Mission Trips

Kelly wrote today about mission trips, and invited everyone to write their own post about the trips they’ve been on – and then link up on her site. So, here we go!

Every mission trip I’ve been on has been with my church. We normally take a trip every summer as a youth group. Middle school takes one and high school takes one. I love mission trips and have been a part of every one possible since my 6th grade year. They’re so great. I love the memories, the pictures, and the children. Little kids make me so happy!

In 2005 I went on my first mission trip as a 6th grader. We went to New York and helped run a camp for inner city kids. It was a dude ranch camp…sort of. It’s hard to explain.

In 2006 I went to the Bahamas. It was a great trip! Our team was SO closely bonded, and our youth group was stronger than ever. In the Bahamas, we helped fix up a building that had been ruined in the hurricanes. They had previously used the building for what we call a YMCA. While there, we put a ceiling on, painted the building, did yard work, fixed the walls, did touch-ups, and ran a Vacation Bible Study. It was hard work, but it was fun.

Here are some pictures. :)

P.S. all the pictures were taken with a little $8.99 camera from CVS. I promise I normally try to take better pictures. :) OH and these are ALL pictures of pictures. So the quality is even worse. I went to great lengths to get you these. You’re welcome. :)

This is the building we worked on all week. I took this on the bus, as we were about to leave on the last day.

Me with Tamika and Katrina, my two favorite little girls there. They are sisters and I was able to lead Katrina to Christ. Super cool.

Isn’t this just beautiful? We stayed at a nice hotel. We honestly had it great when we weren’t at the site. That’s the only mission trip I can say we had it niceee.

This could be on a postcard.

I love this picture!!! Minus the flash in the top corner. :(

In 2007, I went to Tennessee on a mission trip. Our group was split up into smaller groups and we went to different sites. My group helped a family with their houses and yard work. We built two porches and did other jobs for them that they wouldn’t have been able to do on their own. It was fun, but a totally different experience than all the other trips.

BREANA! Cutest little thing ever. She was adorable and super funny. She’s one of the daughters in the family my group was helping.

The four 8th grade girls that went on the trip:

E on the bus – crack me up. We thought we were so cool…ha.

The Mighty Five. The explanation of this is a post in itself, but to sum it up…we were tighter than you can imagine. Basically, we ran the place. And not in a bad or negative way. More in the if-anyone-needed-anything-they-came-to-us-because-we-were-role-models.

Not trying to sound snotty, but it’s true. The younger grades looked up to us, and we loved being leaders and pointing them all to God.

I can’t tell you how much I love this picture. Oh the memories. I hope and pray to get back to this closeness, but as you know, our group is not a group now.

Still, I love the picture. We look like babies!

In 2009 I went to Jamaica. The. Best. Mission. Trip. Ever.

Seriously.

I have SO many amazing memories from that trip. But to fill you in on what we did there, we put on a roof, made a floor (put dirt into a huge (deep!) hole…probably the size of your living room and kitchen…and it must have been at least one story deep), and ran a VBS. It was a lot of work, but it was always fun.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip!

The view from where we stayed

pictures I took from the bus:

edited (the thing was huge!):

I took this one while driving by. :)

edited (and, yes, I realized after looking at this picture for OVER A YEAR that I put the wrong year in there. I’m slow. Very very slow.):

One of my favorite pictures. So many memories built into one picture. It’s crazy.

edited:

The Mighty Five – one year later than the one earlier^^^. I love it SO much.

edited:

*Yep, you read that correctly. I’m going back to Jamaica this summer with my church. We’ll be partnering with the same organization. I’m not sure if we’ll be staying at the same place though. I hope so, but I hope not. Here’s why…if it’s the same place, it’ll be great because there are so many amazing memories there. Here’s why I hope not…there’s so many great memories there.

That’s the problem. I don’t want to compare the coming trip to the trip two years ago. But it’s impossible not to…

Two years ago, I went with a huge group from my church. This year there will be about 10 of us, instead of 55.

Two years ago, I went with close friends and my sister/best friend. This year, only my sister/best friend is going…and she’s not my sister or best friend any more.

It seems small, but spending a week with her when she will barely acknowledge me now is a daunting idea. But I’ve been praying for months that God will use Jamaica to draw us back together. After all, He used it to draw us together as sisters two years ago.

He can do anything. Truly, He can.

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I know this is probably not what you would expect on a post about mission trips. But it’s where my heart is tonight. I hope you’ll accept that.

If you’ve been on a mission trip, leave me a comment telling me where you went and what you did!!! :)