongside it. The water felt so nice just swimming alongside the boats. Then it was back in finish down the rapids. Near the end of the ride our raft guide had Julie and Nichole move to the front of the boat. They trustingly did to find out that it was all so they would experience being splashed and soaked by our last two class 4 rapids. However they had a blast doing it!
After rafting we headed back to the church to prepare for dinner. As a special treat we went out to eat at a Tennessee BBQ place named Calhoun's. Getting to Calhoun's itself became an adventure. We fearlessly (maybe fearfully) followed behind Mark's van as we drove. Prior to leaving the church, Steve had confirmed the mileage and what we thought was the time it was going to take. However, we did not confirm the actual location, so we ended up driving on back roads while we watched the GPS in our van recalculate and increase the time it was going to take. However, after a little concern of where Mark was leading us, we arrived. We all enjoyed various things from wings to ribs to burgers and salads. The food was fabulous. Quite a few of our boys were excited to get their chance to have some real Southern Sweet Tea!
After dinner it was back to the church for worship. This was probably my favorite moment of the entire trip. As many of you know we have 5 graduates here with us on the trip. This worship was their last one to lead for us and boy did they do an incredible job! The evening started with a game where we did nothing but laugh and smile at the ridiculousness that was ensuing. After a little bit of time of fun it was time to get into a more serious mode. We stood with arms around shoulders and sang Chain Breaker together. Then the graduates had us all sit down and we read a verse about shining our light. At this point they had us turn off the lights and Rachael and Alyssa took turns telling each member of our group how their light shining God's love has been seen throughout their time with our youth group. Each time they spoke they had that person turn on their flashlight by the end they pointed out how each of our lights brightened the room one at a time. At this point most of us had tears in our eyes. We ended worship with arms around shoulders again singing an a cappella version of Amazing Grace. However, we didn't end our night here. We celebrated with A LOT of tears the fact that it is now time to say "see you soon" to our graduates. We have been so blessed as a group to have such amazing student leaders. Our graduates have been such amazing leaders and models to our younger students. They have really taken our misfit group and made it that everyone fits in. I could write a book on all the amazing things that they have done. We could feel God's presence in the room as we cried together and hugged each other trying to find the words to say to everyone. Mike took some time to talk to all of the students about how amazing they are and how amazing our God is to provide us this group of 22 students. We ended our celebration together by singing Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. I wish I could describe the emotions and feelings and just the atmosphere for you on how this tearful, laughing, happy yet sad moment was. However, the only thing I can say is that without a doubt the Holy Spirit was moving through each of us and I pray that everyone has a chance to feel that love and grace at some point in their lives.
As I write this we are in the vans on our way home. My heart is bursting with pride, joy, and love for our students. I am sure our parents are excited to wrap their arms around their students and love on them. Before I end this post I just want to say thank you for trusting us with your students. Thank you for being the examples you are of Christ's love and letting us try to be as well. Thank you for letting us care about them and worry about them and most importantly pray and love for them. They truly are indescribably amazing students. This has been Lauren signing off on our 2017 Tennessee Mission Trip. God Bless!
Click below to see all the photos from our trip.
Day 5: Serving at Knoxville Area Rescue Mission
Today we were fortunate enough to serve with Knoxville Area Rescue Mission (K.A.R.M.). We split into our four chore teams and two teams worked in one of their thrift stores and the others in a second location. Our building's air conditioner was broken so we worked in the heat, but it was not too bad. We enjoyed our time together sorting through racks of men, women, and children clothing. Others of us sorted items into piles of m&m's (sellable items) and nuts (not sellable items). Lastly, others pulled outdated clothes into bins and put the hangers in separate bins. Then while we waited for the other vans to arrive we danced to the Cubic Shuffle, Cha Cha Slide, and Cotton Eye Joe. Next we ate our lunch in an air conditioning room above the main floor together.
After lunch we ventured over to K.A.R.M. Rescue Mission. We all got a tour of the building which had a women's sleep room, men's sleep room, kitchen, courtyard, open room for people to sit, and a chapel. We learned that they get close to three hundred men, women, and children per night. It is really hard to hear a number like that and we get to feel safe at home in our beds every night. Then we made encouragement cards to put on all the people's pillows.
Lastly, we got to pray over each bed. The girls each got a row of six beds. As soon as the leaders said to pick a row I was drawn to a particular row by our Lord. I got on my knees at the head of the bed, placed my hands on the pillow, and prayed for a few minutes for the woman that will be sleeping there tonight. At one point I looked over to see others on their knees rating and it was a heart changing sight. I felt God speaking the words to me for my prayer and I even got glimpses of red hair of the woman in bed one, blue eyes in bed four, and a scar on the last woman's arm sent by God. I felt the spirit of God not only in the room but in me. I started to think while everyone else was finishing praying how hard a life these people live. One lady was in abusive relationship, another lost her home in a hurricane, and another has been clean for years but no one will hire her due to her past, God told me these insights when my hand touched each pillow. I was upset thinking about how these people suffer, so I began to cry.
Then we came back together and Jordan did a final prayer over the entire room. Lauren put on the song Love is Here so that we could sing to the whole room. The words "love is here love is now love is pouring from his hands from his brow" played I realized what we were doing is one of the most important impactful actions any of us could do. God loves everyone in that room and that is what those people want, to be loved.
At the end Lauren and I said goodnight and I love you at the door for all the women who were not even there yet. We met back up with the guys who got to spend some time talking to people in the chapel. We came back to the church where our chore team (the Tenneseeds) cooked tacos and The Compassion Fruits lead an incredible worship and Rob lead an eye opening and beautiful sermon. – Alyssa, 2nd Year
Check out the photos from Thursday and the rest of the week by clicking below.
Day 4: Beardsley Community Farm
Today, we started by going to Beardsley Farms. We started by doing a tour, and we learned that college students and Knoxville workers spent around 22,000 hours planning and building a center for learning and working. Outside we saw their gardens, such as cucumbers and tomatoes. We also learned they collected rainwater and had compost, and they had 5 chickens, named after First Ladies. After the tour my group went out to pick cucumbers, and we found a bunch. We next went to harvest tomatoes, and there were so many! Inside the tomato plants there were hot peppers, and some people tried some. It effected some (Luke) more than others (Alyssa). I, however didn't try any. After tomatoes we met a cat named Weasel, and then we went to weed a tomato bed. We pulled all the weeds, and to cool off we had a "water fight" (more like spraying water at each other). After weeding we took a short break to pet the cat and drink water. Then we all grouped together and finished weeding some beds. As we left we said bye to the cat and the bees that were kept there, overall it was very fun and successful! – Jordan, 2nd Year
Day 3: Change of Plans
Day 3 here on the mission trip came with a pleasant surprise! Rather than going to help The Salvation Army sort school supplies to hand out to underprivileged children, we had the awesome opportunity to go back to the Scott Appalachian Industry and hang out with the amazing people we were with yesterday. Seeing the smiles on their faces when we came back for the second day in a row is an image that I'm sure we'll never forget! One of the friends that we met made a huge impact on my life without even saying a word. His name was Jamie. Jamie has a disability that has inhibited him from verbally communicating with people, but he really makes up for it with his awesome smile and cool hand motions! Right away he brought Rachael and me over to his "communication board" which had a key to what all of his motions meant. Jamie loves Jesus. One of his hand motions is holding his chin, this meansthat Jamie want to talk to you about Jesus! You could feel the spirit of God moving through him into your body as his smile and excitement grows while he shows you pictures of churches and Jesus. Jamie left us reminding all of us that Jesus lives inside all of us (pointing to his chest). Although the day was faced with a struggle in the morning, we overcame the adversity and had an amazing day! Thank for your prayers! – Rob, 4th Year
Click below for pictures from the week.